On Friday the family and I drove down to San Antonio. Karen got a good deal on a hotel close to the downtown area so we were able to park easily. We first visited the Alamo. I had thought the event was a bunch of Texans holed up in a little church building. Granted, the old church is the only original building left standing today, but it turns out that it was part of a larger fortified mission complex, and that building (in the upper right in the picture of the battle) was not even in use as a church by the time of the Texas Revolution (it was a cannon emplacement, powder room, hospital, and shelter for the women and children). We then saw a less-frequently-visited diorama of the Alamo just off the site. The diorama presentation did a nice job of summarizing the Alamo battle. Odd little fact: the presentation is narrated by and the diorama is owned by Phil Collins (the musician) who is a huge Alamo history buff - apparently he was inspired by watching Davy Crockett Disney episodes when he was younger. There were a lot of places that I could not take pictures, but I have some here. After all this we visited the nearby Riverwalk, a loop along the San Antonio river that has fountains, shops, and restaurants. The whole place is a little bit of a tourist trap, for example, it has a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum, but the Riverwalk itself is pretty. We were surprised to see baby ducks, and we took a boat ride. Karen bemoaned the fact that the ticket price increased by 175% since she visited 15 years ago, but we all enjoyed the ride. We enjoyed it more than the Austin Ducks ride we took back in October. After briefly visiting the nearby large busy mall we headed back to the hotel to regroup.
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