San Antonio

We visited San Antonio with Dan and Corrie and managed to hit some of the high spots of the city in the limited time available. We started with the Little Village of San Antonio which preserves some of the older structures in the city. Then we hit the River walk area with all the shops and restaurants. This is a very nice area to invest a few hours and I can imagine that during the summer months it would be an especially nice area to spend time. We took in the free lobby show at the refurbished Athena Movie theatre. This is mostly a light show designed to keep movie goers occupied until it is time to enter the show.

We then headed down to the River Walk again to have lunch. We found a BBQ place that provided a full load of our daily (maybe weekly) allowance of protein. It was good! Then it was time for the main attraction.

There must be very few people in this country that have not heard of the Alamo. For those of us of a certain age, it was a place made famous by the Davie Crockett TV series and the several movies made about the gallant struggle that occurred there as Texas fought to become free from the centralists in the Mexican regime. While there may be some debate about all of the facts concerning what happened at the Alamo during this battle, there certainly can be no doubt that the events of those short days were an important part of the history of this country. Some of those who died at the Alamo have become household names. We were lucky enough to visit when there was a reenactment of the final day of the siege when the Alamo was overrun by the Mexican army just after dawn. By popular history, all of the defenders not killed during the battle were put to the sword.

After the Alamo, the ladies wanted to visit the City (farmers) Market. This is an area that originally had been truly a farmers market selling various food products and other items that were of interest to the city population. Regretfully, this has degenerated in to yet another tourist trap selling food and nick knacks that can be found all over the southwest. What truly was amazing to me was the fact that nearly all of the shops sold basically all of the same products. For all except the truly shopping addicted this is a place that can be given a pass.