texas

This morning, we saw the Alamo in downtown San Antonio. I remember learning about it in my history classes as a high-schooler, and I saw it referenced more times than I can count on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—as summarized perfectly in the Cynic’s Corner:

LAUGHINGSTOCKS OF THE WEEK: I’ve heard enough about the Alamo; how about you? Miles and Julian have become jokes; it seems like all they’ve done this season is play Alamo and/or get made fun of for playing Alamo. And I’ve got a bad feeling about the “moat” discussion that they had with Quark, namely that O’Brien will decide, “Quark’s right! We can’t build a moat around the station, but we can use a <tech> <tech> <tech> to create a <tech> <tech> <tech> around the station!”

So yeah, at any rate, there was the Alamo. A big battle was fought there. The white people lost. But then they won in the end because they remembered the Alamo, so I guess it all worked out. Also, there’s totally archaeology going on there! They’re uncovering bits of frescoes in the surviving walls that they didn’t even know were there until a few years ago.

We continued on from San Antonio through Austin, Dallas, and Texarkana. Two thoughts kept occurring to me:

1. Texas is simply too gol-dang big.
2. This part of the world has very questionable policies when it comes to naming towns. Hope? Italy? Texarkana? Arkadelphia??

Anyway, here are a few of today’s photos—as always, the full gallery is awaiting your browser.

Next stop: Nashville, Tennessee!

From El Paso this morning, we walked to Ciudad Juárez just across the Mexican border, and then drove for what seemed like forever across unending scrub and desert and at length achieved San Antonio. Here are a few choice photos from the ever-expanding collection:

It is hotter than Hades in Texas. Also, Texas is Way. Too. Gosh. Darn. Big. So that’s all from me for now—to bed. More adventures tomorrow!

The Road Trip of Awesome, which began a few days ago—sorry I couldn’t tell you about it, Internet, but the blog was broken for a while there—has already taken me from Vancouver through Seattle and Portland, to San Francisco for a while, to Los Angeles, and today to El Paso after a major drive across California, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Total distance covered so far: about 4000 km (2500 mi).
Total money spent on gasoline: don’t want to think about it.

To sate your insatiable appetite for road trip photography, you’ll just have to wait until more photos can be taken, edited, and uploaded. You can visit the full gallery here; as for right now, please allow me to whet said appetite with a few choice tidbits:

Tomorrow: Ciudad Juárez and then San Antonio!