Edit Me an Image #52 - A Mission in San Antonio, Texas

Continuing the image editing topic, 52nd issue.

General rules:

A previous round winner presents a busy or just not so interesting image, having at least some potential for different crops or visions.
Anyone (except author of original image) can edit the presented image, up to three distinct edits in separate posts are permitted.
All edits must be based on original image, not on another person's edits (of course borrowing ideas would not be a problem).
Short explanations about your editing intentions and/or techniques are encouraged, but not required.

Once the deadline for images has been reached, no new image versions will be accepted. Questions and (polite) discussions of techniques are welcome, so that we can learn from one another how certain edits were achieved.
The edited version gathering most likes wins and its author will start next round, unless they would prefer to pass the torch to someone else.
On the closing day for voting, if there is a draw in the number of likes for two or more edits, then the person that posted the original image will decide the winner from the the photos receiving the most votes.

Editing rules:

All "normal" adjustments (brightness, colours, curves etc) are permitted (both local and global ones).
All geometric adjustments (perspective, cropping etc) are permitted.
Artistic effects (brushes, textures etc) are allowed.
No additions or replacements may be made to the main subject matter of the image; non-essential objects may be removed, and parts of the original image can be "moved" to a different position in the image. Sky replacements are OK unless the sky is the main subject..
Generative AI must not be used.

Timing:
Get your images posted by midnight UTC, December 22. As always, you can vote during the entire contest plus one day after the image submission deadline. I'll post reminders.

So here's just the JPEG out of my Pictures folder for y'all to play with ... have fun!

Olde Worlde for mine.

Silver Effex, Crop/Resize Some lighting fiddles.

Ron

Frankly, with the blown sky and artifacts all over the place, I would have binned this one for sure. but here's what I would do to make the best of it (without replacing the sky, which I just don't do)...

Lightroom

Thank you for your kind comment.

It is a holiday snap taken long before any great interest in photography.

Sorry if that came off as unnecessarily harsh. Though admittedly poorly worded, it wasn't intended that way,
However, there's really no recovering the blown highlights or doing much with the color or detail without replacing it, especially with the VERY compressed jpeg original.. Seeing what can be done with it is indeed a valid challenge but, like I said, It isn't a photo I would have normally pursued.

Alan, your edit looks great but, with the sky replacement, half of it isn't the original image anymore - Is it wrong to replace the sky when the end result is clearly improved? Not according to the rules it isn't, but it's just something I'd rather not do, I have nothing against removing the occasional distracting element etc, but I'm not especially keen on introducing elements not present in the original scene. I'm not saying you or anyone shouldn't be doing that, it's just not for me.