The Alamo, and Other Victories

I'm on a foreign keyboard, so forgive the typos.

Yesterday was the Alamo, in San Antonio. It was a nice drive about two hours west of Austin. It's quite the site -- you get there, park your car, and spent 10 minutes watching Americans try to figure out how to operate those little machines that dispense parking tickets.

So at this point I'm thinking, hmmm... if this is typical of the area, then the problem at the Alamo wasn't that they had too few men.

Then you get to the site itself, and there's this really nice, tastefully built monument out front (pictures provided), showing Davy Crockett and a few others, and it lists the names of all the men that died at the Alamo.

Then you go in, to the shrine itself. We had to line up -- busy day, and nobody was deterred by the 98 degree heat. This is the actual mission building that everybody thinks of when they refer to "the Alamo". A plaque outside reads "No beverages or photographs. Gentlemen please remove your hats. This is a shrine." Uh... okay. At least they don't ask to kneel and kiss something.

So in you go, and there are flags from all fifty states, helpfully labelled. Then you get to an area with these massive wooden doors... that weren't at the Alamo. And around those doors are these bronze plaques that list the names of all the men that died at the Alamo.

Then you go to a recreation of the "long barracks", which is where the bulk of the fighting apparently took place. Several displays there, with all kinds of interesting information. Among other things, there were survivors from the Alamo -- women, children, and a slave, about twelve or so people, who were left unharmed on Santa Ana's orders. Then, there's a rolling thingy that lists the names of all the men that died at the Alamo.

Then outside, there's a bunch of small billboard like things that give the timeline of the battle, has a picture of a painting depicting the final Mexican attack, then a list of all the men that died at the Alamo.

Then I had to use the facilities. So in I go, and as I unroll the t.p. I see written on it the names... okay, just kidding. But I'm thinking, they're missing out on some marketing opportunities. Not just Alamo T.P., either. What I was thinking was an Alamo snow globe, where the flakes are black instead of white. See, it's like the Mexican bullets, raining down on the Alamo.... They probably wouldn't sell too many at the Alamo site itself, but over in Mexico....

Today we went to the LBJ Ranch, home of the Texas White House. I was laughing at the first part of the tour, which is a farm owned by a neighboring family. "See how LBJ's neighbors lived..." Uh... yeah. Okay. Well, actually it turned out to be the most interesting part of the trip. There was a guy doing blacksmith work, and he gave us a demonstration and explained how it all worked. Then some women dressed in period clothing were preparing food and operating the kitchen.

I know it doesn't sound like much, but it was a lesson in how things were not that long ago, and a demonstration of knowledge that gets lost with each passing generation. Similarly, the way the house was designed, it actually managed to stay reasonably cool notwithstanding the 95 degree heat. Who'd a thunk it?

Tomorrow I'm back home. I'm very much looking forward to finally getting some decent french fries. We found a really good steakhouse yesterday, and I had a first-class steak, but if there are good french fries anywhere in the U.S., I have yet to find them.