My doorbell rang at 6:30pm. It took me by surprise, as no one comes by my place.
I opened the door and a little round man with a big smile, wearing blue-grey overalls approached me and said "Good Evening M'am, I'm from Time-Warner Cable and I noticed that you aren't a subscriber to our services. Is there a reason for that?"
Bewildered, I simply replied "I already have enough TV stations, I don't need cable." Actually, I only get two stations, NBC and CBS and the only other stations I wish I could get are ABC and PBS. I get the two stations by plugging a cable wire into the TV from the wall. ) I thought that perhaps I was rude and added "I'm leaving Texas in a week anyway, I don't need cable"
"Oh, you are leaving God's Country?" he smiled back.
"I'm leaving God's Country and going to Heaven!" I replied, more with a sigh than a smile.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Looking toward Arizona and the rest of the year's journies
A dear friend of mine, Bill, a retired Army colonel in his mid 70s, invited me to try a 35-mile bicycle tour around Cochise County in mid March. Of course I said yes, as long as it didn't interfere with the 9 March Mesa Half Marathon I'm registered for, or the 30 March Bataan Death March.
I looked at http://bikegaba.org/ and saw a few other enticing bicycle tours nearby. Bicycle tours may not be any better on my aching back, but they will be nicer to my aching knees and ankles. A mid-April ride of 69 miles from Sonoita to Bisbee sounds just like the ticket, but I may need a few more months to get re-aquainted with the higher elevations of southern Arizona. Basically that's 3000 feet higher than here in CenTex.
There's a potential trip to North Carolina at the end of June for Kevin's niece's wedding in Charlotte. He doesn't have that much vacation time so he may fly there. Since I'll be officially on my "summer vacation" and not employed, I could afford to drive there the week prior, and then spend another week in New Jersey with old friends there, scoop up to New England, across New York back down to Chicagoland and visit family, then drive on to Wisconsin and Minnesota and the Dakota Badlands before I hit Big Sky Montana. I want to experience the same euphoria John Steinbeck wrote about in his "Travels with Charley." He didn't say much about Montana other than that the sky enticed him, that there was something about the land and its people that kept him begging for more and that "I am in love with Montana." (Which is how I feel, strangely, about Texas). Montana is one of three states I haven't traveled through yet. The other two are Oregon and Idaho.
After I recover from my Montana euphoria, I will continue to drive west until I hit Highway 89 somewhere in the central part of the state. Highway 89 goes all the way south to Arizona and Nogales, by now a long familiar road.
http://www.untraveledroad.com/Categories/Highways/Highway89.htm
I don't know if my finances will allow me such a long drive (a month?), but I will continue to dream.
My mother is also planning a week-long family reunion at Lake Powell in early September. That's a given for me to make...and that should be movie-making memories. Hopefully it will be a romantic comedy ala Nora Ephron and not some tear-jerking psycho-drama that made Ingmar Bergman so popular.
Sometimes I do wonder what my life story would film like. A western? A comedy? A foreign drama or a --yikes!-- murder/mystery?!?!
I looked at http://bikegaba.org/ and saw a few other enticing bicycle tours nearby. Bicycle tours may not be any better on my aching back, but they will be nicer to my aching knees and ankles. A mid-April ride of 69 miles from Sonoita to Bisbee sounds just like the ticket, but I may need a few more months to get re-aquainted with the higher elevations of southern Arizona. Basically that's 3000 feet higher than here in CenTex.
There's a potential trip to North Carolina at the end of June for Kevin's niece's wedding in Charlotte. He doesn't have that much vacation time so he may fly there. Since I'll be officially on my "summer vacation" and not employed, I could afford to drive there the week prior, and then spend another week in New Jersey with old friends there, scoop up to New England, across New York back down to Chicagoland and visit family, then drive on to Wisconsin and Minnesota and the Dakota Badlands before I hit Big Sky Montana. I want to experience the same euphoria John Steinbeck wrote about in his "Travels with Charley." He didn't say much about Montana other than that the sky enticed him, that there was something about the land and its people that kept him begging for more and that "I am in love with Montana." (Which is how I feel, strangely, about Texas). Montana is one of three states I haven't traveled through yet. The other two are Oregon and Idaho.
After I recover from my Montana euphoria, I will continue to drive west until I hit Highway 89 somewhere in the central part of the state. Highway 89 goes all the way south to Arizona and Nogales, by now a long familiar road.
http://www.untraveledroad.com/Categories/Highways/Highway89.htm
I don't know if my finances will allow me such a long drive (a month?), but I will continue to dream.
My mother is also planning a week-long family reunion at Lake Powell in early September. That's a given for me to make...and that should be movie-making memories. Hopefully it will be a romantic comedy ala Nora Ephron and not some tear-jerking psycho-drama that made Ingmar Bergman so popular.
Sometimes I do wonder what my life story would film like. A western? A comedy? A foreign drama or a --yikes!-- murder/mystery?!?!
High winds spread Texas wildfires
We had high winds yesterday morning, gusting to over 50mph that began overnight. An RV collided head-on with an 18-wheeler in South Texas earlier that morning, killing the truck driver, burning the two RV owners (51 and 57 years old) and killing their black Labradors.
And then this morning I read that a wildfire that began in Oakalla burned 2500 acres. That's just ten miles from town! All that dead grass burned black...luckily no livestock or people perished in this fire, and no structures were lost. Thirteen neighboring fire departments helped extinguish the fire. There were also fires elsewhere across the state, five in Central Texas alone. Governor Rick Perry declared 152 counties for emergency funding. (Texas has 254 counties)
And the fire season hasn't officially started yet!
The winds died down by the afternoon. I tried to keep my driving to a minimum, busy most of the time with office-related errands. I did get blown a foot or two while walking at lunch. People were holding on to their hats. I held on to my van's doors when I opened them, so that they didn't slam into the doors of the vehicles parked next to me.
http://www.kdhnews.com/news/story.aspx?s=22536
http://caller.com/news/2008/jan/30/massive-brush-fire-rages-near-falfurrias/
http://caller.com/news/2008/jan/29/trucker-is-killed-in-crash-with-rv/
http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/5495323.html
http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,326426,00.html
http://star-telegram.com/news/story/439568.html
South Texas continued with a few more persistent fires a few days later:
http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/articles/fire_84024___article.html/county_thursday.html
And then this morning I read that a wildfire that began in Oakalla burned 2500 acres. That's just ten miles from town! All that dead grass burned black...luckily no livestock or people perished in this fire, and no structures were lost. Thirteen neighboring fire departments helped extinguish the fire. There were also fires elsewhere across the state, five in Central Texas alone. Governor Rick Perry declared 152 counties for emergency funding. (Texas has 254 counties)
And the fire season hasn't officially started yet!
The winds died down by the afternoon. I tried to keep my driving to a minimum, busy most of the time with office-related errands. I did get blown a foot or two while walking at lunch. People were holding on to their hats. I held on to my van's doors when I opened them, so that they didn't slam into the doors of the vehicles parked next to me.
http://www.kdhnews.com/news/story.aspx?s=22536
http://caller.com/news/2008/jan/30/massive-brush-fire-rages-near-falfurrias/
http://caller.com/news/2008/jan/29/trucker-is-killed-in-crash-with-rv/
http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/5495323.html
http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,326426,00.html
http://star-telegram.com/news/story/439568.html
South Texas continued with a few more persistent fires a few days later:
http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/articles/fire_84024___article.html/county_thursday.html
Sunday, January 27, 2008
San Antonio's real River Walk
I made it back to the city center just before 9am, parking the van off Main Street between Houston and Travis Avenues. (I found out later I was only a block away from the River Walk!) I brought the city map that Maggie gave me yesterday, although the high rises in the downtown area: the Drury Inn, the Robert E Lee Hotel ("Air Conditioned"), the Tower of the Americas, the Tower Life building with its long TV antennae, the Hyatt and the Marriott hotels all kept me oriented. I was at most five blocks from all the major attractions.
My first plan of the day was to walk the length of the popular River Walk, a 2.4 loop off the San Antonio that is now lined with expensive eateries, pubs, and shops. The walk continues both north and south along the San Antonio River, making for a leisure six-mile walk from one end to the other. It's the 2.4 loop in the center of town that draw all the tourists, and few ever stray away from the River Walk and explore the rest of the river's shores.
San Antonio's city streets run into the Alamo, causing a vehicular nightmare for most drivers in the city's center. That is why I chose to park the van away from the Alamo/River Walk. Across the street was a statue of Robert Frost, the 20th-century American poet who lived in this city in 1936-37. He, along with other writers such as John Steinbeck and O'Henry was stricken by the Texas mystic. Frost's statue was one of many I would walk past today.
The streets were still empty as I made it to town, and parking was ample. This is what I wanted to see: the River Walk without all the tourist blocking the walk, with their loud noises disturbing the peace. I could walk at a leisurely pace and enjoy any bird calls, which this morning were mostly mallard and pigeons. The highrises kept most of the town below in a cool shadow.
And I got it. The Water Taxis were already working (9-9 daily, $4 a ride), the park police were making their river rounds, and the maintenance crews were floating by picking up water trash. River walk janitors also swept up any more trash on the path. The River Walk was spotless, much like a walkway at Disneyworld. Since the River walk is below street level, the area smelled moist, damp, and when the sun came up high enough, a mist rose from the water. The sunlight on the green foliage was the best part of the photography.
I like the River Walk not so much for the overpriced shops, but for the flora along the way. I saw what to me were giant-sized houseplants: rubber trees, magnolias, fig trees, palmetto and other palms, elephant plants, zebra plants, and African violets the size I've never seen before. Cypress trees along the River Walk (which started out years ago as a flooded, dirty irrigation ditch) shaded the river. The walk smelled like a walk through an encased planetarium. Early morning joggers sprinted by. Ducks of various species floated nearby, watching for hand-outs.
However, because of the pollution in the water, the water must constantly be treated. I noticed many hidden aerators to the water, coming out of hidden pipes along the walls. The Hyatt Hotel, which is located just off the official River Walk, sends highly chorinated water into the River Walk. The hotel smells of a damp hot swimming pool on the first floor. The water is greenish-grey. Most of the live oaks and cypresses along the river walks were planted here in 1939, the year ground-breaking work began on the project.
The tourists started coming out by 10am, mostly elderly tourist couples taking a quiet post-breakfast stroll. By then I had finished the river walk, and continued walking east toward the Alamo. I stopped in the compound again, briefly listening to the red-coated park ranger talk about the courage of the 186 outnumbered Texans defending the Alamo against Santa Anna's troops. The Alamo compound compared to the other missions I saw yesterday is so much smaller, but is much better maintained and due to fundings, also lush with native vegetation and a peaceful walk for locals and small children.
I went south toward the River Center (indoor mall) to the Torch of Friendship, which at night looks like an orange lollipop. From there I walked east on Congress toward the Market Square, passing the old Bexar County Courthouse, a red sandstone on Romanesque Revival style built in 1892, City Hall and its statue to Moses Austin, father of Stephen F Austin, and the old Spanish Governor’s House. This was an area I was at last night, but during the day the streets are livelier, the colors fuller, and there’s less mystery to what is behind the shadows.
I passed many more tourist shops all throughout the downtown area, but didn't stop in any of them. I was more interested in the outer architecture of the buildings and sidewalk art.
I noticed more homeless on this side of the River Walk, people of all backgrounds with all their belongings sitting on bus stop benches and either napping or chatting with other down-trodden people. I wonder where the shelters are? Are they perhaps near the city library, like they are in Dallas?
I like the area west of the River Walk, toward the Market Square. It was here in the 1890s that people would come and shop in the open air. Now the open air has been rplaced with more trendy buildings and made-in-China souvenirs, but I also walked past a duo of Equadorian pan flutists, a Mexican caricaturist, Mexican flauta vendors and a few other locals. The walk-through smelled enticingly of warm, sweet tortillas and my breakfast had long been walked off. I had been walking three hours now and needed to eat, but I didn’t want to eat in a touristy shop.
The Milam Park, where I walked through last night, was filled with homeless people sleeping on benches. It’s no wonder the playgrounds meant for little children stood by empty. But where where all the homeless last night when I came here? The tall statue of Colonel Benjamin Milam, a native Kentuckian who fought with the Mexicans in 1819 to gain their independence from Spain, stood prominently on the park's west side. Milam joined the Texas campaign in 1835 (which surely was a campaign for adventure-seeking frontiersmen like David Crockett as well), fought in the Goliad Campaign that same year, but a few months later was killed before the campaign could take off. Three pigeons perched on his out-stretched sword when I walked by, and their grey plumage blended so naturally with the statue that they looked like part of the original cast.
It was time to get moving, but not before I drove toward the King Wilhelm district, a once posh neighborhood of colonial homes built by German immigrants. This district is just south of the River Walk and accessible via St Mary's Street. Many of the homes looked badly neglected and ready to collapse from their termite-riddled homes. What I liked most about this neighborhood were the mature oak trees shading the wide streets.
The locals call this district the “King Willie” district. I figured this would be a nice place to find a good, cheap local eatery. And I was right. My first choice was Rosario’s, a large restaurant facing the main road at an angle. I looked at the menu and saw $9 enchiladas. I went on to the smaller eatery across the street, an old-looking, worn-down white wooden building, Tito’s Mexican Restaurant, and noticed the crowded tables inside. Crowded tables usually mean good food. I gave it a shot and was not disappointed.
