You know how I know you're not from around here?

This is one of the Letters to the Editor in today's Express-News:

Last week, I decided to take up the mayor and City Council and go downtown and see the sights — free parking meters on Tuesdays, they exclaimed!
The thing is there are no parking meters close to the Alamo, so I had to pay $10 to park.
After I got ripped off at the gift shop, I headed over to the Tower restaurant. Hmm, no parking meters around there either, so I paid $8 to park and $5 to go up to the observation deck.
My affordable trip downtown not only cost me gas at $4 a gallon, it cost me over $35 just to say I visited a couple of places downtown.
Haven't been there in years and will probably be longer before I return.
— Chris Mitchell

Erik read this to me, and I immediately knew the dude (dudette?) was full of shit, 'cause, well:

See those things over to the right of the photo?  Like the one right in front of the red truck?  That thing that looks suspiciously like a parking meter?  That's 'cause it is a parking meter.  Been there for years.  See that rock lookin' thing over to the left of the photo?  That, my friends, is the wall of the Alamo.  But there are no parking meters near the Alamo.

But wait, there's more! Our intrepid newspaper reader didn't just go to the Alamo, s/he went to Hemisfair Park as well and paid again to park!  Now, a reasonable person may ask themselves "Self, I'm pretty sure the Alamo and Hemisfair Park aren't that far apart.  I mean, they're both in downtown San Antonio, right?"

Well, Mr. Reasonable Person, you'd be absolutely correct.  Check this out:

This is the Google Maps version of how to walk from the Alamo to the Tower.  Says it's 6/10 of a mile, but in reality you can cut at least 1/10 mile off that by not sticking to the sidewalks along the street and cutting through the mall.  I've done it bunches of times.  And even if you stayed to the sidewalks, is a little over half a mile really that far to walk?

Also, I can't ignore the issue of the little twit paying TWICE to park downtown when visiting places only half a mile apart.  Last picture, I promise:

This, boys and girls, is a city-owned parking garage at Commerce and Bowie streets, where parking is also free.  The monstrosity off to your left in the photograph is the Grand Hyatt hotel, behind which by about a block is the Tower of the Americas.  You can't see it in the photograph, but if you were to turn right and cross the street and go maybe three or four blocks, you'd get to...you guessed it, the Alamo.  Also, please note the cars parked beside the garage, along Commerce.  There are no longer individual meters there, but it is metered parking, and is close to the Alamo.

In short, Chris Mitchell is a whiny little fucker without a clue as to what s/he's talking about.

We'll leave the relative intelligence of taking advantage of an offer that starts at 5pm to visit an attraction that closes at 5:30pm for another time, but let's just say I highly suspect the entire letter is BS.

(In case it's not obvious, all my "pictures" are in actuality screen shots courtesy of Google Maps and Google Street View and of course are copyright to my blogging overlords.)