Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We spent our turkey day seeing the sights in San Antonio, Texas. It’s a pretty fun city, even on a major holiday.

We didn’t actually consider that things might be closed on Thanksgiving until this morning. Our hotel was across the street from Market Square, just a few blocks from the San Antonio River Walk—so we figured we’d just head out, start walking, and see what was open. Turns out, most everything seemed to be, at least among the touristy stuff.

We started by walking over to the Alamo, which took us through Market Square and down a section of the River Walk, which was really interesting. I’m not sure how San Antonio feels on a non-Thanksgiving day, but today the River Walk was packed with people milling around. Public consumption of alcohol is permitted on the River Walk, and consequently we saw quite a few people that appeared to be quite drunk—including one guy that was passed out in the grass. There are no railings between the (fairly narrow!) sidewalks and the river, and while we didn’t actually see anyone fall into the water, I can’t believe that it isn’t a relatively common occurrence.

The Alamo was crowded. Crowded enough that it was semi-unpleasant (at least for me—Lori says I’m just a cranky old man, though) with all of the people posing with selfie sticks and seemingly unattended children loudly playing and/or crying. Luckily there isn’t too much to see, so I didn’t have to suffer for too long. As we were finishing up, we saw that a huge crowd had gathered near the entrance and thought that we had missed something interesting. When we moved to investigate, we saw that many in the group were excitedly pointing their cameras at something on the ground. It was a cat. A mangy orange cat, that happened to be casually torturing a rat. We left.

Lori in front of the Alamo. Not pictured: a cat, a rat.

We originally intended to do the length of the River Walk after the Alamo, but we noticed that there were Christmas lights strung up everywhere, and thought that it might look better at night (and maybe it’d be less crowded!). So we headed back to the hotel to grab the car—we’d visit the San Antonio Missions instead, and come back after dark for the River Walk.

When we arrived at the Missions, we were happy to discover that there seemed to be only a few other people around. So that was a nice change from the crowds at the Alamo. But then we learned that it was relatively deserted because the park was closed. So that was less nice. We strolled around the outside of the San José Mission walls, peaking through the various heavy locked gates at the ornate church and other structures within. At the rear of the mission, we found that one of the walls didn’t quite extend as far as it needed to. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Our journey into the San Antonio Missions, depicted in triptych.

Our tour of the San José Mission complete, we decided that it was probably time to figure dinner out. There were a couple dozen restaurants in San Antonio offering a Thanksgiving dinner (Lori was adamant on having a Thanksgiving meal!). We checked with several of them, only to find that they were sold out, closed early, or weren’t taking reservations. So we drove back to the hotel and set off on foot in search of someplace that would accommodate us, expecting to experience disappointment.

The famous Mi Tierra Cafe y Panaderia, a 24-hour Mexican restaurant that literally never closes, is right across the street from our hotel, so we started there. They sat us after a two-minute wait, and offered a choice of traditional or Mexican Thanksgiving dinners (in addition to the normal menu, but who’d do that on Thanksgiving?). We chose the Mexican option, and it was glorious.

Our Mexican Thanksgiving feast. It looks green because the lights were green. Except for the green beans. Those are just green.

After dinner, we headed back to the River Walk, and found that the lights weren’t on. Turns out that they come on tomorrow night during the annual Holiday Parade, and stay on until after Christmas. Oh well—it was still pretty scenic.

Below are a few pics from our nighttime walk (click for larger versions). There are more in my trip gallery, if you’re interested.

The San Antonio River Walk at night.

San Antonio courthouse fountain.

Lori in Market Square at night.