Bottles of Mexican and domestic beers lined one wall of the eatery. Colorful Mexican paintings of flowered brunette beauties adorned another wall. Tables were closely to one another, but the customers came and went. I ordered a enchilada verde plate with a margarita and my server, “Joe Black” who looked more like a Jose Benitez but I wasn’t about to argue with him, was attentive and friendly. My bill was less than $13. This was a much better deal than the Blue Star brewpub, which in hindsight was mediocre at best and nothing compared to Lubbock’s Triple J.
I drove around the King Willie district, noticed a river walk and stopped once again to walk. This was the original river walk in the residential district, the southern terminus, where locals walked their dogs, their toddlers, or took a jaunt down the crepe-myrtle lined path. Ducks and cormorants idled along the shore. The female ducks were especially loud, quacking at each other. If the male ducks could roll their eyes in despair, I’m sure at this point they did.
One elderly man, who resembled Sigmund Freud and walked with a cane, briefly joined me on a stone bench where I was getting ready to set the camera, told me the river walk continued “for miles” through town, and that it started at the Blue Star Brewery where I was last night. “It’s at least another mile to the start” he said. That meant I had to check it out…and the walk only took me ten minutes. That’s a half mile for me.
Other families with young children strolled along this stretch feeding the mallards. A few Mexicans on the other side of the river fished with basic poles and waved at me. Why anyone would want to eat fish from the murky waters is beyond me. The river fish were found to contain high levels of bacteria (E. coli), according to the San Antonio River authority in a public news release last fall. And in 2003 tributary rivers flowing into the San Antonio river were found to have excess levels of Polychorinated Biphenyls (PCBs). The shallow river is so murky you can't even see the bottom in the walled portions of the River Walk.
South of the Blue Star Brewery the river turns wild and narrower. Cement walls no longer keep any flood waters in check. The Mission Trail will at one point in the future be connected to the river walk, adding another six miles to the city’s walk. I had developed a hot spot on my right foot, just below my big toe. I wore a t-shirt and jeans. The outside temperature was close to 70F.
A stop in New Braunfels was my next choice.
I drove backroads north through town, driving through the historic district of Monte Vista, a neighborhood that also was once a posh neighborhood of stone homes, wooden villas and hilltop mansions. The San Antonio skyline is visible from here. I passed more run-down homes next to elegant mansions, art shops and taquerias, organic tea rooms and used book stores. This would be worthy of another visit at another time. I passed the old San Antonio Academy, a private military school for boys founded in 1886 and located on a hilltop facing the skyline, and several historic churches of various denominations in this neighborhood.
I needed to get going though as it was passed 3pm and I wanted to see New Braunfels before sunset. I had to get back on I-35 north, via I-410 east. Braunfels is only 22 miles north of SA.
But here I was disappointed. New Braunfels was settled by Germans in the 1840s and twenty years later the county of Comal was 96% German. I expected the old Bauerndeutsch stone architecture to dominate, much like it does in nearby Boerne. What I saw instead as I drove into town were Spanish signs for cheap phone cards to call home in Mexico, more taquerias and gas stations selling gasoline for $2.76, the cheapest yet anywhere this year in Texas. When I stopped at the local Texaco station to tank up, all but one other person in the store was of European heritage. New Braunfels is going through an ethnic change.
I did find a few German buildings in town: the Henne Haus, the Freundschaftsbaum (a live oak) and a few other unique buildings built in the late 19th century. The best part of this town was not the small historic downtown, but the town’s festival grounds west of town on TX46, with an authentic Maibaum, Wurst und Biergarten, and an old German-style mill off the town’s Comal creek. Now that was German. The town hosts an annual Wurstfest in November, which certainly is the Wurst Festival in Texas, if not the country.
I’m glad I got a taste of New Braunfels, but I didn’t get a feel of its advertised “Gemuetlichkeit” the town likes to be famous for. Maybe that is because I wasn’t there for the Wurstfest or any of its other German-oriented festivals, and I definitely by-passed the overrated Schlitterbahn, a large waterpark outside of town.
Now I was officially on my way home, continuing on the hilly section of TX46, getting lost for 30 minutes in Spatzville when I thought a drive north to Canyon Lake would be a shortcut (It wasn’t), and reaching Marble Falls as the sun set over the Colorado River.
It was a lovely weekend, even if I never did touch base with my old high school friend. I will try one more time before I leave TX. Next weekend, if I have time, I will check out Fort Worth if I don't hear from Lynne. I want to see the cattle stockyards and the many dairy farms west of town.
I made it back to my small apartment at 8pm. My legs felt like they got a good work-out this weekend. I drove 348 miles and spent just over $100 for gas and meals, $45 which was for food and sodas . This gives me a good idea of what I could be facing next month when I start my Texas trip.
http://www.accd.edu/sac/english/mcquien/htmlfils/alamo.htm
http://www.riverwalkguide.com/attractions.asp
http://www.sanantoniocvb.com/things/attract.htm
http://www.sara-tx.org/site/water_quality.html
http://www.riverrec.org/current_conditions.php
http://www.lsjunction.com/people/milam.htm
http://www.montevista-sa.org/district.php
http://www.germany.info/relaunch/info/publications/infocus/german-americans/g-a_in_us.html
http://www.texasescapes.com/WTBlock/New-Braunfels-Texas-Pearl-of-Comal-Guadalupe-Valley.htm
My first plan of the day was to walk the length of the popular River Walk, a 2.4 loop off the San Antonio that is now lined with expensive eateries, pubs, and shops. The walk continues both north and south along the San Antonio River, making for a leisure six-mile walk from one end to the other. It's the 2.4 loop in the center of town that draw all the tourists, and few ever stray away from the River Walk and explore the rest of the river's shores.
San Antonio's city streets run into the Alamo, causing a vehicular nightmare for most drivers in the city's center. That is why I chose to park the van away from the Alamo/River Walk. Across the street was a statue of Robert Frost, the 20th-century American poet who lived in this city in 1936-37. He, along with other writers such as John Steinbeck and O'Henry was stricken by the Texas mystic. Frost's statue was one of many I would walk past today.
The streets were still empty as I made it to town, and parking was ample. This is what I wanted to see: the River Walk without all the tourist blocking the walk, with their loud noises disturbing the peace. I could walk at a leisurely pace and enjoy any bird calls, which this morning were mostly mallard and pigeons. The highrises kept most of the town below in a cool shadow.
And I got it. The Water Taxis were already working (9-9 daily, $4 a ride), the park police were making their river rounds, and the maintenance crews were floating by picking up water trash. River walk janitors also swept up any more trash on the path. The River Walk was spotless, much like a walkway at Disneyworld. Since the River walk is below street level, the area smelled moist, damp, and when the sun came up high enough, a mist rose from the water. The sunlight on the green foliage was the best part of the photography.
I like the River Walk not so much for the overpriced shops, but for the flora along the way. I saw what to me were giant-sized houseplants: rubber trees, magnolias, fig trees, palmetto and other palms, elephant plants, zebra plants, and African violets the size I've never seen before. Cypress trees along the River Walk (which started out years ago as a flooded, dirty irrigation ditch) shaded the river. The walk smelled like a walk through an encased planetarium. Early morning joggers sprinted by. Ducks of various species floated nearby, watching for hand-outs.
However, because of the pollution in the water, the water must constantly be treated. I noticed many hidden aerators to the water, coming out of hidden pipes along the walls. The Hyatt Hotel, which is located just off the official River Walk, sends highly chorinated water into the River Walk. The hotel smells of a damp hot swimming pool on the first floor. The water is greenish-grey. Most of the live oaks and cypresses along the river walks were planted here in 1939, the year ground-breaking work began on the project.
The tourists started coming out by 10am, mostly elderly tourist couples taking a quiet post-breakfast stroll. By then I had finished the river walk, and continued walking east toward the Alamo. I stopped in the compound again, briefly listening to the red-coated park ranger talk about the courage of the 186 outnumbered Texans defending the Alamo against Santa Anna's troops. The Alamo compound compared to the other missions I saw yesterday is so much smaller, but is much better maintained and due to fundings, also lush with native vegetation and a peaceful walk for locals and small children.
I went south toward the River Center (indoor mall) to the Torch of Friendship, which at night looks like an orange lollipop. From there I walked east on Congress toward the Market Square, passing the old Bexar County Courthouse, a red sandstone on Romanesque Revival style built in 1892, City Hall and its statue to Moses Austin, father of Stephen F Austin, and the old Spanish Governor’s House. This was an area I was at last night, but during the day the streets are livelier, the colors fuller, and there’s less mystery to what is behind the shadows.
I passed many more tourist shops all throughout the downtown area, but didn't stop in any of them. I was more interested in the outer architecture of the buildings and sidewalk art.
I noticed more homeless on this side of the River Walk, people of all backgrounds with all their belongings sitting on bus stop benches and either napping or chatting with other down-trodden people. I wonder where the shelters are? Are they perhaps near the city library, like they are in Dallas?
I like the area west of the River Walk, toward the Market Square. It was here in the 1890s that people would come and shop in the open air. Now the open air has been rplaced with more trendy buildings and made-in-China souvenirs, but I also walked past a duo of Equadorian pan flutists, a Mexican caricaturist, Mexican flauta vendors and a few other locals. The walk-through smelled enticingly of warm, sweet tortillas and my breakfast had long been walked off. I had been walking three hours now and needed to eat, but I didn’t want to eat in a touristy shop.
The Milam Park, where I walked through last night, was filled with homeless people sleeping on benches. It’s no wonder the playgrounds meant for little children stood by empty. But where where all the homeless last night when I came here? The tall statue of Colonel Benjamin Milam, a native Kentuckian who fought with the Mexicans in 1819 to gain their independence from Spain, stood prominently on the park's west side. Milam joined the Texas campaign in 1835 (which surely was a campaign for adventure-seeking frontiersmen like David Crockett as well), fought in the Goliad Campaign that same year, but a few months later was killed before the campaign could take off. Three pigeons perched on his out-stretched sword when I walked by, and their grey plumage blended so naturally with the statue that they looked like part of the original cast.
It was time to get moving, but not before I drove toward the King Wilhelm district, a once posh neighborhood of colonial homes built by German immigrants. This district is just south of the River Walk and accessible via St Mary's Street. Many of the homes looked badly neglected and ready to collapse from their termite-riddled homes. What I liked most about this neighborhood were the mature oak trees shading the wide streets.
The locals call this district the “King Willie” district. I figured this would be a nice place to find a good, cheap local eatery. And I was right. My first choice was Rosario’s, a large restaurant facing the main road at an angle. I looked at the menu and saw $9 enchiladas. I went on to the smaller eatery across the street, an old-looking, worn-down white wooden building, Tito’s Mexican Restaurant, and noticed the crowded tables inside. Crowded tables usually mean good food. I gave it a shot and was not disappointed.
Bottles of Mexican and domestic beers lined one wall of the eatery. Colorful Mexican paintings of flowered brunette beauties adorned another wall. Tables were closely to one another, but the customers came and went. I ordered a enchilada verde plate with a margarita and my server, “Joe Black” who looked more like a Jose Benitez but I wasn’t about to argue with him, was attentive and friendly. My bill was less than $13. This was a much better deal than the Blue Star brewpub, which in hindsight was mediocre at best and nothing compared to Lubbock’s Triple J.
I drove around the King Willie district, noticed a river walk and stopped once again to walk. This was the original river walk in the residential district, the southern terminus, where locals walked their dogs, their toddlers, or took a jaunt down the crepe-myrtle lined path. Ducks and cormorants idled along the shore. The female ducks were especially loud, quacking at each other. If the male ducks could roll their eyes in despair, I’m sure at this point they did.
One elderly man, who resembled Sigmund Freud and walked with a cane, briefly joined me on a stone bench where I was getting ready to set the camera, told me the river walk continued “for miles” through town, and that it started at the Blue Star Brewery where I was last night. “It’s at least another mile to the start” he said. That meant I had to check it out…and the walk only took me ten minutes. That’s a half mile for me.
Other families with young children strolled along this stretch feeding the mallards. A few Mexicans on the other side of the river fished with basic poles and waved at me. Why anyone would want to eat fish from the murky waters is beyond me. The river fish were found to contain high levels of bacteria (E. coli), according to the San Antonio River authority in a public news release last fall. And in 2003 tributary rivers flowing into the San Antonio river were found to have excess levels of Polychorinated Biphenyls (PCBs). The shallow river is so murky you can't even see the bottom in the walled portions of the River Walk.
South of the Blue Star Brewery the river turns wild and narrower. Cement walls no longer keep any flood waters in check. The Mission Trail will at one point in the future be connected to the river walk, adding another six miles to the city’s walk. I had developed a hot spot on my right foot, just below my big toe. I wore a t-shirt and jeans. The outside temperature was close to 70F.
A stop in New Braunfels was my next choice.
I drove backroads north through town, driving through the historic district of Monte Vista, a neighborhood that also was once a posh neighborhood of stone homes, wooden villas and hilltop mansions. The San Antonio skyline is visible from here. I passed more run-down homes next to elegant mansions, art shops and taquerias, organic tea rooms and used book stores. This would be worthy of another visit at another time. I passed the old San Antonio Academy, a private military school for boys founded in 1886 and located on a hilltop facing the skyline, and several historic churches of various denominations in this neighborhood.
