Houston - Things to Do - San Jacinto Battleground State Historical Park

San Jacinto Battleground , 22 miles east of Houston off I-10, was the site of an eighteen-minute fight, two months after the Alamo in 1836, in which the Texans all but wiped out the superbly trained Mexican army. You see little but miles of flat land from the observation deck ($3) of the tallest stone column monument in the world (570ft, topped by a 34ft Lone Star), but the Museum of History inside is more interesting, with the stirring 35-minute movie Texas Forever ! (hourly 9am5pm; museum daily 9am6pm; $3.50; www.sanjacinto-museum.org ).