San Antonio was another bright spot along the journey. I was surprised at how much I liked the city, or at least the parts of it that I saw. The Riverwalk was really amazing, and seeing the Alamo, now a shrine, was moving. I was always fond of the 1960 John Wayne (also the director!) film, with Richard Widmark, about the battle of the Alamo. There were only a handul of survivors, women and children. General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna gave them blankets and pesos and sent them away, encouraging them to warn all to remember what happened there that perilous day. I learned that the battle cry "Remember the Alamo" was taken quite seriously by General Sam Houston, who proceeded to engage and subsequently defeat Santa Anna's formidable army in only 18 minutes.
Near the Alamo is the lovely Hotel Menger, inside of which is a very nice bar which was constructed to emulate the bar in the House of Lords in England. I put my finger in two bullet holes in the bar that were made by Teddy Roosevelt, who recruited many of his famous "Rough Riders" there.
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