I needed to get going though as it was passed 3pm and I wanted to see New Braunfels before sunset. I had to get back on I-35 north, via I-410 east. Braunfels is only 22 miles north of SA.
But here I was disappointed. New Braunfels was settled by Germans in the 1840s and twenty years later the county of Comal was 96% German. I expected the old Bauerndeutsch stone architecture to dominate, much like it does in nearby Boerne. What I saw instead as I drove into town were Spanish signs for cheap phone cards to call home in Mexico, more taquerias and gas stations selling gasoline for $2.76, the cheapest yet anywhere this year in Texas. When I stopped at the local Texaco station to tank up, all but one other person in the store was of European heritage. New Braunfels is going through an ethnic change.
I did find a few German buildings in town: the Henne Haus, the Freundschaftsbaum (a live oak) and a few other unique buildings built in the late 19th century. The best part of this town was not the small historic downtown, but the town’s festival grounds west of town on TX46, with an authentic Maibaum, Wurst und Biergarten, and an old German-style mill off the town’s Comal creek. Now that was German. The town hosts an annual Wurstfest in November, which certainly is the Wurst Festival in Texas, if not the country.
I’m glad I got a taste of New Braunfels, but I didn’t get a feel of its advertised “Gemuetlichkeit” the town likes to be famous for. Maybe that is because I wasn’t there for the Wurstfest or any of its other German-oriented festivals, and I definitely by-passed the overrated Schlitterbahn, a large waterpark outside of town.
Now I was officially on my way home, continuing on the hilly section of TX46, getting lost for 30 minutes in Spatzville when I thought a drive north to Canyon Lake would be a shortcut (It wasn’t), and reaching Marble Falls as the sun set over the Colorado River.
It was a lovely weekend, even if I never did touch base with my old high school friend. I will try one more time before I leave TX. Next weekend, if I have time, I will check out Fort Worth if I don't hear from Lynne. I want to see the cattle stockyards and the many dairy farms west of town.
I made it back to my small apartment at 8pm. My legs felt like they got a good work-out this weekend. I drove 348 miles and spent just over $100 for gas and meals, $45 which was for food and sodas . This gives me a good idea of what I could be facing next month when I start my Texas trip.
http://www.accd.edu/sac/english/mcquien/htmlfils/alamo.htm
http://www.riverwalkguide.com/attractions.asp
http://www.sanantoniocvb.com/things/attract.htm
http://www.sara-tx.org/site/water_quality.html
http://www.riverrec.org/current_conditions.php
http://www.lsjunction.com/people/milam.htm
http://www.montevista-sa.org/district.php
http://www.germany.info/relaunch/info/publications/infocus/german-americans/g-a_in_us.html
http://www.texasescapes.com/WTBlock/New-Braunfels-Texas-Pearl-of-Comal-Guadalupe-Valley.htm
Saturday, January 26, 2008
San Antonio's Mission Trail
I drove on to the Mission San Jose Visitor’s Center off Military Drive…or so I thought. I was actually a bit further south of the center and parked near the Espada Dam where locals were parked and fishing off the murky green San Antonio River, which at this point resembles more a creek than a river. I was clearly in the more industrialized part of SA.
The Mission Espada is the most southern of the four missions south of the Alamo, and I proceeded to walk south on the trail. This way I knew I was getting a few miles worth of walking in.
And boy did I walk. The Hike and Bike Trail along the little San Antonio River was barren; the few pecan trees along the creek didn’t provide any shade. But what bothered me more was all the trash along the trail, a trail built along a levy. Stone bridges along the trail were covered in graffiti. Recent rains carried the plastic trash high into the low-lying trees.
A sharp-skinned hawk gawked for attention high above me in a dead pecan tree. It didn’t seem to be bothered by my presence as most raptors are, and seemingly looked right at me to let me know it was in charge.
I asked a young Hispanic couple pushing a stroller if the next mission on the trail was the Espada. The man said it was, so I proceeded. He was wrong. It was the San Juan Capistrano mission, built here in 1731. By 1762 it had 203 Indians doing all the hard work in the mission, from the granary to the masonry and the textile shop. Remnants of the irrigation ditches just outside the mission (acequias in Spanish) still linger, as well as remnants of the living quarters near the mission. The church part is still used as a parish and a priest lives next door in a fully-acclimated stone building.
This mission has a short trail leading to the original San Antonio River (a creek, really), the Yanaguana Trail. This was where the original mission occupants went to fish and hunt. It’s now a paved trail with benches.
From Mission San Juan I hiked further south, along the trail, and watched several Great Blue Herons, a few Little egrets and an ibis, stand rock-solid still along the creek banks. I walked underneath the I-410/281 overpass. More locals were fishing in the creek here.
My next mission was the Mission San Francisco de la Espada, a rather small but interesting mission as most of its outer wall was still intact. It, too was built here in 1731, and the only mission along the trail where bricks and tiles were made. Right outside the compound were private cottages with rustic garden ornaments outside.
I couldn’t help but wonder what life was like for the Indians, the Coahuitecans. The National Park Service guide says the Natives “embraced Christianity” but I highly doubt that. The Catholic Church was always a culture of inhumane treatment toward all non-believers, especially believers who did not have white skin. I rather imagine the Natives accepting Christianity in order to survive, and to be allowed to eat that which they hunted and grew. They “embraced” the Catholic religion not because they wanted to, but because they had to.
In 1826 a band of Commanche raided the site, probably because they were pissed that their hunting grounds were being taken, and after that the mission fell apart. Some of the 2-foot thick walls of stone lean precariously to one side, but they still stand, reinforced by a coating of concrete to prevent any more cracking in its walls. The three-bell-tower is reinforced in the back by metal frames.
By now I was worried about my van parked near a fishing hole. One of the park rangers here did not console me at all when I told him where I was parked. Several signs in the parking lots warned of thieves breaking into cars, and a fear I had was of my valuables inside the van getting stolen, which today meant both laptops and all my clothes. The Mission Trail is prey to tourists, and despite my Texas license plates I felt like a tourist.
“The missions are at least five miles apart” said the ranger but I did not believe him. I had walked the “five miles” in just under 45 minutes coming here, which is more like 2 to 2.5 miles tops. (I WAS walking fast) I beat feet back to my van and made it back in 40 minutes, noticing the Great Blue Herons and Little Egrets still standing on their turf and staring out toward the creek. Did any of those birds move at all in the hour since I last walked passed them?
Much to my relief my van was fully intact and the parking lot full. An eldery woman in the pick-up next to me was sitting behind the driving wheel writing in a journal. “Is that your travel journal?” I asked her.
“No, just a spiritual journal.”
Really, what’s the difference?
I drove to the next mission north, Mission San Jose de Aguayo, the prettiest and biggest of the four on the trail. I am glad I drove to this site, as by now I was getting tired and thirsty and it had been close to three hours on my feet at a brisk pace.
The Mission San Jose resembles a Baroque-style limestone church, built first in 1768. About 350 Indians lived in the mission compound, in 84 two-room “apartments” lining the compound. This was the prettiest and best-preserved mission compound as well because of the Live Oaks within the compound, and the pretty flowers and shrubs along the sidewalks. Upkeep at this mission is very obvious. The walls to the old cemetery were still there, and old stone ovens outside the apartments were in very good shape. This was also the largest of the mission compounds, and for good reason. The parking lot was large enough and safe enough to leave a vehicle unattended for a few hours.
I did my best photography here today, as the sun was lower in the sky and it cast pleasing shadows over the round arches of the mission.
This was also the most visited of the four missions. The parking lot was full. A Park ranger led a group through the main building and talked about life back in the days of the live mission. Even he told the visitors that converted Indians were safe within the mission walls…as long as they obeyed the Friars and paid heavily to the Catholic Church. (That part rarely makes it into history books).
In 1824 the mission was turned over to Chaplain Maynes and the mission Indians living there. In the 100 years that the mission was an active mission, over 2000 Indians were baptized, and most likely to save their lives from the raiding Lipan Apaches. I can’t imagine life for the Natives being very easy.
San Antonio is growing too fast for its own good. Just outside the mission compound is a Citgo Gas Station and several other modern-world conveniences. Vehicles speed by the mission. Private homes (most in disrepair) line the roads. I drove to the next mission north, the Mission Nuestra Senora de la Purisma Concepcion, which was right up to even more squalid homes and blaring traffic. Architecture resembling the early 20th century took over as I drove toward downtown.
A wedding party was finishing up its photo-ops outside the chapel. The bridesmaids and helpers were all dressed in black. What a pretty place to hold a wedding. Several young children, no more than four years old, ran around the compound in they wedding finest. A school next door, built a good 100 years after the mission was built, stood next door.
I chatted with an elderly volunteer here, a Maggie Pelley, who originally hails from Minnesota, but moved to Wisconsin and was raised in Illinois. She’s here in Texas as a “Winter Texan” which means in the summer she moves back north in her RV with her husband. A small, round woman of about 60, she was very imformed of the history here, especially what concerned the Spanish influence here in the 18th century.
Maggie travels the southern states with her husband during the year, but comes to this part of Texas every winter. She knows her history.
“San Antonio is growing to its north and its west” she said. And she’s not pleased with the people in North San Antonio, the snobs in the suburbs that don’t even greet you when you walk down the street. “Here in south San Antonio you have the culture” and I have to agree with that.
But with the culture you also have the run-down Barrios with the trashy streets and bordered-up homes covered in graffiti. It’s not a place I’d want to stay at after dark.
I had to wonder as I left this mission, what would have happened if, in the early 1800s, this part of the continent had been taken by the French instead of the Spaniards? The French were more hospitable toward the Indians, as most were Huguenots and not Catholic. They embraced the local customs much better than the Spaniards. They preferred sleeping with the Natives instead of converting or killing them. Texans would have been under the French system and perhaps the history that followed would not have been so brutal. It’s certainly something to ponder these days.
Maggie gave me a city map that pointed me directly to the Blue Star Brewery, a brewpub I located on the internet a few days ago and my planned place to eat afterwards. I was hungry and thirsting for a good beer.
Maggie was right about San Antonio: it’s overgrown and in many places very seedy, and the Mission Trail is in a seedy neighborhood, with graffiti-stained houses and abandoned buildings. The Blue Star Brewery (1414 S Alamo; 210-212-5506) lays at the edge of the seedy barrio and right off South Alamo Road, along the canaled San Antonio river and an upscale neighborhood with lighted colonial porches. A cypress full of egrets and cormorants hung over the river’s banks.
I went inside and found a table next to an electric outlet in a corner and immediately began to write today’s events. Service was slow, but once I was waited on, got good service with three different beers (the House Golden, Pale and Stout, of which the Golden was my favorite) and a very satisfying grilled chicken sandwich and fries.
I stayed here almost two hours, way past sunset. My server, Drew, a hefty short young man with a tightly-cropped beard, was busy with tables upstairs and downstairs. I didn’t bother him much as I was busy writing today’s notes down. My bill, which contained three beers and a sandwich, came to $19.56.
The brewpub went from quiet to loud, as locals dressed in nice casual clothes strolled in for artichoke dip and what-not. I wore a red t-shirt with “I hiked the Grand Canyon 1996” and a torn set of jeans that I tore just today as I tripped over a metal wire while maneuvering the trail.
The brewpub is co-located with a bike shop. Bikes of various types, mostly of the Townie brand, hung from the two-floor building, next to the beer flasks. An artshop was next door. The arrangement was certainly nouveau. A college basketball game aired from the flatscreen TV, yet I was more interested in who won the South Carolina Democratic primary. Was it Clinton or Obama? CNN said it would be Obama. At 7pm I still had no clue…
I didn't know for another hour, driving down the neon-lighted streets of SA, filled with car dealerships, auto parts and car rental agencies. Senator Obama won more tha twice as many votes as Senator Clinton, with Senator Edwards barely making the third place. South Carolina is his home state; coming so far behind surely must be defeating.
I drove north on Padre Avenue, not sure where I was at this point. I passed the Market Quarry with its upscale strip malls and the bike cops who did a good job patrolling the dark streets of the city.
At 9:30pm, still not ready to sleep for the night, I went back downtown. I parked near Market Square, where people were dancing outside to a live Salsa band. Then I walked the Riverwalk and to see some of the sites at night. There is so much to see, up and down Congress and Donderosa Ave. There were plenty of cops on bikes and pedestrians walking to and fro; I felt safe.
By 11pm things started to calm down. Back at the van, I noticed the music had stopped and the dancers had gone home. It was now time to find a place for the night.
The Mission Espada is the most southern of the four missions south of the Alamo, and I proceeded to walk south on the trail. This way I knew I was getting a few miles worth of walking in.
And boy did I walk. The Hike and Bike Trail along the little San Antonio River was barren; the few pecan trees along the creek didn’t provide any shade. But what bothered me more was all the trash along the trail, a trail built along a levy. Stone bridges along the trail were covered in graffiti. Recent rains carried the plastic trash high into the low-lying trees.
A sharp-skinned hawk gawked for attention high above me in a dead pecan tree. It didn’t seem to be bothered by my presence as most raptors are, and seemingly looked right at me to let me know it was in charge.
