CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

I visited San Antonio in Texas last weekend with the sole purpose of seeing The Alamo , which was on my 'must see' list of historic sites.   However I found myself with a few more hours in hand before I headed back up the highway to Austin so I decided to take in some of the views of San Antonio and this included taking the River Walk Boat Tour. San Antonio has some beautiful old buildings lining the River Walk district and from the boat I got to see a lot of them in a short space of time during the 45 minute tour.  The boat tour guide / captain was extremely informative and I can highly recommend it for anyone visiting San Antonio. The River Walk was the brainchild of Robert H Hugman who presented his ideas to the city in 1929.  Because of the Depression in the early 1930s the plans didn't get underway until later in the decade and the River Walk was finally opened in 1941 with a river festival and carnival.  Robert Hugman's statue stands on...

While in San Antonio, Texas last Sunday I noticed a lot of external metal fire escapes on the outside of building in the city centre.  Some where in good condition, others were rusty and attached to derelict buildings.   The regular shape of these fire escapes and the textures and colours of the metalwork had me pointing the X-T1 at these object to capture a set of images centred around the US style fire escape.

When I travel with the World Endurance Championship I get to drive a lot of different hire cars, from small economy cars like a Fiat 500 or Peugeot 208 to small executive cars like a Mercedes C Class.  Sometimes however I receive an upgrade to something a bit more interesting and this happened when I travelled to Austin last week.  The clerk on the Hertz desk gave me a free upgrade to a Dodge Charger, a modern take on an iconic All American muscle car. In the UK the Dodge Charger is probably most well known for the 'General Lee' , a 1969 Charger used in the cult 1980s TV show Dukes of Hazzard. The 2015 version is a modern take on this iconic car and while it is still a bit of a 'wild child' in certain conditions (more about that later) it is now a comfortable Freeway cruiser. The version I had was fitted with the  5.7-Litre V8 HEMI engine and  it certainly was still an interesting car to drive for the 8 days I spent in Texas.  It had rained o...

Today I fulfilled another one of my 'bucket list' ambitions and that was to visit The Alamo in San Antonio, the site of the famous battle in March 1836 that eventually lead to the independence of Texas from Mexico.  Texas became an independent country for 9 years before becoming part of the United States of America. The story of the heroic defence of The Alamo that saw the slaughter of the 189 defenders by the 3000 strong Mexican Army of General Santa Anna after a short siege in well known around the world, so, as a follower of history, it was a 'must do' while I was in Austin after working at the Circuit of The Americas. While the names of Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett and William Travis echo through the halls of history, what isn't as well known is that amongst the American defenders were Scots, English, Welsh and Irish; something I discovered when I saw the Saltire, the flag of St George, the Welsh Dragon and the Irish Tricolor lined along the wall inside...