San Antonio- Thursday, August 2, 2018

     Our hotel is the Crockett Hotel, the historic hotel right next to the Alamo.  We're literally  "Across the Alley from the Alamo," as the song says.  In its advertisements, it claims that it is "Only 18 steps from the Alamo," but that is slightly misleading.  It's probably 18 steps to the back of the Alamo, but you have to walk around the outside of it to get to the front and get in.  Still, that's pretty close.

     After hotel breakfast, Scott was getting impatient and we went to see the Alamo first thing.  Scott says that the Alamo is the biggest part of our trip's plans, but Julie said that was the Magnolia Silos.  Either way, Scott was as excited to see the Alamo as Julie was to see Chip and Joanna's stuff yesterday.  It was before 9:00, so we couldn't get in, but we were able to get some nice pictures before the crowds got there.  Julie took some time to call the girls and talked to Winfield on Facetime.  She also had belated birthday wishes for her father since in our busy day yesterday we forgot to call him.  The Coast Guard was setting up for a ceremony in front of the Alamo chapel.  They had a bunch of chairs set out, some speakers set up, and were starting to unfurl the colors.  We didn't find out exactly what they were doing because we had tickets we bought a few weeks ago for the 9:30 tour.   

     While we were waiting for the tour, we also looked at the Cenotaph, which is the large monument commemorating the dead of the Alamo.  It is rather artistically done, with the names of all the Alamo defenders and portraits of Col. William Travis, Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett and James Bonham, along with other non-specific defenders.  A female figure that represents the spirit of Texas is on the back of the large obelisk.  The front reads, "They chose never to surrender nor retreat; these brave hearts, with flag still proudly waving, perished in the flames of immortality that their high sacrifice might lead to the founding of this Texas." A figure representing their sacrifices rises up from the flames.  It's an odd shaped monument though, and its hard to get a photograph that shows it well.

     At 9:30, our tour begin.  One interesting innovation here was that we all wore receivers and earpieces to hear the tour guide.  That allowed her to pretty much face any direction in this urban environment that can get pretty noisy and still be heard clearly by the group.   She took us around the front of the Alamo area. The famous facade that everyone knows as the Alamo today was just the chapel at the time, and an unfinished one at that.  Nearly all of the rest of the Catholic mission-turned fort has disappeared over time.  There is a long building called the convento which was the long barracks that still exists and is the oldest building in San Antonio.  Our guide did a lot to help orient us to where the rest of the Alamo complex stood- the corner where Travis defiantly fired the 18-pound cannon in response to Santa Anna's demand for a surrender, the corner where David Crockett and his Tennesseans manned the palisades that had been built to close the open end of the fort, the place where Bowie probably laid sick during the battle, and so forth.   She showed us where Travis wrote his famous letter begging for help, even though that site is now in the tourist trap side of the road, underneath what is now the "Tomb Rider 3D", next to "Ripley's".  (It's a little like Clifton Hill there.)   The tour ended in the shrine of the chapel itself, where photographs are not allowed.  Here we were let into some of the side rooms of the chapel that are usually not open to the public except on tours, and we saw, among other things, graffiti that dates back to the time of the Mexican War.  She was an ok guide but not a great one.  Also, most of what we saw on the tour were parts that we'd already seen, as we circled around the Cenotaph and back and forth across the plaza area.    After the chapel, we were left to explore the rest of the complex on our own.  Given a second chance, we probably wouldn't take this tour.

     As the tour was ending, someone else finally asked the question that we were at least wondering about: Is there a basement in the Alamo?  The guide laughed and said she gets that question at least 10 times a day.  The answer, of course, is no.  They don't teach you those kinds of things in school.  However the floor of the chapel is 2 feet higher than it was in 1836.  It was raised because of floods that have hit the area, but there isn't a crawlspace under it- just solid fill and flagstone.  The roof was not on it during the fight and the now-iconic rounded top of the roof line wan't added until the US Army took it over years later.  At the time of the battle it was roofless, and most of the interior was taken up by a large earthen ramp that allowed cannons get to a platform to fire over the east wall. 

     After exiting the side of the chapel, we explored the inside of the Alamo area.  We spent a while in the gift shop where it was Scott's turn to spend a lot.  There are lots of gardens with beautiful cacti and large shady trees.  There was a video being shown that was made by the history channel.  Oddly, it was outside on a TV under a shelter, but we were able to get some drinks while we watched.  We went to a display called "Fortress Alamo" which displayed many of the types of weapons that would have been used in the fight including a small cannon that was supposed to have been here at the time.  There were some Living History people, but we skipped by them.  There was also a museum in the "Long Barrack," where many of the defenders were killed.  One thing that was interesting was a large video screen that let you rotate a 360 degree view in the plaza area, switch between a "then and now" and a blended view, and labelled important areas where the fight took place. 

     One thing that we noticed was that all of the interpretation here seems to emphasize more than just the 1836 fight.  The story of the Native Americans and the Spanish colonial times are told as well.  That's not surprising, given that the Alamo is controversially being seen as more of a divisive symbol between the US and Mexico, rather than a unifying one, in recent years.  Still, Scott pointed out that everyone here was just here because they wanted to know about those 10 days.  "13 days," Julie corrected, and Scott sheepishly conceded she was right.