I asked a young Hispanic couple pushing a stroller if the next mission on the trail was the Espada. The man said it was, so I proceeded. He was wrong. It was the San Juan Capistrano mission, built here in 1731. By 1762 it had 203 Indians doing all the hard work in the mission, from the granary to the masonry and the textile shop. Remnants of the irrigation ditches just outside the mission (acequias in Spanish) still linger, as well as remnants of the living quarters near the mission. The church part is still used as a parish and a priest lives next door in a fully-acclimated stone building.
This mission has a short trail leading to the original San Antonio River (a creek, really), the Yanaguana Trail. This was where the original mission occupants went to fish and hunt. It’s now a paved trail with benches.
From Mission San Juan I hiked further south, along the trail, and watched several Great Blue Herons, a few Little egrets and an ibis, stand rock-solid still along the creek banks. I walked underneath the I-410/281 overpass. More locals were fishing in the creek here.
My next mission was the Mission San Francisco de la Espada, a rather small but interesting mission as most of its outer wall was still intact. It, too was built here in 1731, and the only mission along the trail where bricks and tiles were made. Right outside the compound were private cottages with rustic garden ornaments outside.
I couldn’t help but wonder what life was like for the Indians, the Coahuitecans. The National Park Service guide says the Natives “embraced Christianity” but I highly doubt that. The Catholic Church was always a culture of inhumane treatment toward all non-believers, especially believers who did not have white skin. I rather imagine the Natives accepting Christianity in order to survive, and to be allowed to eat that which they hunted and grew. They “embraced” the Catholic religion not because they wanted to, but because they had to.
In 1826 a band of Commanche raided the site, probably because they were pissed that their hunting grounds were being taken, and after that the mission fell apart. Some of the 2-foot thick walls of stone lean precariously to one side, but they still stand, reinforced by a coating of concrete to prevent any more cracking in its walls. The three-bell-tower is reinforced in the back by metal frames.
By now I was worried about my van parked near a fishing hole. One of the park rangers here did not console me at all when I told him where I was parked. Several signs in the parking lots warned of thieves breaking into cars, and a fear I had was of my valuables inside the van getting stolen, which today meant both laptops and all my clothes. The Mission Trail is prey to tourists, and despite my Texas license plates I felt like a tourist.
“The missions are at least five miles apart” said the ranger but I did not believe him. I had walked the “five miles” in just under 45 minutes coming here, which is more like 2 to 2.5 miles tops. (I WAS walking fast) I beat feet back to my van and made it back in 40 minutes, noticing the Great Blue Herons and Little Egrets still standing on their turf and staring out toward the creek. Did any of those birds move at all in the hour since I last walked passed them?
Much to my relief my van was fully intact and the parking lot full. An eldery woman in the pick-up next to me was sitting behind the driving wheel writing in a journal. “Is that your travel journal?” I asked her.
“No, just a spiritual journal.”
Really, what’s the difference?
I drove to the next mission north, Mission San Jose de Aguayo, the prettiest and biggest of the four on the trail. I am glad I drove to this site, as by now I was getting tired and thirsty and it had been close to three hours on my feet at a brisk pace.
The Mission San Jose resembles a Baroque-style limestone church, built first in 1768. About 350 Indians lived in the mission compound, in 84 two-room “apartments” lining the compound. This was the prettiest and best-preserved mission compound as well because of the Live Oaks within the compound, and the pretty flowers and shrubs along the sidewalks. Upkeep at this mission is very obvious. The walls to the old cemetery were still there, and old stone ovens outside the apartments were in very good shape. This was also the largest of the mission compounds, and for good reason. The parking lot was large enough and safe enough to leave a vehicle unattended for a few hours.
I did my best photography here today, as the sun was lower in the sky and it cast pleasing shadows over the round arches of the mission.
This was also the most visited of the four missions. The parking lot was full. A Park ranger led a group through the main building and talked about life back in the days of the live mission. Even he told the visitors that converted Indians were safe within the mission walls…as long as they obeyed the Friars and paid heavily to the Catholic Church. (That part rarely makes it into history books).
In 1824 the mission was turned over to Chaplain Maynes and the mission Indians living there. In the 100 years that the mission was an active mission, over 2000 Indians were baptized, and most likely to save their lives from the raiding Lipan Apaches. I can’t imagine life for the Natives being very easy.
San Antonio is growing too fast for its own good. Just outside the mission compound is a Citgo Gas Station and several other modern-world conveniences. Vehicles speed by the mission. Private homes (most in disrepair) line the roads. I drove to the next mission north, the Mission Nuestra Senora de la Purisma Concepcion, which was right up to even more squalid homes and blaring traffic. Architecture resembling the early 20th century took over as I drove toward downtown.
A wedding party was finishing up its photo-ops outside the chapel. The bridesmaids and helpers were all dressed in black. What a pretty place to hold a wedding. Several young children, no more than four years old, ran around the compound in they wedding finest. A school next door, built a good 100 years after the mission was built, stood next door.
I chatted with an elderly volunteer here, a Maggie Pelley, who originally hails from Minnesota, but moved to Wisconsin and was raised in Illinois. She’s here in Texas as a “Winter Texan” which means in the summer she moves back north in her RV with her husband. A small, round woman of about 60, she was very imformed of the history here, especially what concerned the Spanish influence here in the 18th century.
Maggie travels the southern states with her husband during the year, but comes to this part of Texas every winter. She knows her history.
“San Antonio is growing to its north and its west” she said. And she’s not pleased with the people in North San Antonio, the snobs in the suburbs that don’t even greet you when you walk down the street. “Here in south San Antonio you have the culture” and I have to agree with that.
But with the culture you also have the run-down Barrios with the trashy streets and bordered-up homes covered in graffiti. It’s not a place I’d want to stay at after dark.
I had to wonder as I left this mission, what would have happened if, in the early 1800s, this part of the continent had been taken by the French instead of the Spaniards? The French were more hospitable toward the Indians, as most were Huguenots and not Catholic. They embraced the local customs much better than the Spaniards. They preferred sleeping with the Natives instead of converting or killing them. Texans would have been under the French system and perhaps the history that followed would not have been so brutal. It’s certainly something to ponder these days.
Maggie gave me a city map that pointed me directly to the Blue Star Brewery, a brewpub I located on the internet a few days ago and my planned place to eat afterwards. I was hungry and thirsting for a good beer.
Maggie was right about San Antonio: it’s overgrown and in many places very seedy, and the Mission Trail is in a seedy neighborhood, with graffiti-stained houses and abandoned buildings. The Blue Star Brewery (1414 S Alamo; 210-212-5506) lays at the edge of the seedy barrio and right off South Alamo Road, along the canaled San Antonio river and an upscale neighborhood with lighted colonial porches. A cypress full of egrets and cormorants hung over the river’s banks.
I went inside and found a table next to an electric outlet in a corner and immediately began to write today’s events. Service was slow, but once I was waited on, got good service with three different beers (the House Golden, Pale and Stout, of which the Golden was my favorite) and a very satisfying grilled chicken sandwich and fries.
I stayed here almost two hours, way past sunset. My server, Drew, a hefty short young man with a tightly-cropped beard, was busy with tables upstairs and downstairs. I didn’t bother him much as I was busy writing today’s notes down. My bill, which contained three beers and a sandwich, came to $19.56.
The brewpub went from quiet to loud, as locals dressed in nice casual clothes strolled in for artichoke dip and what-not. I wore a red t-shirt with “I hiked the Grand Canyon 1996” and a torn set of jeans that I tore just today as I tripped over a metal wire while maneuvering the trail.
The brewpub is co-located with a bike shop. Bikes of various types, mostly of the Townie brand, hung from the two-floor building, next to the beer flasks. An artshop was next door. The arrangement was certainly nouveau. A college basketball game aired from the flatscreen TV, yet I was more interested in who won the South Carolina Democratic primary. Was it Clinton or Obama? CNN said it would be Obama. At 7pm I still had no clue…
I didn't know for another hour, driving down the neon-lighted streets of SA, filled with car dealerships, auto parts and car rental agencies. Senator Obama won more tha twice as many votes as Senator Clinton, with Senator Edwards barely making the third place. South Carolina is his home state; coming so far behind surely must be defeating.
I drove north on Padre Avenue, not sure where I was at this point. I passed the Market Quarry with its upscale strip malls and the bike cops who did a good job patrolling the dark streets of the city.
At 9:30pm, still not ready to sleep for the night, I went back downtown. I parked near Market Square, where people were dancing outside to a live Salsa band. Then I walked the Riverwalk and to see some of the sites at night. There is so much to see, up and down Congress and Donderosa Ave. There were plenty of cops on bikes and pedestrians walking to and fro; I felt safe.
By 11pm things started to calm down. Back at the van, I noticed the music had stopped and the dancers had gone home. It was now time to find a place for the night.
Highway 281 to San Antonio
I was lazy this morning and didn’t get up to shower until after the 6:30am showing of “Texas Country Reporter” with Bob Phillips, was over. He profiles several Texans across the state every week, and this week he profiled a man in Kerrville who collects toasters, a man in Memphis (in the Panhandle) who plays the blues, and a group of blind birders in Weslaco who walk along a nature preserve near the Rio Grande to listen to the birds.
I didn’t even pack up my things until passed the 7:30am Today show had started. Why rush when it was still in the mid 30s? Today’s big news were the primaries in Florida and South Carolina.
But the cold didn’t last long. I left the apartment at 9:10am and only drove a few feet before realizing that I had forgotten my camera charger in the outlet upstairs. Normally I remember such crucial things when I’m halfway across town.
I drove toward Highway 281 southwest via FM963, passing through the stone village of Oakalla along a limestone creek with pretty mortars and water holes. Oakalla has a few historical stone buildings from the 19th century that are now empty.
In an hour I passed through Burnet, then the familiar towns of Marble Falls, Johnson City, Blanco, driving through the rolling pastures of western Hill Country. A few adult deer lie dead off the shoulders.
I passed the familiar turn off on TX46 West to Boerne, driving past fields of goats and sheep and clearly now in Texas Hill Country and the German influence. In two hours or 120 miles I reached the northern end of San Antonio and its expanding new developments around Quarry Market. Traffic was backed up at all the strip mall lights and the outside temperature was 61F, warm enough to turn off the heat and roll down the window.
Highway 281 goes right through downtown SA, where directional signs to the Alamo are clearly posted. I was hungry and looking for a place to grab a quick bite to eat, but in SA that is a bad mistake, as all the eateries around the Alamo are touristy and overpriced. I quickly meandered around the downtown, followed a detour that was the result of a market in the area, and made it back on Hwy 281 to the correct turnoff for the San Jose mission.
Here again I was faced with more stop-and-go traffic because the westbound exit was closed for repairs and the detour took me around back-up traffic moving into the city. This was the perfect excuse to stop at a JackInTheBox for a quick lunch.
I didn’t even pack up my things until passed the 7:30am Today show had started. Why rush when it was still in the mid 30s? Today’s big news were the primaries in Florida and South Carolina.
But the cold didn’t last long. I left the apartment at 9:10am and only drove a few feet before realizing that I had forgotten my camera charger in the outlet upstairs. Normally I remember such crucial things when I’m halfway across town.
I drove toward Highway 281 southwest via FM963, passing through the stone village of Oakalla along a limestone creek with pretty mortars and water holes. Oakalla has a few historical stone buildings from the 19th century that are now empty.
In an hour I passed through Burnet, then the familiar towns of Marble Falls, Johnson City, Blanco, driving through the rolling pastures of western Hill Country. A few adult deer lie dead off the shoulders.
I passed the familiar turn off on TX46 West to Boerne, driving past fields of goats and sheep and clearly now in Texas Hill Country and the German influence. In two hours or 120 miles I reached the northern end of San Antonio and its expanding new developments around Quarry Market. Traffic was backed up at all the strip mall lights and the outside temperature was 61F, warm enough to turn off the heat and roll down the window.
Highway 281 goes right through downtown SA, where directional signs to the Alamo are clearly posted. I was hungry and looking for a place to grab a quick bite to eat, but in SA that is a bad mistake, as all the eateries around the Alamo are touristy and overpriced. I quickly meandered around the downtown, followed a detour that was the result of a market in the area, and made it back on Hwy 281 to the correct turnoff for the San Jose mission.
Here again I was faced with more stop-and-go traffic because the westbound exit was closed for repairs and the detour took me around back-up traffic moving into the city. This was the perfect excuse to stop at a JackInTheBox for a quick lunch.
Friday, January 25, 2008
San Antonio or somewhere north?
Yesterday I wanted to hit the Mission City to run a 25k run north of town, then tour the Missions along the San Antonio River. All that was before my big muscle spasm this morning, one of the most painful surges of hot neuronic activity I ever felt surge up and down my spinal cord. I went to see the doctor who prescribed Celebrex and two muscle relaxants and told me to lay off the long runs for a few weeks.
So...if I still go down to San Anton it will be to walk the eight-mile mission trail, although I've read on a few forums that parts of that trail go through "low economic neighborhoods" which is a euphemism for lower-class, run-down gang-banging slums.
I have an old high school friend who lives in town, and I need to contact her to see if I can arrange a get-together. I know it's all last minute, and if we can't get together I may just plan a trip to Fort Worth and the Stock Yards, one of the other Top Ten historic sites every Texan should see.
It's already 8:20pm and I still don't know where I am going tomorrow at sunrise. Weather is supposed to be in the upper 60s by tomorrow afternoon, and the mini heat wave should last through Tuesday.
Highway 281, either north or south, apparently is in my plans regardless of which compass direction I travel tomorrow, and either route will be delightful.
