Texas Size Fun-(The Finale)

All we had seen of San Antonio was the airport, I-35 and a traffic oddity called a "Texas Turnaround," allowing basically a U-turn to go the other way on the interstate. My own state's road system is nothing to write home about so I'll make no comment except I hope to go back soon and figure it out. Scott and Cristina had to fly out at 9:30 A.M. and the rest of us had flights leaving around 2:30 P.M. so the plan was for us to drop them off at the airport and we would do the tourist thing-The Alamo and the Riverwalk. Our goodbyes at the airport were short-we were quickly shooed away from the loading zone by a small, resentful hispanic woman. Soon we were gone and our South Carolina friends were in the air back home.
We paid a local extortionist 5 bucks to park within walking distance to the Alamo. I had been there as a kid and recalled it incorrectly as being a tiny mission-the entire complex was much bigger and included a courtyard and barracks that housed the Texas soldiers. We wandered the grounds and ended up watching a man from "Overactors Anonymous" recite the story of the battle of the Alamo, which according to his presentation, (I have no reason to doubt it's veracity), was a complete "clusterf%#@" on both sides. Seems the Mexican Army under General Santa Ana had devised a clever sneak attack at night which was underway and about to be successful when one of the Mexican's had a "Tourette's moment," spoiling the surprise arrival by shouting something and awakening the Texas soldiers. Both sides were ill-prepared for battle at that particular hour of the night and they ran around in the dark shooting anything that moved-at least that's what I gained from the guy's recital. We found great humor not in the content of the presentation, which was mildly fascinating, but in the way he delivered the story. He was a middle-aged guy with a bad hairpiece, sporting a striped shirt and colorful red vest. His stacatto delivery was hard to understand at first as there was no rhythm to it-several words would come out as one and then single words would be chopped up or drawn out as several. It was like someone who gave their phone number in something other than the standard 3-number area code, 3-number prefix, 4-number suffix grouping. He also carried a microphone and at certain moments he would sigh, drop his head and simultaneously allow the microphone to flop flaccidly from his hands for dramatic effect. He also appeared to be disturbingly emotionally invested in this battle which took place 150 years ago- at times he was on the brink of tears and at others he appeared to be transported by the fatalistic heroism of the Texans. We spent an entire lunch on the Riverwalk harmlessly mocking his theatrics. I loaded up with souvenirs for the office crowd at the gift shop and also bought the last of my six ball caps, this one inscribed with the words of Davy Crockett, the Tennesseean who gave his life at the Alamo-"You can all go to hell, and I will go to Texas."

It was a magical trip-the music, the band, the food, the horselaughs and most of all the time spent with great friends-Thanks to all the Texas travelers-Jane, Scott, Cristina, Vin, Randall and Kate. Thanks also to the guys from Reckless Kelly who sent me an autographed cymbal for making them some fishing rods and finally thanks to these two and their sweet, five-year old, who became our new friends-we'll see you again soon down the road.