Remembering the Alamo, one more time

Two lovely sisters  head to the shower

We returned to the Alamo and San Antonio yesterday so Joan’s sister and brother-in-law could visit this historic city.

One of the things we have learned in traveling is that you never know when, or if, you will return to a particular venue even if you have plans to do so. So with the family being so close to San Antonio, and with Joan and I having a free overnight hotel stay waiting at Hotels.com we decided to leave the trailer in San Leon and spend a day or two in San Antonio.

Of course before we got started we got cleaned up at the RV park and I have included a photo of Joan and Diane getting ready for the trip to the park showers. It’s hard to imagine how Denny and I can contain ourselves in the face of such lovliness.

It was a great day. We arrived in San Antonio about 12:30 p.m. were able to check into the Crowne Plaza Riverfront early and except for the minor inconvenience of finding out Hotels.com booked us two rooms instead of one were out on the street sightseeing within an hour.

Denny, Diane and Joan at the Alamo

We headed back to the Alamo, via a short section of the River Walk, and spent a couple hours touring that historic site. Diane and Denny seemed to enjoy the battle site and we enjoyed going back.

One thing I didn’t notice before was a sign in the Alamo gift store that said they were not allowed to sell any knives or toy weapons of any kind to visiting school children as the possession of such would be in violation of school rules.

While I understand and appreciate the policy it is sad to think that things have changed so much since I was a boy. At Halloween it was not uncommon for nearly every young boy to be wearing “six shooters” to school as part of their costume.

In high school I had a history teacher, Mr. Graham, who during our section on the Civil War (which was practically recent history then) wore his union uniform to school complete with his long Civil War era rifle. You know that wouldn’t happen today without setting off a lot of alarms somewhere.

Just this morning, as I write this, I am listening to news accounts of a school shooting in Cleveland. Sad, very sad.

Denny and the "whole" in the wall gang

When Jan and Norm were here they had an old-time photo taken, and in retrospect, Joan and I were sorry we had not done one with them while they were here. We had one done a number of years ago in Estes Park while visiting my Aunt Judi and Uncle Pete, so we didn’t think we needed another one.

Yesterday, we fixed that by having a group gunslinger photo taken. Like I said, just sorry we didn’t do the same with Jan and Norm. It would have been cool. Next time.

After the photo session we headed to the River Walk to have dinner, but first we took a River Boat tour, something we did not do last time we were here. Glad we did, as it showed us parts of the River Walk we would have likely never seen.

Diane and Den on the boat ride

Strolling along the River Walk we read the various menus and settled on Salt Grass Steakhouse and were not disappointed. Good food and good times. Diane had her favorite drink – a “virgin” daiquiri – but we didn’t get the usual sugar high results from here this time.

After dinner we went in search of a little goodie to eat and the girls found a sweet shop and Diane bought a large fresh strawberry dipped in chocolate, Joan bought a large peanut butter cup and I got two small sugar free peanut butter cups.

Joan and me on the boat

Denny held out for ice cream but balked when the gelato store wanted more than $8 for a cone. We found an ice cream freezer in a store on the River Walk but they wanted $5 for a Butterfinger ice cream on a stick treat.
Back at the hotel, Denny found the same ice cream treat for $3, still high, but better than $5.

We arrived back at our hotel room about 8 p.m. and most of us were asleep by 9 p.m.