So...if I still go down to San Anton it will be to walk the eight-mile mission trail, although I've read on a few forums that parts of that trail go through "low economic neighborhoods" which is a euphemism for lower-class, run-down gang-banging slums.
I have an old high school friend who lives in town, and I need to contact her to see if I can arrange a get-together. I know it's all last minute, and if we can't get together I may just plan a trip to Fort Worth and the Stock Yards, one of the other Top Ten historic sites every Texan should see.
It's already 8:20pm and I still don't know where I am going tomorrow at sunrise. Weather is supposed to be in the upper 60s by tomorrow afternoon, and the mini heat wave should last through Tuesday.
Highway 281, either north or south, apparently is in my plans regardless of which compass direction I travel tomorrow, and either route will be delightful.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Bataan Memorial Death March Marathon
OK, I did it. I registered for the full 26.2 mile Bataan Death March Marathon at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico 30 March 2008. I've been wanting to do this for several years now but health and then a long military deployment kept me from doing so the last three years.
Now I have no more reasons to delay this event. I feel the urge, the NEED to do this for all the veterans who have gone before me, and who have made many more sacrifices than I.
What an honor to be able to walk with some of the surviving veterans of the Bataan Death March. I've read on marathonguide.com that runners and walkers who completed this event leave this event teary-eyed. There is a good reason for that.
http://www.bataanmarch.com/
http://www.marathonguide.com/races/racedetails.cfm?MIDD=1604080330
Now I have no more reasons to delay this event. I feel the urge, the NEED to do this for all the veterans who have gone before me, and who have made many more sacrifices than I.
What an honor to be able to walk with some of the surviving veterans of the Bataan Death March. I've read on marathonguide.com that runners and walkers who completed this event leave this event teary-eyed. There is a good reason for that.
http://www.bataanmarch.com/
http://www.marathonguide.com/races/racedetails.cfm?MIDD=1604080330
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Leaving Lubbock
After packing up the van and drinking two cups of coffee, I was off at 6:30am. Or so I thought. The very last thing I did was grab my cell phone from the back of the van...and it wasn't where I thought it was. I went back inside the house to look around, I went back to the van to look around (always a chore!) and couldn't find it. I was losing time now, as it was already past 6:30am, past the comfortable time limit to make it back to Cove in a reasonable time.
I almost panicked, but in the end I found the phone in the van, in the corner of the right sliding door. It must have fallen there as papers were hiding the black little device. Whew. I was finally on my way, at 6:57am, with temperatures in the mid 20s and a thick fog covering the roads.
I made it out of Lubbock with no hassles, gassed up for $2.79/gallon at the Chisom Rest stop on US84, and headed south. I had planned on driving US84 to I-20, but then 40 miles later, in Garza County, I drove through the pretty prairie town of Post (elev 2605'; pop: 3817) and its old facades. This town is known for its Old Mill Trade Days which is held the first weekend of every month.
I stopped only to photograph the old movie theatre, and took a left (east) on US380. Desolation was the first thing that came to mind, as if I left civilization when I got off US84. Oil pump jacks, cattle ranches lined with rusty barbed wire and golden, rolling prairies passed me by.
It was too early to take it easy and I had a good six hours left of driving, but I did try to stop to read the historical markers along the route. This part of US380 is the Texas Plains Trail but the section was more hilly and scenic than just Plain. Even the fog gave an aura of mysticism. It's hard to imagine that this area in the 1870s was raft with Indian wars, between Union Troops and the Comanche. If only the old buildings standing could still talk!
There were a few abandoned towns along the way that made me stop to photograph the ruins. One town that quickly caught my eye was Clairemont, an old oil town just west of Jayton in Kent County. No posted town name identified the remains, but four buildings at a T-intersection with TX7 stood abandoned: the old Kent County courthouse, the jail (the iron bars were still on the first floor's windows), a general store and an old post office. The courthouse and jail were first built in 1895. A fire in 1955 destroyed the courthouse.
http://texasescapes.com/TexasGhostTowns/Clairemont-Texas.htm
A long-standing drought eventually claimed this small town. Most residents now live in Jaynton due to more water. The nearby Salt Fork river lived up to its name: it was too salty for consumption and the water ran dry. By the 1950s a serious drought made any remaining residents leave for wetter pastures.
There were a few more such dead or dying small towns along this route. But once again, where were the people? I saw no one in the streets, in the yards. All I saw were Angus cattle chewing their cud or horses grazing, lazily turning their heads to glance at passers-by.
Every town was worthy of a few photographs, whether it was due to the old buildings, the rustic old vehicles in the yards, the 1930s theatres off the town square, or old gas station with old pumps. There weren't so many historical markers here but I took my time reading things, taking pictures. Some of the smaller towns had post offices no bigger than a train wagon. Most homes were wooden and peeling paint, or had yards littered with old farm junk. I didn't see one diner or cafe along this route.
US180 was part of the southern route of the old Butterfield Trail. It rode through this part of Texas. The Salt Fork of the Brazos River and two other offshoots of the Brazos/ Red River also meandered through this gently rolling terrain, banked by red cliffs of sandstone and cottonwoods. I could see the river's bottom. This river is known for its Class II and III white waters, but what I saw looked rather tame. Further north and the river is tamer coming out of the Caprock escarpments. It runs 175 miles through mostly quaint and sparsely-populated lands.
I passed the towns of Aspemont in Stonewall County, a small town of around 900 at 1781', then turned right (southwest) on TX283 toward Stamford (elev 1614', pop 3374) and its pretty metallic large-scale figures of a dinosaur, dragonfly, centipede and a fly, all made from rusty car and engine parts. Talk about Roadside curiosities! These weren't in any of the books I checked out but they were worthy of a stop. I was slowly leaving the Texas Plains as the elevation descended into gently rolling hills.
The counties in the Texas Panhandle are all gridded and rectangular. I wasn't going to drive into an oddly-shaped county until I was south of I-20.
I continued on TX280 to US 180, which here turned into the Texas Fort Trail, driving now eastward into Albany (elev: 1414', pop: 1922) with more rustic buildings. This town was large enough for several touristy restaurants, although it wasn't nearly as scenic as I thought it would be. I was clearly no longer in the Great Plains as the hills of North Texas came to view and more decidious trees popped up along property lines.
I crossed the Hubbard Creek Reservior where the fog floated over the water, driving eastward in Stephens County into Breckenridge (elev: 1204'; pop: 5676) . This town was the largest I had been through since Lubbock but I was losing time now. Its limestone buildings stood tall against the town's center hill. There were actually people walking on the sidewalks. People!
At Metal Gap I turned southward on TX16, a road that looked more like it belonged in Texas Hill Country. Who said Texas was flat? Outside of the Plains that I had recently left behind me, the rest of the land that I sped over was gently rolling...and foggy. This road had wide shoulders and a speed limit of 70mph.
But it wouldn't warm up. My van's temperature read an outside as 26F, and ice that was on my windshield's corners was still stuck to the edges, refusing to let go.
I crossed I-20 at 11:40am, a good hour later than I thought. I was afraid I was going to be late for my dental appointment at 2pm. Or was it 2:30pm? At either rate ny now I knew that had I taken the more direct route of US84, I would have been home within 6.5 hours. The tall oaks and junirper-lined hills made this drive especially pretty.
If I had had more time I would have stayed on TX16 until reaching Comanche and then taking my time toward Cove, but I knew I had to push it. Any time idling in Stephenville was cancelled, as I idled long enough at its lights in town. Stephenville (elev: 1273; pop: 15216) was hillier and prettier and larger than I thought, with major roads crossing through it at every traffic light.
By now I was getting restless. My last major road to get on, US283, seemed to take forever in that traffic, and once I got on that road I pushed 80mph most of the way, surely making the farmers and ranchers in their slow-moving full-sized pick-ups nervous getting right behind them before they moved over to let me pass. If I had gotten pulled over for speeding any time I gained would have been lost.
I listened to my SatRadio and the daily news, with its repeated scares of stocks tumbling on the European market, the Fed rate getting slashed 3/4 of a point (when was the last time THAT happened?), terrorist Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang banger, got 17 years in the slammer, another suicide bomber in Baquba kills Iraqi students, and nominations for this year's Oscars (Atonement, No Country for Old Men, There will be Blood, Charlie Wilson's War and the respective actors in them). Most of the movies I didn't even see this time.
I drove through the small town of Hico in Hamilton County (elev 1027; pop: 1345), and I was taken by a "Billy the Kid" Museum. What was the Kid doing here? Hico has adopted Brushy Billy (William Morrison), an imposter of the real Kid burried further east, as his town and thus markets the connection to tourists. The local town legend is that the real Kid never was killed, but that he died on his way to the town's post office of a heart attack. Hico also sponsors the annual Old Settlers Reunion.
In the last minute I turned east on US84 from Hamilton, gassed up enough to make it another 100 miles (at $2.93 at the town's Fina station) toward Gatesville, then down FM116 into Copperas Cove, then skirted town to get on post. Just before I made it to the west gate I grabbed some mouth wash to rinse out my morning mouth, then spit it out just before reaching the gate. That's when I realized --Shit, the guard may think I'm rinsing my mouth to hide alcohol!-- He looked at me with a sour look but perhaps that was more because I was speeding at 20mph toward the gate rather than the 10mph posted limit. He let me in without scolding me.
A few more annoying red lights and subsequent screams of frustration and I made it to the dental clinic at 2:05pm, wearing the slightly dirty hiking clothes from yesterday and not looking all that fresh. (I looked tired and overslept!)
And to my relief I discovered that my appointment was at 2:30pm and not 2pm, which gave me just enough time to finally use the bathroom; I had been holding it in since just before Jaynton.
I wish I could have taken more time to enjoy the scenery along the route I had taken. It was 70 miles longer than my trip up to Lubbock, which is why in the end I had to beat feet those last two hours. The route took me through some pretty towns and diverse terrain, pass Ghost towns, oil pumps and oil towns, historical stagecoach routes, red sandy creeks, cowboy towns, hill towns, legendary towns. And all that without ever leaving Texas!
But naturally I would have preferred more time to really absorb all these communities. I would have broken this trip into two days and stayed in Breckenbridge for the night. That would have been a nice town to walk around and meet some locals, but alas that didn't happen this time.
Texas really is such a pretty state, and no doubt it's a state of mind.
I almost panicked, but in the end I found the phone in the van, in the corner of the right sliding door. It must have fallen there as papers were hiding the black little device. Whew. I was finally on my way, at 6:57am, with temperatures in the mid 20s and a thick fog covering the roads.
I made it out of Lubbock with no hassles, gassed up for $2.79/gallon at the Chisom Rest stop on US84, and headed south. I had planned on driving US84 to I-20, but then 40 miles later, in Garza County, I drove through the pretty prairie town of Post (elev 2605'; pop: 3817) and its old facades. This town is known for its Old Mill Trade Days which is held the first weekend of every month.
I stopped only to photograph the old movie theatre, and took a left (east) on US380. Desolation was the first thing that came to mind, as if I left civilization when I got off US84. Oil pump jacks, cattle ranches lined with rusty barbed wire and golden, rolling prairies passed me by.
It was too early to take it easy and I had a good six hours left of driving, but I did try to stop to read the historical markers along the route. This part of US380 is the Texas Plains Trail but the section was more hilly and scenic than just Plain. Even the fog gave an aura of mysticism. It's hard to imagine that this area in the 1870s was raft with Indian wars, between Union Troops and the Comanche. If only the old buildings standing could still talk!
There were a few abandoned towns along the way that made me stop to photograph the ruins. One town that quickly caught my eye was Clairemont, an old oil town just west of Jayton in Kent County. No posted town name identified the remains, but four buildings at a T-intersection with TX7 stood abandoned: the old Kent County courthouse, the jail (the iron bars were still on the first floor's windows), a general store and an old post office. The courthouse and jail were first built in 1895. A fire in 1955 destroyed the courthouse.
http://texasescapes.com/TexasGhostTowns/Clairemont-Texas.htm
A long-standing drought eventually claimed this small town. Most residents now live in Jaynton due to more water. The nearby Salt Fork river lived up to its name: it was too salty for consumption and the water ran dry. By the 1950s a serious drought made any remaining residents leave for wetter pastures.
There were a few more such dead or dying small towns along this route. But once again, where were the people? I saw no one in the streets, in the yards. All I saw were Angus cattle chewing their cud or horses grazing, lazily turning their heads to glance at passers-by.
Every town was worthy of a few photographs, whether it was due to the old buildings, the rustic old vehicles in the yards, the 1930s theatres off the town square, or old gas station with old pumps. There weren't so many historical markers here but I took my time reading things, taking pictures. Some of the smaller towns had post offices no bigger than a train wagon. Most homes were wooden and peeling paint, or had yards littered with old farm junk. I didn't see one diner or cafe along this route.
US180 was part of the southern route of the old Butterfield Trail. It rode through this part of Texas. The Salt Fork of the Brazos River and two other offshoots of the Brazos/ Red River also meandered through this gently rolling terrain, banked by red cliffs of sandstone and cottonwoods. I could see the river's bottom. This river is known for its Class II and III white waters, but what I saw looked rather tame. Further north and the river is tamer coming out of the Caprock escarpments. It runs 175 miles through mostly quaint and sparsely-populated lands.
