No, I Didn't See Pee-Wee's Bicycle

Marathon #94 was in State #20 for me. Slowly but surely I'm getting some extra states with some of my pacing gigs. I don't yet have 50-Stater as a full-on goal, but it is something I'm shooting for long-term.

It's not often -- outside of Disney -- that I have such a blatant in-your-face display of the local landmark in my hotel room as I did when I checked in.

I was quite pleased that the hotel that I got was a little over a half mile from each of the expo and the start line. Certainly made things much easier. And given that I was actually allowed to check in to my room as early as I arrived (about 11:30am), and the expo didn't open until noon, I made sure to grab a bite for lunch on the way. Naturally, I got a good, authentic San Antonio...

...croque monsieur! 

Hey, it was barely off my route to the expo, and was the first place I stumbled across. Given the genuine French accent on the guy behind the counter, the assumption I'm going with is that him immigrated from France and opened up this bakery/bistro. Heck, I was satiated, and that's what matters! No teasing.

I finally met one of the co-owners (Paul Miller) of the pace group company that does the pacing for this race, despite having paced 4 times for them previously. (They have enough races they do that they were always at a different race that was "competing" with whichever ones I was running in.)

I hung around the pacer table for about an hour, chatting with a couple of the pacers and answering several questions from people who were planning on running either the half or full marathon. Then off to the star of the show... the Alamo.

Given how I came in, I happened upon the Alamo Cenotaph first, commemorating the fallen.

And as I am putting together this blog post, I am only just now appreciating the fact that several of the statues that I saw during the weekend have been moved to different locations than normal, presumably because of the amount of construction that is going on in the area.

Susannah Dickinson -- while all of the men were killed by the Mexican army, Susannah and her daughter were among the survivors who spread the word of what happened.

More of the original meaning of Six Flags Over Texas than the theme park.

Sing along... Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier...

The statue of this woman was in an area that was closed off because of additional construction work. Looking her up now, apparently this was Emily West Morgan, the inspiration for the song "The Yellow Rose of Texas" for her allegedly slipping information about Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna’s location to Gen. Sam Houston.

Around the side of the Alamo, opposite the legendary Menger Hotel, is ol' Teddy himself.

A little further down along the plaza from the Alamo were a few more statues.

That night, there was a private event that was held in honor of the 190th anniversary of the battle.

My pre-race pasta dinner at Nonna Osteria was quite tasty. I'm glad that I had made a reservation, otherwise it would have been at least an hour-long wait; definitely a popular spot.

Rather than simply bread being brought out, they brought out cubes of focaccia and an kalamata olive tapenade which was really great. The first bite was a bit bitter, but once I made sure some of the olive oil was part of what I placed on the bread, dang that was good. And then, of course, the main course.

Pasta, shrimp, and chorizo... hard to go wrong!

Back to the hotel room, watched the news for a while, prepped a bit for the race, and hit the sack early.