The Stars at Night
were neither big nor bright...deep in the heart of Texas. Instead, they were replaced by a hazy glow of hotel signs, reflected a million times over in the humidity of San Antonio. The Riverwalk amounted to nothing more than a sewer system with a sidewalk. The Alamo, which faces opposite an arcade of wax museums and a Ripley's Believe It Or Not proved to be nothing like the enormous anthropological museum on life in Texas featured in Pee Wee's Big Adventure, but just a big room, a gift shop and a museum. No adobe...no clay pots...no corn...no Jan Hooks...
The museum was useless after a day filled with reading scientific posters, and the big room for which the Alamo is known took about 20 seconds to walk through. I gained no sense of the impeding doom the soldiers faced in their final moments or why the Alamo is so significant in American history (except for the fact that it may have rallied the people to fight for their independence). The Goliad massacre seemed much more dramatic and horrific to me. Because of the realization that the Alamo meant nothing to me (or maybe it was because the place was closing) I stayed away from the gift shop. In retrospect I probably should have ventured inside to see what delightful trinkets might have sat upon my shelves gathering dust. I did make it to several gift shops and here are a few items I could have purchased:
Mexican jumping beans
"Bling bling San Antonio" Beadazzled T-shirt
Coonskin cap
Spurs memorabilia
Ceramic ginger root magnet that says "San Antonio, TX"
Pipes of pan CD featuring my favorite country hits
etc...
but I didn't...Here is what I returned with:
A Sheriff's badge and black lizard skin boots for J.
Snakeskin boots for me.
Anyway, despite my negativity, the conference proved to be excellent and the Mexican food and beef (steaks and burgers) was (were?) magically delicious. I loved staying in a haunted hotel, although the only ghost I thought existed turned out to be just a player piano that knew all the hits of Les Miserables. The sewer...er...Riverwalk boat tour also highlighted the week teaching me that the only thing more important than Texas history to a tourist visiting San Antonio is a gentle breeze and a margarita on an uncomfortably hot and humid summer night in San Antonio.
Go Spurs!!!
The museum was useless after a day filled with reading scientific posters, and the big room for which the Alamo is known took about 20 seconds to walk through. I gained no sense of the impeding doom the soldiers faced in their final moments or why the Alamo is so significant in American history (except for the fact that it may have rallied the people to fight for their independence). The Goliad massacre seemed much more dramatic and horrific to me. Because of the realization that the Alamo meant nothing to me (or maybe it was because the place was closing) I stayed away from the gift shop. In retrospect I probably should have ventured inside to see what delightful trinkets might have sat upon my shelves gathering dust. I did make it to several gift shops and here are a few items I could have purchased:
Mexican jumping beans
"Bling bling San Antonio" Beadazzled T-shirt
Coonskin cap
Spurs memorabilia
Ceramic ginger root magnet that says "San Antonio, TX"
Pipes of pan CD featuring my favorite country hits
etc...
but I didn't...Here is what I returned with:
A Sheriff's badge and black lizard skin boots for J.
Snakeskin boots for me.
Anyway, despite my negativity, the conference proved to be excellent and the Mexican food and beef (steaks and burgers) was (were?) magically delicious. I loved staying in a haunted hotel, although the only ghost I thought existed turned out to be just a player piano that knew all the hits of Les Miserables. The sewer...er...Riverwalk boat tour also highlighted the week teaching me that the only thing more important than Texas history to a tourist visiting San Antonio is a gentle breeze and a margarita on an uncomfortably hot and humid summer night in San Antonio.
Go Spurs!!!
posted by Schitzo at
12:10 AM