I passed the towns of Aspemont in Stonewall County, a small town of around 900 at 1781', then turned right (southwest) on TX283 toward Stamford (elev 1614', pop 3374) and its pretty metallic large-scale figures of a dinosaur, dragonfly, centipede and a fly, all made from rusty car and engine parts. Talk about Roadside curiosities! These weren't in any of the books I checked out but they were worthy of a stop. I was slowly leaving the Texas Plains as the elevation descended into gently rolling hills.
The counties in the Texas Panhandle are all gridded and rectangular. I wasn't going to drive into an oddly-shaped county until I was south of I-20.
I continued on TX280 to US 180, which here turned into the Texas Fort Trail, driving now eastward into Albany (elev: 1414', pop: 1922) with more rustic buildings. This town was large enough for several touristy restaurants, although it wasn't nearly as scenic as I thought it would be. I was clearly no longer in the Great Plains as the hills of North Texas came to view and more decidious trees popped up along property lines.
I crossed the Hubbard Creek Reservior where the fog floated over the water, driving eastward in Stephens County into Breckenridge (elev: 1204'; pop: 5676) . This town was the largest I had been through since Lubbock but I was losing time now. Its limestone buildings stood tall against the town's center hill. There were actually people walking on the sidewalks. People!
At Metal Gap I turned southward on TX16, a road that looked more like it belonged in Texas Hill Country. Who said Texas was flat? Outside of the Plains that I had recently left behind me, the rest of the land that I sped over was gently rolling...and foggy. This road had wide shoulders and a speed limit of 70mph.
But it wouldn't warm up. My van's temperature read an outside as 26F, and ice that was on my windshield's corners was still stuck to the edges, refusing to let go.
I crossed I-20 at 11:40am, a good hour later than I thought. I was afraid I was going to be late for my dental appointment at 2pm. Or was it 2:30pm? At either rate ny now I knew that had I taken the more direct route of US84, I would have been home within 6.5 hours. The tall oaks and junirper-lined hills made this drive especially pretty.
If I had had more time I would have stayed on TX16 until reaching Comanche and then taking my time toward Cove, but I knew I had to push it. Any time idling in Stephenville was cancelled, as I idled long enough at its lights in town. Stephenville (elev: 1273; pop: 15216) was hillier and prettier and larger than I thought, with major roads crossing through it at every traffic light.
By now I was getting restless. My last major road to get on, US283, seemed to take forever in that traffic, and once I got on that road I pushed 80mph most of the way, surely making the farmers and ranchers in their slow-moving full-sized pick-ups nervous getting right behind them before they moved over to let me pass. If I had gotten pulled over for speeding any time I gained would have been lost.
I listened to my SatRadio and the daily news, with its repeated scares of stocks tumbling on the European market, the Fed rate getting slashed 3/4 of a point (when was the last time THAT happened?), terrorist Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang banger, got 17 years in the slammer, another suicide bomber in Baquba kills Iraqi students, and nominations for this year's Oscars (Atonement, No Country for Old Men, There will be Blood, Charlie Wilson's War and the respective actors in them). Most of the movies I didn't even see this time.
I drove through the small town of Hico in Hamilton County (elev 1027; pop: 1345), and I was taken by a "Billy the Kid" Museum. What was the Kid doing here? Hico has adopted Brushy Billy (William Morrison), an imposter of the real Kid burried further east, as his town and thus markets the connection to tourists. The local town legend is that the real Kid never was killed, but that he died on his way to the town's post office of a heart attack. Hico also sponsors the annual Old Settlers Reunion.
In the last minute I turned east on US84 from Hamilton, gassed up enough to make it another 100 miles (at $2.93 at the town's Fina station) toward Gatesville, then down FM116 into Copperas Cove, then skirted town to get on post. Just before I made it to the west gate I grabbed some mouth wash to rinse out my morning mouth, then spit it out just before reaching the gate. That's when I realized --Shit, the guard may think I'm rinsing my mouth to hide alcohol!-- He looked at me with a sour look but perhaps that was more because I was speeding at 20mph toward the gate rather than the 10mph posted limit. He let me in without scolding me.
A few more annoying red lights and subsequent screams of frustration and I made it to the dental clinic at 2:05pm, wearing the slightly dirty hiking clothes from yesterday and not looking all that fresh. (I looked tired and overslept!)
And to my relief I discovered that my appointment was at 2:30pm and not 2pm, which gave me just enough time to finally use the bathroom; I had been holding it in since just before Jaynton.
I wish I could have taken more time to enjoy the scenery along the route I had taken. It was 70 miles longer than my trip up to Lubbock, which is why in the end I had to beat feet those last two hours. The route took me through some pretty towns and diverse terrain, pass Ghost towns, oil pumps and oil towns, historical stagecoach routes, red sandy creeks, cowboy towns, hill towns, legendary towns. And all that without ever leaving Texas!
But naturally I would have preferred more time to really absorb all these communities. I would have broken this trip into two days and stayed in Breckenbridge for the night. That would have been a nice town to walk around and meet some locals, but alas that didn't happen this time.
Texas really is such a pretty state, and no doubt it's a state of mind.
Monday, January 21, 2008
South Texas news
Higher birth defects in Nueces County
There were more babies born with gastroschisis – a condition in which babies are born with a portion of their intestines outside their body – to mothers who lived near landfills. Tests showed there was a strong case to be made that the number of defects there were higher than would be expected. Researchers could not rule out, however, the possibility that chance played a role in the cluster of birth defects.
Mothers living near refineries and chemical plants showed high rates of gastroschisis and anomalies of the diaphragm, but again, chance couldn’t be ruled out.
Military airfields showed high clusters of several heart valve defects, and there was little possibility the results were due to chance or demographics. But the relationship of living near the airfields was unclear. In some cases there is a higher rate between a half-mile and mile away from the airfield, but residents living nearer did not exhibit higher rates of that deflect.
Residents near a battery recycling plant showed higher rates of five different birth defects and there was a strong relationship between living near the plant and two of the defects. But again, researchers could not rule out that chance played a role in the cluster.
http://www.caller.com/news/2008/jan/25/birth-defects-84-percent-higher-nueces-co/
This above link is interesting only because attention to neurological defects in South Texas children were already noted in 1992, in this New York Times article:http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE0DB1F3BF930A1575AC0A964958260
Show of Force
Mexican military swarm Matamoros police station
By JOSÉ BORJÓN/The Brownsville Herald
January 22, 2008 - 11:07PM
G. Dniel Lopez/The Brownsville Herald
MATAMOROS — Members of the Mexican military swarmed Matamoros police headquarters Tuesday morning, confiscating hundreds of guns and searching police units looking for any connections the local lawmen may have to the notorious Gulf cartel. About 150 members of the Mexican military, including special forces, were present throughout the day at the Matamoros police headquarters on Marte R. Gomez Street in Colonia Expofiesta Norte. The operation was one in a string of inspections conducted simultaneously in Mexican border cities.
http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/police_83735___article.html/military_department.html
___________________
Rio Bravo residents, U.S. citizen linked to Gulf Cartel
Statewide sweep nets 11 arrests
The Monitor
January 20, 2008 - 10:42PM
Three Rio Bravo, Tamps., residents will face prosecution for aiding the state’s powerful Gulf Cartel, Mexico’s public safety secretary said Sunday. Their capture comes as part of a weekend sweep that netted the arrest of 11 suspected cartel members, including four Nuevo Laredo police officers.
Agents arrested Ronaldo “El Rolis” Vera Valdez and Osiel Carrizales Jesus Martinez a.k.a “El Ojon” for their alleged role in narcotics and arms trafficking in the border city, directly across from Donna.
The border city was the site of a violent street battle earlier this month between the nation’s military and a cell of operatives that belong to the cartel’s paramilitary organization, Los Zetas.
Police corruption is widespread in Mexico, particularly in states like Tamaulipas plagued by organized crime. In October, 25 federal police officers were detained in the state on suspicion of providing protection for the Gulf drug cartel.
http://www.themonitor.com/articles/cartel_8271___article.html/police_officers.html
__________________________
Brownsville housing market largely escaping national woes
By Aaron Nelsen/The Brownsville Herald
January 19, 2008 - 11:53PM
Brownsville and South Padre Island home sales were up nearly 35 percent in November compared to the same period in 2006, according to data for the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University.
The upswing in sales was perhaps an aberration, however, it was more likely an indicator of things to come in 2008, said Ted Jones, chief economist for Stewart Title Guaranty Inc. After all, home sales for the first 11 months of the year were off less than 1 percent compared to the same period in record-breaking 2006, which had 1,177 sales.
While 2007 sales are unlikely to reach those in 2006, through November they had already surged passed 2005, at 918. “Brownsville is off about 7 percent from a year ago, which was an all time high,” Jones said. “But, 2007 was remarkably better than 2005.”
http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/brownsville_83637___article.html/estate_national.html
There were more babies born with gastroschisis – a condition in which babies are born with a portion of their intestines outside their body – to mothers who lived near landfills. Tests showed there was a strong case to be made that the number of defects there were higher than would be expected. Researchers could not rule out, however, the possibility that chance played a role in the cluster of birth defects.
Mothers living near refineries and chemical plants showed high rates of gastroschisis and anomalies of the diaphragm, but again, chance couldn’t be ruled out.
Military airfields showed high clusters of several heart valve defects, and there was little possibility the results were due to chance or demographics. But the relationship of living near the airfields was unclear. In some cases there is a higher rate between a half-mile and mile away from the airfield, but residents living nearer did not exhibit higher rates of that deflect.
Residents near a battery recycling plant showed higher rates of five different birth defects and there was a strong relationship between living near the plant and two of the defects. But again, researchers could not rule out that chance played a role in the cluster.
http://www.caller.com/news/2008/jan/25/birth-defects-84-percent-higher-nueces-co/
This above link is interesting only because attention to neurological defects in South Texas children were already noted in 1992, in this New York Times article:http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE0DB1F3BF930A1575AC0A964958260
Show of Force
Mexican military swarm Matamoros police station
By JOSÉ BORJÓN/The Brownsville Herald
January 22, 2008 - 11:07PM
G. Dniel Lopez/The Brownsville Herald
MATAMOROS — Members of the Mexican military swarmed Matamoros police headquarters Tuesday morning, confiscating hundreds of guns and searching police units looking for any connections the local lawmen may have to the notorious Gulf cartel. About 150 members of the Mexican military, including special forces, were present throughout the day at the Matamoros police headquarters on Marte R. Gomez Street in Colonia Expofiesta Norte. The operation was one in a string of inspections conducted simultaneously in Mexican border cities.
http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/police_83735___article.html/military_department.html
___________________
Rio Bravo residents, U.S. citizen linked to Gulf Cartel
Statewide sweep nets 11 arrests
The Monitor
January 20, 2008 - 10:42PM
Three Rio Bravo, Tamps., residents will face prosecution for aiding the state’s powerful Gulf Cartel, Mexico’s public safety secretary said Sunday. Their capture comes as part of a weekend sweep that netted the arrest of 11 suspected cartel members, including four Nuevo Laredo police officers.
Agents arrested Ronaldo “El Rolis” Vera Valdez and Osiel Carrizales Jesus Martinez a.k.a “El Ojon” for their alleged role in narcotics and arms trafficking in the border city, directly across from Donna.
The border city was the site of a violent street battle earlier this month between the nation’s military and a cell of operatives that belong to the cartel’s paramilitary organization, Los Zetas.
Police corruption is widespread in Mexico, particularly in states like Tamaulipas plagued by organized crime. In October, 25 federal police officers were detained in the state on suspicion of providing protection for the Gulf drug cartel.
http://www.themonitor.com/articles/cartel_8271___article.html/police_officers.html
__________________________
Brownsville housing market largely escaping national woes
By Aaron Nelsen/The Brownsville Herald
January 19, 2008 - 11:53PM
Brownsville and South Padre Island home sales were up nearly 35 percent in November compared to the same period in 2006, according to data for the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University.
The upswing in sales was perhaps an aberration, however, it was more likely an indicator of things to come in 2008, said Ted Jones, chief economist for Stewart Title Guaranty Inc. After all, home sales for the first 11 months of the year were off less than 1 percent compared to the same period in record-breaking 2006, which had 1,177 sales.
While 2007 sales are unlikely to reach those in 2006, through November they had already surged passed 2005, at 918. “Brownsville is off about 7 percent from a year ago, which was an all time high,” Jones said. “But, 2007 was remarkably better than 2005.”
http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/brownsville_83637___article.html/estate_national.html
Caprock Canyons State Park
"It's clear over Lubbock but it looks like rain everywhere else" said Mark as soon as we were up at 6:30am. That news wasn't going to stop me from another hike, this time in Caprock Canyons State Park .
"I will be wearing my wind/rain jacket" I replied. And even though I smelled rain when I packed up the van, once we were on I-27 going north to Tulia, the sky began calming down. Although there was a dark layer of clouds over us, once we turned east on Tx86 toward Quitaque the blue sky was back.
And just when I was getting bored with the flatlands, the mountains and canyons opened up and a "WOW!" came out of our mouths. Yesterday the land simply opened up from below with a small, deep canyon that slowly widened, but today the land opened both upward and downward.
Mark annoyed me for a little bit when once again he was more fixated on the GPS than on helping me navigate around. My mistake was that I was relying on him when I should have looked on the map to see what roads to take. TX86 does not come off I-27; one has to get off US87 south of Tulia. US87 parallels the interstate but veers off slightly to the northeast toward Tulia and from downtown one picks up TX86. We lost some time driving and didn't get to the park until almost 11am.
