On a Mission to see the Missions

We started off today about 11:00. We were on our way to see the missions of San Antonio. We found them all with the help of Nelly, our GPS. She got us to each one easily. Of course she got sick of saying RECALCULATING. We kept making turns to things we wanted to see. Like the cemetery. They decorate them for Christmas! We took some pictures to let everyone see. It must be a custom for the Mexicans. They put up Christmas trees and tinsel, and lots of flowers. At first we thought it was a new grave, but then we realized it was everywhere. Tom will do the pictures later. He still has to do the ones from yesterday.
The missions were so amazing. Some of the stone work must have been so time consuming. One was having mass, so we didn't go in. One had a mariachi band outside, and one had just finished mass. Some of the ruins were original, some have been restored through the years. Each one has it's own history. The history of the aqueduct is neat. It is so dry here, they used the ides from the Europeans and had irrigation for all of their fields. You can see the fields and much of the aqueduct system is still there. It shows how they directed the water to a mill and ground the wheat. Then all of the water was then sent back out into the system to be used in the fields. All this in the 1700's. We could take a lesson from them in conservation.
This afternoon when we had had our fill of missions, we wanted to go to Culvers for burgers. Nelly goofed up big time. I know she can only tell us what is fed to her, but we really wanted those burgers. She took us to a housing development. The roads must have been renamed or something when they built it. Then she took us to a Wal-Mart that was closed. We told her to take us home, and I saw a Wal-Mart up ahead, so that's where we went. Then we came home.
Needless to say, we are pretty tired. I told Tom this tourist stuff is really tiring. We've done a lot of walking the past couple of days. Golly, we are having fun, though.
http://picasaweb.google.com/tnank101/MissionsCemetery