2006/01 Southwest USA trip (MN-TX) - San Antonio Alamo and River Walk |
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Sunday January 8th
We took off south towards San Antonio. Both Mason and Fredericksburg looked to be interesting towns, with old buildings, worth a visit in the future but we drove on towards our planned campsite. San Antonio has a ring of freeways, similar to ours in 
the Twin Cities, and we easily found the KOA campground on Salado Creek. This was not our preferred kind
of campsite but it is on a bus route into San Antonio’s Alamo and a good spot to use as a base. We took a short walk along the creek and found geese, ducks, and squirrels, and then set off for the local Wal-Mart to restock on food and drink. A hot day had turned into a warm evening and we had the fans going to keep things cool inside.
Monday January 9th
We woke up to warm fog. This soon burned off and gave us another beautiful hot day. Apparently we’ve been very lucky as, although it’s usually sunny this time of the year, the norm is the sunny 50s and not the sunny 80s that we’ve been experiencing.
San Antonio is famous for two things: the Alamo and the River Walk. We took the bus into San Antonio to go visit the Alamo, as the Franciscan friars didn’t think to provide parking places for motorhomes when they built it. The bus went through some of the 
tattier areas of the city, but the Alamo is in the centre of town, surrounded by massive hotels.
Much of the Alamo’s plaza has disappeared under skyscrapers and streets, but the main buildings, the chapel and the barracks have survived and been restored. The chapel is actually in better shape now than it was during the battle as it didn’t have a roof back then. It’s now furnished as a shrine to all the 189 Texan defenders who died when Santa Ana’s 4000-strong Mexican army overran the place back in 1836. Some of those were already famous names, like Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie, but others, like William Travis, are only known as heroes of the Alamo. 
Santa Ana set them up to be heroes by announcing that he would execute anyone who surrendered, so, not surprisingly, they all fought to the death. Sam Houston captured Santa Ana a few weeks later and gave him a deal he couldn’t refuse “Hand over Texas and I’ll stop these other guys from hanging you”. Maybe George will offer Saddam Hussein the same kind of deal. Kurdistan the 51st state?
The Alamo’s historical aspects are quite well done, and the gardens to the rear are very interesting: many weird 
and wonderful plants, particularly the varieties of cactus.
San Antonio’s other attraction is the River Walk, which starts quite close to the Alamo and meanders through the city belowstreet level. The river has been encased in concrete which sounds ugly, but the concrete is covered with tiles and stones and mosaics, and there are trees and plants and flowers everywhere. It was surprising to us to see so 
many flowers in January: pansies, hibiscus, shrimp plants, and lots of plants we didn’t recognize. The downtown section of the river is surrounded by restaurants and bars. I would imagine that people regularly fall into the river, as there are no rails or fences. On this occasion that would be even more painful as the river had been drained for maintenance! We ate at the “British Pub” even though 
I couldn’t imagine anywhere less like a British Pub. Sandie passed up the “bangers and mash” and decided to try a TexMex quesadilla and got attacked by a jalapeno pepper that was lurking in the salad.
It was still a pretty walk even though the river was almost dry. We walked our feet off and saw most of the walk. By the time we got back to the campground, clouds had gathered and the forecast was for thunderstorms and rain overnight.