I like to stop at the Visitor's Center to grab a map and learn other things important to the hike: trail conditions, wildlife warnings, etc. The ranger was very helpful but couldn't recommend just one trail as there are so many good ones. We opted to explore at first and decide on a trail later. We had all day and were under no time warp.
Our first exploration was around Theo Lake, where an old bison grave and arrowheads were discovered. We explored the shore but found it too fragile and steep. By 11:18am I was back at the van waiting for Mark, who came up ten minutes later. From the lake we went to the last camping site and began the South Prong Trail, a trail I though was an easy four-mile valley loop surrounded by steep pinnacles. We started out the hike at 11:47am from the southern end of the park, facing red cliffs that dated back to the Permian age 280-250 million years ago.
I was wrong. The trail started out along washes and trickly creeks, but then ascended a steep climb up a 3200' mesa. I lost Mark almost at the start at the hike when I stopped to remove my yellow rain jacket and black fleece. I never did catch up to him.
I was alone and wasn't comfortable like that. I had no map, but I had plenty of water and enough chips to keep my hunger down. All I knew was that there were few trails along this loop, and if I just stayed on the main trail and eventually head to where I started, I would be fine. But it sure did feel like a very long four-mile trek!
I wasn't sure I was going to make the climb. Although the vistas were spectacular, with steep red rock pinnacles in front of me, shallow red creeks below me, and scrub oak and juniper all around me, my heart was pounding heavily and had me worried. I told myself if I don't find a familiar trail junction by 2pm, I was turning back. The prettiest views were halfway up the steep part and looking back toward where we came, from the southwest.
My worries were luckily unfounded. Just before 2pm I saw a car drive down a road that was hidden behind view. That had to be a park road, as there were no roads nearby that I remembered. That meant that civilization wasn't that far off. I was going to hike toward the road and walk the pavement down to the parking lot.
All that wasn't necessary. I came to a T-junction where Mark left a note for me on paper "CONNIE I TOOK THE RIGHT" which answered my doubts. From here the trail followed along the high mesa plains of yuccas and more scrub oak and junipers. I startled some deer that I thought were something more vicious at first. Stupid deer! Had the deer not jumped in front of me, I never would have noticed them behind the scrub.
Then I heard my voice called out. It was Mark, and he sounded like he was ahead of me finally, but he was really behind me and his voice had bounced off a canyon. He had taken the left instead of the right and had to run almost two miles to catch up to me. We thus hiked the last two miles together, finally.
Why he didn't just wait for me at an intersection or somewhere in the shade I will never understand. I know that when I hike with someone I practice the buddy system. We may not hike side-by-side but I will always try to keep that buddy within sight. You never know what could happen that would require immediate buddy aid: a sprained ankle, a sudden headache, a lack of water, or, god forbid, a big hungry animal with giant claws and teeth attacks. I was too tired to scold Mark for his lack of risk assessment.
We hiked down the Haynes Ridge Trail down to the North Prong Campsite, with breath-taking views of more spectacular redrock. The trail down was badly eroded and treacherous, but back on the pavement I was glad to be on familiar ground again. We had hiked a total of 6.81 miles in 3:20 hours.
We stopped as a courtesy back at the ranger station to let the people there know the signs along the trail were in need of replacing. They were aware of all that. We chatted about the 65-head of bison in the park, the State's official Bison herd (three which were given from Ted Turner). The ranger proudly stated that "This place is prettier than Palo Duro...because of the red rock." But I find them both worthy of further exploration. Both state parks are in the same geographic formation escarpment; judging one over the other seems ludicrous.
But other than the bison behind the fence, we saw little wildlife. Two startled deer ran across my path. I saw a few titmice and some other birds, but that was it. The rangers told us in the summer the rattlesnakes get out of hand. Pronghorn antelope also call the Caprock Canyons their home but they, too were in hiding.
It was a lovely day for a strenuous hike. My van registered 61F in the afternoon with little wind. I never put my wind breaker/rain jacket or black fleece jacket on the rest of the day.
We left the park at 4:30pm. By now we were getting hungry. We agreed that a repeat dinner at Triple J was in order, as we returned to Lubbock via TX207 south, passing grain towns like South Plains, Floydada and Blanco Mountain where a Historical Marker stated that Coronado most likely camped in the area based on artifacts found around the mountain that were from 16th-century Spain. Coronado was allegedly going crazy from the vast plains, and at that vantage point he certainly didn't have a positive view. The Plains did not help him with directions, he was reportedly to have written in his travel journal.
The drive and looking at either side of me reminded me of the high plains of Nebraska or Kansas. Here the terrain was as flat as can be and the sky as wide as can be. But I was more exhausted than I thought, staring out at the road ahead of me.
"Wow, look at that black soil!" I said at one point. The fields were all harvested and light brown, and then I came across a rich black field.
"That was a field fire" explained Mark.
Oh.
Once we reached US62 east of Lubbock we were driving into the blinding sunset. Dark grain elevators spotted the skyline ahead of me. Out of the blue Mark asked me "Who do you think will win the election?" and he was referring to the on-going presidential campaign of both Republican and Democratic parties. The commentary on the radio was all about the latest victories.
Mark and I don't normally talk politics, so I was momentarily thrown off-course. "I honestly don't know. Senator Clinton will win the Democratic nomination, but the GOP is still out trying to find its voice" I replied. "I have no idea who will win the GOP nomination. McCain would get elected only because many voters now regret voting for his then rival GWB in 2000. Romney would be elected to continue the Bush Legacy, and many people already have strong feelings about the Bush Legacy. Romney is a businessman and so is Bush. Remember when Bush and Cheney promised the American people they would run this country like a business?"
"Yes, I do remember that."
"A year ago I was ready to accept Guiliani but he hasn't even started campaigning," I went on, "and it may be too late now to get ahead in Florida next weekend. He's a strong moderate but he also has a lot of skeletons in his closet, and made a lot of corrupt deals with other officials. New Yorkers remember that."
"I like Huckabee" said Mark. "I also like Fred Thompson."
"I like Huckabee too and wouldn't mind him getting elected, as long as he stays on the moderate side and not go right-wing on his constituents and take away women's rights to chose. I like a lot of what Fred says but he comes across as grumpy with no real agenda, much like Senator Obama."
So in the end we agreed that there were no front-runners in the GOP campaign and that we would have to wait until Super Tuesday to find out. And then the conversation veered back to food and beer.
We got back to Lubbock and the brewery at 6:30pm and much to our relief Monday's is $1.50 pints all day. I had a Dos Czechies and a Windmill Wheat with lemon along with a salad and a veggie pizza. It was another delicious meal and our only meal all day. We each had a pizza (I took three slices home for tomorrow's breakfast) and I ordered a salad and a second beer.
Our conversation centered around the pretty terrain we had hiked through earlier, and possible future trips together or solo.
"What kind of trips would you like to do?" I asked Mark.
"I'd like to travel the Pacific Highway from Washington down to Baja."
"I've done parts of that" I replied, remembering my California days. "That would be one scenic road trip. What other trips would you like to do?"
"I've always wanted to drive up the Al-Can!" said Mark.
"Yeah, me too. I've always wanted to see the Golden Eagles dive for fish in Alaska." It's also a trip Kevin has wanted to do, too.
"I'd like to travel to Cuba as soon as we can" I added, "I'd like to see Cuba before the American hotels take over the island and ruin old-style Havanna" and to that Mark got interested and we finished off a lively topic on Fidel and Raul Castro.
We capped off our meal with ice cream at Dairy Queen before heading back to his place. Tara, Mark' roommate was back from work but quietly working in her room, Mark was busy in his room downloading the day's photographs and I was on my guest cot in the living room. The house was so quiet because there was no TV on.
It was a quiet ending to a great hiking weekend. I will leave first thing in the morning and head toward Abilene, taking a slightly different route back.
I have learned so much about Texas' South Plains. There is more to the Panhandle than just flat prairie, and what is here is awe-inspiring. I looked out northward into those canyons and wondered what was on the other side. If I were to come down from Oklahoma, what would I see?
I would love to come back to this park and hike the entire perimeter, a 13-mile endeavor. That would require a camp-out and an early start in the morning. Could I even manage a 13-mile hike? It's been a few years since I've done something that strenuous on a hiking trail.
(The picture of me hiking away from the camera was taken by Mark, as I was hiking the North Prong Trail in front of him.)
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Hiking in Palo Duro Canyon State Park
We both got up early (5am) but ended up not leaving until 7:30am because the sun refused to rise and it was in the low 20s. The 120-mile drive to the state park took us two hours, driving north on I-27 from Lubbock, turning east on Tx213 for 12 miles to the park entrance.
On the radio we learned that actress Susanne Pleshette, who starred with Bob Newhart in a comedy series in the early 1970s, playing a psychiatrist's witty wife, died of a lung disease in her CA home. She was 70 years old. Her death prompted a short conversation of 1970s TV shows, most of which I can't remember by name. I just remember the Bob Newhart show was intelligently written and Pleshette's role was that of a strong, well-balanced woman. She didn't play a big-boobed bimbo.
The drive north was over high plains, empty fields with golden stalks or plowed fields of red soil. From the interstate there is no clue that just 15 miles east are the canyons. Cows grazed right off the highway, grain elevators dotted the skyline and train tracks followed the interstate around Plainview, 40 miles north of Lubbock and a major grain processing town, the only other town besides Canyon on our drive up to the state park.
The drive for the first 11 miles was dull, but then the first narrow canyon split open from the earth, right off the road. It wasa view worth stopping for, as the valley below faded in the morning mist. Little did we know that from that point on it was all valley. We had reached our destination.
The Palo Duro Canyon is aprroximately 120 miles long and travels in a southeasterly direction along the Red River which borders with Oklahoma. The canyon is 20 miles wide and 800 feet deep. It was a popularbuffalo hunting ground for the Native Americans until they were chased out of the area and forced on reservations in Oklahoma in the mid 1870s.
The rock formation is over 250 million years, starting with the Cloud Chief Gypsum, then Quartermaster Formation (the red sandstone), and Tecovas formation, the grey/yellow sandstone that is prominent on the upper layers. White gypsum is everywhere and in some places easily visible in layers with the sandstone.
The roads and all the native stone buildings were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s.
We were some of the first visitors to the park. Another couple also in a van came in right after us, and the woman, who went inside to ask about good trails (while her husband waited in the van) had no clue what to see or do in the park (She hadn't done her homework like I had!) overheard me ask the park ranger about the Lighthouse Trail. "It's the most scenic trail in the park" she said, but not necessarily the most popular.
We took our time getting to the trailhead, as we stopped at every scenic overlook to take photos. We met a couple from Taiwan hiking with their two boys at the first overlook. They looked dressed more for an urban walk, not a hike in the steep vallies.
As soon as we got out of the van to peek over the look, we were overcome with the smell of horseshit. Fresh horseshit. Below us out of view by the rocky overhang, was a horse corral.
The Lighthouse trail it was, a hike with a 75-foot sandstone pillar jutting up from the red rock below. Five miles from the park entrance, along scenic vistas and then down a steep grade, we got to the trailhead at 10:05am for our six-mile hike around Capitol Peak, Castle Rock and finally, the last 1/4 mile, up a steep, slippery grade to the majestic pinnacles.
We made it to the Lighthouse at 11:30am, and I thought that was a rather slow route for 2.2 miles. Later we learned it's really more a three-mile trail o/w.
I was worried about Mark and his pulmonary edema he developed in Iraq a few years ago. He talked almost too much about his Iraq tour, and in fact he talked adnauseum. I had to tell him he didn't have to entertain me with his voice all the time, that I prefer to hike in silence and enjoy the sounds of nature. I didn't want to be rude, but Mark took it in stride.
Sometimes, though, his irrelevant rants were annoying. "Dirt is nothing more than decomposed rock" he said at one point going out to the Lighthouse, "and rock is heat-compressed dirt." I didn't need to hear that! I'd rather the conversation centered around the sights and observations along the trail, and not trivial stuff that just showed his collection of trivial knowledge. No doubt Mark is a gifted and smart biologist/naturalist medical expert, but his constant ramblings come across as demeaning.
I also hope my preferred silence was not annoying to him, either.
Mark also talked endlessly about his GPS that he brought along, an older hand-held Garmin model. He kept pressing buttons and widgets and I have no idea what else he did with that thing and I really didn't care at any given moment how far we were on the trail or how high we were up. I just wanted to enjoy the walk, take in the scenery, and take photographs.
Shortly after we got to the Lighthouse we were joined by runners, then more hikers, groups and families with young kids and dogs. We were on the return trip by now, and it was on our descent down the Lighthouse that we met the couple we first saw at the park station. "We followed you!" they said. The man also told me he liked my bumper sticker.
On the radio we learned that actress Susanne Pleshette, who starred with Bob Newhart in a comedy series in the early 1970s, playing a psychiatrist's witty wife, died of a lung disease in her CA home. She was 70 years old. Her death prompted a short conversation of 1970s TV shows, most of which I can't remember by name. I just remember the Bob Newhart show was intelligently written and Pleshette's role was that of a strong, well-balanced woman. She didn't play a big-boobed bimbo.
