Crowd Favorite: San Antonio, Texas

Went to the Johnson Space Center.  Not too exciting, except that we got to see historic mission control, where all the Gemini and Apollo missions were controlled and saw a live video feed of the new mission control (in action, since there is an American at the International Space Station right now).  We then drove 3 hours west to San Antonio.  

Car consensus: Everyone must go to San Antonio at some point in their lives.  

Reasons: 

1. The people are super nice.  

2. The area is clean, yet active, unlike Bourbon Street where people puke on your shoes.  

3. The Alamo.  Located a block from the Riverwalk, it's interesting that it is completely incongruent from the surrounding areas; however, it somehow doesn't seem out of place.  

3a. Davy Crocket died at the battle of the Alamo (secret: I didn't know Davy Crocket was a real person, I kind of thought he was like Paul Bunyan or Johnny Appleseeds).  

4. You can take a boat down the San Antonio River...with booze aboard.  

5. Mexican beer. 

6. Neo-Gothic architecture combined with 1700s Mexican design = beautiful. 

7. Live theater/dance performance highlighting the best of the arts in Mexico/San Antonio.  

7a.  This was performed in an amphitheater in which the stage was separated from the audience by the San Antonio River itself.  

8. Phenomenal accents.  

All in all, a great day.  I have zero fondness for the rest of Texas, it's just a whole lot of nothing, I can't say that Houston was anything to write home about, but culture, architecture, and design of San Antonio caught us all by surprise.  

New Mexico tomorrow (and the crossover into Mountain time - 2 hours behind EST).