The Alamo

San Antonio Travelog #4
The Alamo - Sun, 28 May 2023, 12pm

This morning we went to see the Alamo. You didn't think we traveled to San Antonio just to cruise the Riverwalk and would... forget the Alamo, did you?



The Alamo was built originally as a church, part of Mission San Antonio de Valera, and was constructed in the early 1700s. By the late 1700s its use as a church had dwindled, and the Catholic mission moved to another location. The remaining buildings were then used for other purposes, often as barracks for troops. It took on the name "The Alamo". Alamo is the Spanish word for cottonwood tree. There are some cottonwoods growing around the area.

The Alamo took on a new role in American history and an indelible role in Texas history in the battle that occurred here in 1836. Texans, or Texians as they were variously called at the time, were fighting for independence from Mexico. General Santa Anna led an army of thousands in to the state of Texas to quell the revolt. San Antonio de Béxar, as it was called at the time, was further west than most of the settlements in Texas, but it was a growing town at an important crossroads. An ill trained force of fewer than 200 Texians defended the fort, across the river from San Antonio.

Santa Anna besieged the fort for several days, demanding the rebels' surrender. The rebels answered his offer by firing a cannonball. "Victory or death" was their position. Equally, in response, Santa Anna raised the red flag of No Quarter. Santa Anna's forces attacked en masse in the pre-dawn hours. Every defender was either killed in action, or executed in the immediate aftermath, and their bodies burned on big pyres.

Santa Anna had hoped that winning in a complete route at San Antonio would demoralize the Texians and break their revolt. Instead it galvanized political will in Texas to fight for independence. "Remember the Alamo!" would become a rallying cry for volunteers. The Texian army, led by Gen. Sam Houston, later sacked Santa Anna's forces near San Jacinto. Santa Anna himself, not just general of the army but also President of Mexico, was captured hiding in a ditch. He conceded defeat to the Texians to spare his life.



The Alamo, once a church, has since become a shrine, a memorial to the dead who were denied proper burial.

In terms of the building itself, note that from the time of its construction through the battle for independence (and for many years after) the mission had no room. It was just walls. The light colored, domed roof you can see in the interior picture here was added years later, after Texas joined the US, by the US Army. The building has many of the features of a Spanish missionary church from the early 1700s, though all the religious furnishings were removed in the late 1700s.

Riverwalk to the Pearl

San Antonio Travelog #5
The Pearl - Sun, 28 May 2023, 6pm

After visiting the Alamo this morning we were ready for lunch. Again we ate Tex-Mex food, this time at a promising looking restaurant next to our hotel. Again like yesterday, it was good. And again like yesterday it left us feeling so full, overstuffed really, even though we thought we ate normal sized portions. We returned to our room next door at the Holiday Inn to rest a bit. But soon we were ready for another walk. This time we'd head north along the Riverwalk, the opposite of the direction we've gone on multiple forays so far, with a few detours up into the city.



Walking north from our hotel exposed us to a different side of the Riverwalk. Just steps to the south of our hotel is the loop, the main part of the Riverwalk in the tourist sense. It's line with hotels, restaurants, bars, and shops. It's like the New Orleans Bourbon Street of Texas, with raucous revelry in the evening.

To the north the Riverwalk is much quieter. There are only a few hotels along the river here, and also only a few noisy restaurants. The Riverwalk cuts through some underdeveloped sections of town. While there's occasional blight above at street level, down at water's edge it's just nature. And the occasional art installation, like that bower of concrete trees.



We followed the Riverwalk almost 2 miles north to an area called the Pearl. It's an old-is-new development where a repurposed old industrial area, centered around the San Antonio Brewers Association (the large brick building in the photo above), is joined by retro apartment blocks built around a number of restaurants and a small astroturfed park. Although we felt demographically slightly out of place, being older than the 20- and 30-something age range that dominated this 21st Century yuppie-hipster development, we enjoyed the break from the "And here's where they serve a 13-shot margarita!" banal debauchery of the downtown Riverwalk area.

We would've enjoyed a casual dinner out on the green at the Pearl except we were still stuffed from lunch. I did have room to drink a beer while we walked, and then both Hawk and I bought ice cream before we turned to head home. With covering about 5 miles on this trip, plus the walking earlier today to, around, and from the Alamo, we'll have enough exercise to burn off at least some of the calories.

Grand Cayman Trip Retrospective. 5 Things.

It's only what, 9 days since we actually finished our trip to Grand Cayman? And I've just finishing catching up on my blog backlog. I would've caught up sooner, maybe only 2 days late, except that I've had two other trips in the meantime. And now one of them, the San Antonio trip, is getting backlogged. At least that one should only finish 36 hours behind. But now that I'm caught up on travelogs from Grand Cayman it's time to do a trip retrospective. Here are Five Things:

• Our choice to extend the trip 2 days was a good one. Yes, it was expensive. Those extra 2 days on our dime cost over $1,200. That's a lot of dimes. But much as we expected, the 3 nights paid for by Club would have been too brief of a stay on the island, especially considering the travel time there and back.


• Our choice to book flights that allowed an overnight in a hotel on the outbound trip was a good one. It turned out that with a flight delayed 2 hours we didn't get much sleep. But that was better than flying a redeye— or worse, missing a redeye connection, which happened to a few of my colleagues.


• I've said many times before that every trip I forget one thing. That's not a hard-and-fast rule, of course, Some trips I don't forget anything. This trip I almost forgot one biggie: the hotel overnight in Houston on the outbound leg. The day before the trip I was reviewing plans for Sunday and tried finding which hotel I'd booked to see what dinner options would be available at/near the hotel. That's when I realized that I hadn't booked a hotel. 😱 I'd looked at options and more or less picked one... but I didn't actually make the booking. 😧 Well, I did get around to it... one day ahead of time. 😅 Lesson: always recheck your plans 24 hours before you leave.


• Our choice to travel with only carry-on luggage was the right one. It meant not taking dressier clothes (e.g., trousers and loafers for me) but we absolutely didn't miss dressing up. We also considered checking a bag just to not have to lug carry-ons around the airports, but the time we'd have lost checking and reclaiming that bag 4 times would've made every airport more of a hassle.


• Finally, the good experiences we had with guided tours on this trip, particularly swimming with the manta rays and snorkeling (even though it was a bust for me), make me more interested in looking for guides on future trips. One of the reasons I've been reluctant is that outfitters are hit-or-miss. We've had a few flops when we've hired tours. I feel more comfortable traveling by my own wits than outsourcing it to someone who may take my money, a lot of money, and give me a shit experience and not care— wasting, at that point, not only my money but also my opportunity. Maybe I need to be more willing to take that risk.