San Antonio

This was at least my third trip to San Antonio, but I had never seen the two, big, “normal” tourist attractions downtown. I needed a “rest” day between all of the driving and the trip to Boca Chica and the upcoming eclipse, so we made time to do that.

I remembered! This is the Alamo. As I had been warned, it’s MUCH smaller than everyone expects it to be. We did not wait in the 1-2 hour line to walk through.

The Riverwalk is nice. Below street level, tons of restaurants, bars, and shops.

I was surprised at the stretches of walkways and sidewalk restaurants that didn’t have any railings at all. And it was crowded, what with all of the solar eclipse tourists in town. I’m sure no one drowns, it’s probably not that deep and there are people all around to pull you out, but I do wonder how many people end up getting an unexpected swim! (A quick Google search shows that it’s about 3-4 feet deep and about 500 people a year fall in, the vast majority of them while intoxicated.)

We walked over to the Tower of the Americas. It was built for the 1968 World’s Fair, HemisFair ’68, held back when the World’s Fair was actually a pretty big deal.

From up at the top, you can see that the convention center is HUGE. About half of it can be seen in the bottom right of this picture, the white-roofed structure. There are also a gazillion hotel rooms within a block or two. San Antonio pushes hard for the mega-convention trade and is equipped to handle it.

Just on the other side of the convention center you can see a section of the RiverWalk meandering through downtown.

The rest of this part of the world is flat. Really, really flat. It’s referred to as the “Texas Hill Country,” so it’s not like, pool table flat, but just rolling, small hills and rivers and streams from here to the horizon in every direction.

Next trip to San Antonio I can gladly do the Riverwalk again. We didn’t take the boat tour, and there are lots and lots of other places to try for dinner and drinks.

The Alamo? Been there, done that.