     After the Alamo, we took advantage of the fact that our hotel was close by and went back to drop off the stuff that Scott had bought, cooled down and freshened up.  Julie finished up the zucchini bread from yesterday.  Then we went across the street in the other direction to the Rivercenter Mall.   It was shortly after noon, and we found the food court for lunch.  After that we went to the IMAX theater where they were showing the movie, Alamo: the Price of Freedom.   It was well done, Scott thought.  He liked the opening lines, which said something like there is no history without myth and all myths are based in at least a little history.  That's certainly the level at which the story of the Alamo is.  There are certain parts that people disagree on- Travis drawing a line in the sand, the ultimate fate of David Crockett, and so on- but the story itself is told even so.  We had watched John Wayne's The Alamo shortly before our trip as well as the 2004 movie.  This IMAX version could be held up in a positive comparison to either of those, in many of its aspects.

     Tom, a friend of ours who is both a re-enactor and an Alamo lecturer, had highly recommended another Alamo exhibit in the mall called: The Battle for Texas: The Experience.  We had originally planned on going there, but after the IMAX movie, Julie said, "We've heard that story four times today!"  Scott had to admit that he was getting kinda Alamoed out, so we scratched that from today's list and went to other things.

     When we were waiting for the Alamo to open, we visited the San Antonio information center across the street, and bought tickets for a "Go Rio" cruise on the San Antonio River.  The flat-bottomed boats take people on a narrated tour of the Riverwalk Area, which is the second most famous attraction in San Antonio, after the Alamo.  It is easy to see why.  The Riverwalk area has restaurants and shopping all along it.  Lush green banks and scenic skyscrapers line the shores as the boats weave through the canal-like maze of the river.   In spite of the heat in the high 90s, this was a very enjoyable ride.  We did have a couple of problems with it though.  The tour is constantly making you want to look to the left and right, but instead of having everyone face the front, your seats only face one way or the other, making it difficult at best to see the other side.  The bumps in the seats make it uncomfortable to shift your body any other way.  You had also be a pretty close friend of the person sitting opposite you because you're packed in facing each other pretty tightly.  And furthermore, our guide was very hard to understand.  He was a San Antonio native and had a Spanish accent, but there was something else going on that made it very hard for both of us to understand him (and apparently the rest of the boat had the same problem too, judging from their reactions).  Still, the scenery was awesome and gave us a real feel for what the Riverwalk was all about.

     We did a small amount of shopping in the mall when we returned to it from the boat tour.  Julie had seen a Disney Store and wanted to go there.  Scott bought an "Infinity Mug" to hold his beer when we watches the Avengers.  (We texted a picture of it to Emma, and said that if you snap your fingers, half your beer disappears.)  After the mall, we waited in front of the Alamo for a "trolley" to come.  Julie wanted to take it out to Market Square, which has a Mexican market there.  If we were to compare it to something that Anna and Emma have seen, we'd say it was like the Silk Market or the Pearl Market that we saw in China, but a smaller and Mexican.  Julie saw a number of things she liked there, and ended up buying a large bowl combination that can be used for chips and dip or similar things.  It has a beautiful blue color to it.  It's a lot like similar ones we saw out in South Dakota last year and didn't get then.   Getting back to the Alamo area was a little harder.  The trolley was pulling away just as we were walking up to it, and the driver didn't look back to see Julie running towards it.  We sat to wait 15 minutes for the next one, but it came early.  We weren't looking up when it drove past the bus stop, and it never stopped to let anyone out.  We caught the next one though.

     We got off the trolley near the Buckhorn Saloon and Museum.  It is supposed to be the oldest saloon in Texas.  We hoped to have a Texas-style dinner there, but the cafe closes at 3:00, and we had missed that.  We were able to sally up to the bar and get some large drinks to cool off with and were able to get some soft pretzels too.  The walls inside are covered with an enormous number of taxidermy heads of all kinds of animals from deer, moose, and buffalo to elephants, polar bears and giraffes.  They all are looking at you as you drink.  Scott said it would be better if they all started singing at the top of the hour, but they didn't.  Anyway, we can say we had drinks in the oldest saloon in Texas, even if it was just Diet Coke and lemonade.  

     We still wanted a Texas style dinner, and we went down to the Riverwalk area to see if we could find a cafe we had seen from the boat.  All of the umbrellas over the tables were colored like the Texas flag, and we knew that the name of the place was the Republic of Texas.  It didn't take us long to find it, and we figured we weren't going to get any more Texas then that.  The service was a little slow, but while we were waiting for drinks we got "mariachied."  Our table was right along side the water, and there was no one else around us at the time.  A mariachi band came over to us and said they would play any request for $10.  We said we didn't know any mariachi music to be able to request anything, so they kept it simple and just asked us if we wanted happy or sad.  We said happy, so they played a song just for us.  One line Scott was able to hear was "y tu, y tu, y tu."  [Looking it up later, Scott thinks that the song they sang was probably "Piel Canela" or "Me Importas Tu" ("I Care About You")  Unfortunately, we didn't get any video of the moment.]   Julie got a peach sangria that they make there, and Scott got an "Alamo Ale," brewed in San Antonio with "malt, hops and courage."   He liked it.  It reminded him of 1812 Ale.  To eat, Julie got a taco salad with chicken, but the salsa on the side was way too spicy for her.  Scott got a half rack of ribs, with fries instead of the Tex-Mex sides that came with it.  The barbecue sauce was almost more like a mild salsa then what we were expecting.  It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad.

     The sangria made Julie want to take a nap, so we went back to the hotel for a while.  After a little break we went out again to see the Alamo at night.  Scott was probably hoping to find a moonlit pass, like in the classic song, the New San Antonio Rose.  

It was there I found beside the Alamo

Enchantment strange as the blue up above

A moonlit pass that only she would know

Still hears my broken song of love.

It was a pretty site, in spite of the people.  We got some pictures and saw a blue heron land beside it.   We wandered around through the mall again, and eventually came back to the hotel to call it a night.