I'm
in downtown San Antonio, Texas about 10 or 11 floors over the famed River Walk
in the center of downtown. The Alamo is nearby as are a number of other things
I recall from my first time in San Antonio when I was newly enlisted in the
U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War.
From
my vantage point in the Grand Hyatt Hotel it appears that the world is truly
flat, at least for as far as the eye can see to the horizon. I can't gauge the
distance to the horizon, but my best guess on this very clear morning is that
it's probably 75 miles to maybe 100 miles, or more, away. With the sun was
behind me and being pretty early in the morning, I'd say this photo is looking
in a westerly direction.
Much
has changed here since the slightly more than eight months I was stationed at
Lackland Air Force Base between mid-August 1969 and the end of April 1970. For
example, the building I took this photo from didn't exist and wasn't even a
blip on anyone's radar screen. It was actually completed in 2008.
The
convention center next to the hotel, the two Marriott hotels across the street
and most of the other structures in this area, including an interstate
connecting highway weren't in the plans back then, either.
This
land was actually part of the Hemisfair '68, a sanctioned World's Fair that
closed less than a year before I arrived in San Antonio. Today, part of this
land is occupied by the convention center. Another part of it is now HemisFair
Park where the Tower of the Americas, at 750 feet tall, remains the tallest
structure in San Antonio.
Times marches on, but from my vantage point, the
world IS flat.
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