San Antonio is yet another place where we wish we could have stayed longer. For one thing, I would have liked to have tried the golf course that is adjacent to the RV park. I learned last night that the cost for 9 holes there is just $17 – including cart! It would probably be twice that much in Massachusetts.
There are also a number of other attractions that we didn’t get to that would have been worth an hour or two. We did get to the Alamo, the River Walk and the River Center shopping center.
I can dispose of the River Center pretty quickly: it is like every other multi-level shopping mall you have ever seen, only darker. I would suggest to the owners that they improve the lighting because I felt like I was in the Bat Cave. NOT recommended.
The Alamo was not a disappointment, but only because I wasn’t expecting much. Most of the complex is long gone, including most of the buildings, walls and courtyard where most of the fighting occurred. What is left is the Mission Church (which is the building you think of as the “Alamo”), but that was just a sanctuary where the women and children hid during the battle. Portions of the Long Barracks remain, but it has been through so many reinventions over the years that I can’t tell how “original” it is. It houses the main museum now. In general, I think the trustees have done a mediocre job of telling the story of the Alamo.
The Alamo church
We ran into a guide who struck me as having been on the job too long: he paced as he talked and seemed bored with the subject matter. We left before he was done.
The Long Barracks
The guide
The grounds were very nice. None of the vegetation was there in 1836, of course, but the Alamo is now a serene city park. I particularly liked the cactus, the tree with limbs so long they needed supports, and the old well.
Alamo gardens
Well and tree in need of support
Bottom line on the Alamo: if you want to see a battlefield, go to Gettysburg.
The big hit of the day was the River Walk. This is the finest urban park that I have ever seen. More intimate than Central Park, more beautiful than the best that Paris can offer, it stands alone. Actually, it is both large and intimate. We experienced only the loop of the river in downtown San Antonio, but the park goes on for miles (and is being extended another 14 miles).
A typical River Walk scene
A shady section of River Walk
One of the many River Walk restaurants
A footbridge on the River Walk
The River Walk has many scenic footbridges, some of which have appeared in movies. The Arneson Theater, a gorgeous amphitheater with the river separating the stage from the audience, was the setting for the swimsuit competition in Miss Congeniality.
The Arneson Theater
We took one of the barge rides on the river (senior ticket price: $6 – it is good to be old). This was a very nice tour for a very low price. It was nearly an hour long and the guide provided much interesting detail about the history and architecture of San Antonio.
The barge
One of the many fountains
Entrance to the main channel
Greenery scenery
The Pan American friendship thing
Convention Center from the river
We had lunch at Rita’s on the River, primarily because they have really nice T-shirts. We still like their T-shirts (we got another while we were there), but the food was disappointingly bland. More surprising, the margarita, billed as “San Antonio’s best” was also bland. It was neither fresh nor tasty. A huge disappointment. But the ambiance was great.
The fountain at Rita’s on the River
We took the bus into town, which worked great on the way in, but not so great on the return. We waited 45 minutes for a bus, which got Jett a little cranky. Then I made matters worse by getting us off too early. We had to walk about a quarter mile to get to the RV park. She wasn’t amused.
Our home for the two night in San Antonio was the Traveler’s World RV Resort, a sister property to the park we inhabited in Austin. This park, like the one in Austin, was very clean and well-maintained. The pads were gravel, but were very carefully raked – the rake marks were very prominent. The park was nearly full (and we need to vacate our spot today because they only had a pull-thru site for 2 days). I already mentioned that a golf course is next door and I already regret not using it.
Traveler’s World
We went shopping last night for some necessities, but also for cushions for the swivel gliders – we love them, but the seat gets hard after a while. This shopping trip is notable because it was south of the RV park, making it the most southerly point in our GTW. Today we began to move north and west, toward Oregon.
Our plan was to spend one night in Ozona, which is basically a truck stop and RV park on I-10 in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately I had the good sense to call for reservations and was told that they had no vacancy. As there is *nothing* near Ozona, I had to reroute the next hop. Our destination now is San Angelo.