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| The Alamo Mission, San Antonio, Texas |
www.dennismook.com
The day was good and bad. The good part was the time we spent in San Antonio visiting the Alamo, Riverwalk and Vance's family. The bad part came later as we drove north and into Austin, Texas, the state capital. Let me explain.
We started the day leisurely and drove into downtown San Antonio to visit the Alamo. Without going into a lot of Texas history, the Alamo was originally a mission, turned into somewhat of a poorly designed fortress. Texas was still a part of Mexico at the time. This was 1836.
The Texans were getting a bit rambunctious and the Mexican Dictator, General Santa Ana, wasn't particularly pleased with their attitude. He had changed the Constitution and the Texans really didn't like what he did so they became a bit rebellious and wanted to form their own republic. Santa Ana couldn't allow this so he personally commanded 6500 troops to teach the Texans a lesson and quell the rebellious behavior at the Alamo. The Texans, at the Alamo, had a whopping 200 men to defend the old Mission. Sixty-Five Hundred versus two hundred. You all know the outcome. It wasn't pretty.
In the mean time, Sam Houston mustered a group of men to fight to soon defeat Santa Ana and declare Texas free of Mexico and become its own republic. Later, Santa Ana, still smarting from the loss of Texas, engaged in the Mexican-American war and subsequently lost New Mexico, Arizona and most of California, which, at that time, was a part of Mexico.
The lesson to be learned here is don't let your ego get in the way of good government and change the constitution because the unintended consequence of your actions may be a lot more than you ever imagined!
Photo tip: When looking for interesting subjects of which to make a photograph, don't neglect to look all around you. Of course, we all look in front of us, but turn around and look behind you also. Look down and look up. Don't just look at the overall scene, look at detail, juxtapositions, pattern repetitions and color contrasts. You never know what there may be of interest that is away from your line of immediate sight. While visiting the Alamo, I was amazed at the huge Live Oak trees whose branches reached out, in some cases, almost 100 ft. It was truly a sight. Then I looked up and really liked the pattern of the branches against the white, overcast sky and made this image. I found the intricacies of the branches quiet pleasing to my eye.
Back to the Alamo. Only two original buildings still stand: the original Mission above and the long barracks that was built to house the monks that occupied the mission. Everything else you see when you visit has been built about 1936. It is still worth seeing and understanding our country's history.
From the visit to the Alamo, we walked to Riverwalk, San Antonio's famous venue on the San Antonio River. Imagine the river is about 30 ft. below the street level. Then imagine shoring up the banks of the river with concrete walkways. Add restaurants, etc., and you have this wonderful place to walk, eat, sit and read, talk, etc. You are mostly out of the hot Texas sun and the noise, hustle and bustle of a large city is gone. I have been here before and I enjoyed it as much as I did this time.
A funny thing happened as Vance and I were eating lunch. As anywhere, birds and other creatures, were hanging around to beg for morsels of food or scavenge what may have fallen to the ground. There were even mallard ducks at our feet forlornly looking up at us, hoping we would throw them a bit of food. I was watching this brown bird. It would fly over to an empty table, pick up a packet of either Splenda or Equal, then fly over to a flower bed, peck open the packet, eat the powdery substance and fly back for some more. Afterward, it would have powder all over its bill like cocaine on an addict's nose. He seemed to want only the artificial sweetener and not the sugar packets that were on the tables. Wow! Very unusual.
I asked one of the ladies working at the restaurant about this and she acknowledged that the packets were, in her words, "like crack for the birds!" She went on to say that on the ground sometimes they will find numerous packets pecked open with the contents consumed. She said they like the artificial sweetener best. I guess they are watching their weight!
I made this quick grab shot of the bird I was watching as it landed on the table, rifle through the stack of sweetener packets, pick up the Splenda, then fly away to quench its appetite for the chemical mix.
After lunch we walked the entire Riverwalk area, then walked back to the car. Our intention was to drive to Austin where Vance had relatives coming to visit. How can one not drive to see one's cute little granddaughter! I know I couldn't resist if mine were that close.
Driving TO Austin was unremarkable with the exception of the I-35 corridor between San Antonio and Austin is one long (about 75 miles or so) corridor of commercial development. I was kind of amazed how this corridor was entirely filled with commercial/shopping establishments all the way from one city to the next. No open land that I remember.
However, driving IN Austin proved to be another matter. This is where the bad comes in for the day. Evidently, President Obama, unbeknownst to us, was in town to make some sort of speech. As a retired police chief whose city had hosted many presidents over the years, I know exactly what goes into ensuring security for a President of the United States. One of those things we do is completely close the interstate if the President will be on or near it. Well, you guessed it, we drove right into a completely closed I-35. After sitting patiently (or less patiently as time wore on) for over 50 minutes with no sign of movement, we decided to try to get off the interstate and try to make some progress on the city streets.
So, we were able to snake our way over to the right shoulder from the left-most lane and, after about 20 more minutes, we worked our way to the end of the nearby off-ramp and turned left as, on the map, I saw another major north-south artery on the west side of Austin. We finally reached Texas Route 1 and, guess what? Yep, totally stopped also. We had committed to getting onto it before we realized the gridlock on that road. Darn! Again, we had to snake our way over to the shoulder, to try to get to an off-ramp a quarter mile ahead to, again, try to get to some city streets. The entire city was in gridlock and it wasn't even rush hour!
Austin is like the Roach Motel! You could get in, but you couldn't get out. Ahhhh!
Once again we were on the city streets and worked our way over toward the Texas State University campus but found the city streets just as busy as the main highways. At that point, we pulled into a small restaurant/sports bar and decided to and wait this mess out. I was amazed as how the entire city seemed to be in gridlock.
At 15 minutes before 7 p.m., we tried it again and was able to get onto I-35 north, but soon found ourselves almost stopped in traffic! This is now over 3 hours since we got into Austin and about 1 miles north of our original location! The Roach Motel strikes again! We did move slowly and finally reached our hotel before 7:30. As you can imagine, our frustration level was pretty high.
We checked in, freshened up, then went to visit Vance's family. We had a really nice visit and returned to the hotel at almost 11 p.m. We will visit again today before, again, driving east.
In the area today are some severe thunderstorms so driving may get a bit dicey. Also, this morning, the car is scheduled for an oil change and tire rotation.
Travel Tip: Don't neglect your vehicle when on road trips. Pay attention to the vehicle and its mileage and make sure you get the routine maintenance that is called for. Also, listen to what the vehicle is saying to you--rattles, buzzes, groans, noises of various nature and ensure that you take care of them as it may be something important coming loose.
We only drove about 85 miles today. Sat in Austin for almost 4 hours trying to get out! The Roach Motel!! Enjoy!
Thanks for looking.
Dennis Mook
Dennis Mook
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