The drive north was over high plains, empty fields with golden stalks or plowed fields of red soil. From the interstate there is no clue that just 15 miles east are the canyons. Cows grazed right off the highway, grain elevators dotted the skyline and train tracks followed the interstate around Plainview, 40 miles north of Lubbock and a major grain processing town, the only other town besides Canyon on our drive up to the state park.
The drive for the first 11 miles was dull, but then the first narrow canyon split open from the earth, right off the road. It wasa view worth stopping for, as the valley below faded in the morning mist. Little did we know that from that point on it was all valley. We had reached our destination.
The Palo Duro Canyon is aprroximately 120 miles long and travels in a southeasterly direction along the Red River which borders with Oklahoma. The canyon is 20 miles wide and 800 feet deep. It was a popularbuffalo hunting ground for the Native Americans until they were chased out of the area and forced on reservations in Oklahoma in the mid 1870s.
The rock formation is over 250 million years, starting with the Cloud Chief Gypsum, then Quartermaster Formation (the red sandstone), and Tecovas formation, the grey/yellow sandstone that is prominent on the upper layers. White gypsum is everywhere and in some places easily visible in layers with the sandstone.
The roads and all the native stone buildings were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s.
We were some of the first visitors to the park. Another couple also in a van came in right after us, and the woman, who went inside to ask about good trails (while her husband waited in the van) had no clue what to see or do in the park (She hadn't done her homework like I had!) overheard me ask the park ranger about the Lighthouse Trail. "It's the most scenic trail in the park" she said, but not necessarily the most popular.
We took our time getting to the trailhead, as we stopped at every scenic overlook to take photos. We met a couple from Taiwan hiking with their two boys at the first overlook. They looked dressed more for an urban walk, not a hike in the steep vallies.
As soon as we got out of the van to peek over the look, we were overcome with the smell of horseshit. Fresh horseshit. Below us out of view by the rocky overhang, was a horse corral.
The Lighthouse trail it was, a hike with a 75-foot sandstone pillar jutting up from the red rock below. Five miles from the park entrance, along scenic vistas and then down a steep grade, we got to the trailhead at 10:05am for our six-mile hike around Capitol Peak, Castle Rock and finally, the last 1/4 mile, up a steep, slippery grade to the majestic pinnacles.
We made it to the Lighthouse at 11:30am, and I thought that was a rather slow route for 2.2 miles. Later we learned it's really more a three-mile trail o/w.
I was worried about Mark and his pulmonary edema he developed in Iraq a few years ago. He talked almost too much about his Iraq tour, and in fact he talked adnauseum. I had to tell him he didn't have to entertain me with his voice all the time, that I prefer to hike in silence and enjoy the sounds of nature. I didn't want to be rude, but Mark took it in stride.
Sometimes, though, his irrelevant rants were annoying. "Dirt is nothing more than decomposed rock" he said at one point going out to the Lighthouse, "and rock is heat-compressed dirt." I didn't need to hear that! I'd rather the conversation centered around the sights and observations along the trail, and not trivial stuff that just showed his collection of trivial knowledge. No doubt Mark is a gifted and smart biologist/naturalist medical expert, but his constant ramblings come across as demeaning.
I also hope my preferred silence was not annoying to him, either.
Mark also talked endlessly about his GPS that he brought along, an older hand-held Garmin model. He kept pressing buttons and widgets and I have no idea what else he did with that thing and I really didn't care at any given moment how far we were on the trail or how high we were up. I just wanted to enjoy the walk, take in the scenery, and take photographs.
Shortly after we got to the Lighthouse we were joined by runners, then more hikers, groups and families with young kids and dogs. We were on the return trip by now, and it was on our descent down the Lighthouse that we met the couple we first saw at the park station. "We followed you!" they said. The man also told me he liked my bumper sticker.
We also met up again with a Taiwanese family driving through the park. Dressed in casual clothes, the family of four trekked up to the pinnacles. The mother wore a colorful blue shawl around her shoulders.
We passed beautiful red rock, feldspar, granite, quartz, juniper trees, washes, hackberries. The area looked more like Sedona than Northern West Texas. And the region was so beautiful! The trail was easy-to-moderate over had-packed red sand, turning more sugarly after we passed the first major wash. We could see the trail we had taken from the Lighthouse.
The blustery wind never materialized. And if it did, my yellow Gore-Tex jacket over my running cap kept my head and ears warm. I wore my tactical pants, a polypro t-shirt under a cotton-poly long-sleeved t-shirt under my old black army fleece jacket under my yellow Gore-Tex. I just had to be careful my cap didn't fly away up and over a canyon. The temperature at the start of our hike was in the upper 20s. It was in the low 50s when we left a few hours later.
When we got back to the van there were 17 cars in the parking lot, when we were the first ones there. People were still coming to start the hike when we drove on further via the Park Road, read a historical sign at the far southern point in the park, depicting the 1874 Palo Duro Indian war fought there that September. Nothing remains of the battle site now, but it was around that location where Colonel MacKenzie and his men attacked the Indian camps in the area, stole all their 1400 horses and kept only those that they needed and killing the rest so that the Natives couldn't herd them back. Without horses as their means to escape, the Indians were forced to surrender and gave up their way of life and freedom with it.
I photographed more creeks, more butes,more red rock. A quick stop at a snack bar (where burgers and fries were over $6) I bought a pretty brown t-shirt of "Palo Duro Canyon State Park, a Texas Adventure."
Both Mark and I were impressed with the beauty of the place. The day ended up being a perfect day for an outdoor get-away. I was even chilled from the sweat when, at 1:30pm, we stopped at the Visitor's Center to buy some soda.
Instead, we were in the center for over 30 minutes where we spoke with Leo and Helena Reed. Helena is a petite woman with short grey hair styled in curls around her face. Her round face opened widely when she smiled. She is a retired school teacher from Clifton, NJ, who came to TX over 40 years ago to visit a girl friend and go with her to Mexcio. "This was in the 1960s, you didn't have to worry about drug traffickers!"
Instead, she met and married Leo, a Homeboy from Amarillo. "We have been married now 40 years."
"But I don't detect a Jersey accent!" I told her rather ruefully.
"Oh, I've kind of lost that over the years, but when I talk to my sisters over the phone it comes back to me, and it takes me 20 minutes before Leo can understand me again."
Leo, a much taller man when standing next to the deminutive Helena, offered us a broad smile that matched his broad chest. White sideburns etched his face. He was a park volunteer, and like his wife was a Texas Naturalist and Gardener and loves to share his knowledge of all things natural with the young visitors who come to the Visitor's Center. He kept us entertained, and Mark interested, in old army weapons he fired with back in 1962 when he was stationed at the small Air Force field near Fort Hood, when "the army didn't move its people by air."
By now we moved out of the state park, admiring the two official Texas Longhorn cattle near the park exit. We were hungry now and ready for a meal.
There was nothing in the first big town of Canyon. Helena had recommended a Mexican restaurant off the main street, Pepitas, but the place was closed. One restaurant in town, Feldman's, didn't serve neither pasta nor beer "We're in a dry counter" apologized the young hostess as we went inside to inquire. She recommended Macaroni Joe's in Amarillo, off I-40 and Georgia Street, and we drove the 15 miles north to eat...and that place was closed too.
A lot of restaurants in town were closed today. The entire downtown area looked shut down. But I wasn't ready to commit defeat as I know from all my travels that there is always one or two good restaurants in a downtown area and they are noticable by the many cars parked around the diner. And we finally found one, Acapulco Restaurant, on a block that had two other small eateries and which was perhaps Amarillo's restaurant row.
The place was authentic Mexican and excellent. The meals were fairly priced and portioned. My margarita slid down smoothly. My sour-cream chicken enchiladas were creamy and tasty and the ideal recommendation by Eric, our young but industrious server who was also a student at nearby Amarillo College, studying nursing and hoping to work in a cardiac ward in six years.
The meal was a mere $23. Wow! I love excellent finds and I'm sure I won't forget that place any time soon. Even Mark liked his taco platter.
Amarillo didn't strike me as a very wealthy town, even though it had more high rises than Lubbock. The one thing going for it, besides its many limestone government buildings, were its "Amarillo Horses," a collection of plastic horse molds painted by local artists and displayed all over the downtown area. Each horse has a different name. We only saw about seven of them, and my favorite was "Patriotic Pony" with a head full of blue stars and a body full of red and white stripes. The colorful horses stick out at street corners and add some life to the otherwise hues of brown in town. The horses reminded me of Harrisburg's Cow Parade back in 2004, a collction of over 50 cows in several molds, painted and decorated by local artists, displayed in town along the river for a few weeks, and then auctioned off to businesses. The cows brought tourists to town who then were tempted to walk the entire course finding, rating and judging the cows.
With our bellies full, we drove the 120 miles back to Lubbock, but not before stopping at a Hasting's in south Amarillo for a decent cup of coffee. The server, who looked either Spanish or Italian, asked me if I wanted a wet or dry cappuccino. Huh? I thought all cappuccinos were wet!
A wet cappuccino has more milk than a dry one; a dry one has more frothy milk. The coffee was tasty and accompanied me back to Lubbock on the darkened highway. The near fullmoon rose behind us.
A gas station off I-17 in Lubbock is now selling unleaded gasoline for $2.79, the cheapest I've seen anywhere this year. That's another two-cent drop in town, which was already the cheapest I've seen in Texas. (Later I learned that a barel dropped below $89 on the world market.)
We were back on our way to Lubbock and made it home by 9pm. I showered at 9:30pm and it was the first hot SHOWER I've had since coming back from Indiana, as my apartment's shower head still doesn't work properly.
We passed beautiful red rock, feldspar, granite, quartz, juniper trees, washes, hackberries. The area looked more like Sedona than Northern West Texas. And the region was so beautiful! The trail was easy-to-moderate over had-packed red sand, turning more sugarly after we passed the first major wash. We could see the trail we had taken from the Lighthouse.
The blustery wind never materialized. And if it did, my yellow Gore-Tex jacket over my running cap kept my head and ears warm. I wore my tactical pants, a polypro t-shirt under a cotton-poly long-sleeved t-shirt under my old black army fleece jacket under my yellow Gore-Tex. I just had to be careful my cap didn't fly away up and over a canyon. The temperature at the start of our hike was in the upper 20s. It was in the low 50s when we left a few hours later.
When we got back to the van there were 17 cars in the parking lot, when we were the first ones there. People were still coming to start the hike when we drove on further via the Park Road, read a historical sign at the far southern point in the park, depicting the 1874 Palo Duro Indian war fought there that September. Nothing remains of the battle site now, but it was around that location where Colonel MacKenzie and his men attacked the Indian camps in the area, stole all their 1400 horses and kept only those that they needed and killing the rest so that the Natives couldn't herd them back. Without horses as their means to escape, the Indians were forced to surrender and gave up their way of life and freedom with it.
I photographed more creeks, more butes,more red rock. A quick stop at a snack bar (where burgers and fries were over $6) I bought a pretty brown t-shirt of "Palo Duro Canyon State Park, a Texas Adventure."
Both Mark and I were impressed with the beauty of the place. The day ended up being a perfect day for an outdoor get-away. I was even chilled from the sweat when, at 1:30pm, we stopped at the Visitor's Center to buy some soda.
Instead, we were in the center for over 30 minutes where we spoke with Leo and Helena Reed. Helena is a petite woman with short grey hair styled in curls around her face. Her round face opened widely when she smiled. She is a retired school teacher from Clifton, NJ, who came to TX over 40 years ago to visit a girl friend and go with her to Mexcio. "This was in the 1960s, you didn't have to worry about drug traffickers!"
Instead, she met and married Leo, a Homeboy from Amarillo. "We have been married now 40 years."
"But I don't detect a Jersey accent!" I told her rather ruefully.
"Oh, I've kind of lost that over the years, but when I talk to my sisters over the phone it comes back to me, and it takes me 20 minutes before Leo can understand me again."
Leo, a much taller man when standing next to the deminutive Helena, offered us a broad smile that matched his broad chest. White sideburns etched his face. He was a park volunteer, and like his wife was a Texas Naturalist and Gardener and loves to share his knowledge of all things natural with the young visitors who come to the Visitor's Center. He kept us entertained, and Mark interested, in old army weapons he fired with back in 1962 when he was stationed at the small Air Force field near Fort Hood, when "the army didn't move its people by air."
By now we moved out of the state park, admiring the two official Texas Longhorn cattle near the park exit. We were hungry now and ready for a meal.
There was nothing in the first big town of Canyon. Helena had recommended a Mexican restaurant off the main street, Pepitas, but the place was closed. One restaurant in town, Feldman's, didn't serve neither pasta nor beer "We're in a dry counter" apologized the young hostess as we went inside to inquire. She recommended Macaroni Joe's in Amarillo, off I-40 and Georgia Street, and we drove the 15 miles north to eat...and that place was closed too.
A lot of restaurants in town were closed today. The entire downtown area looked shut down. But I wasn't ready to commit defeat as I know from all my travels that there is always one or two good restaurants in a downtown area and they are noticable by the many cars parked around the diner. And we finally found one, Acapulco Restaurant, on a block that had two other small eateries and which was perhaps Amarillo's restaurant row.
The place was authentic Mexican and excellent. The meals were fairly priced and portioned. My margarita slid down smoothly. My sour-cream chicken enchiladas were creamy and tasty and the ideal recommendation by Eric, our young but industrious server who was also a student at nearby Amarillo College, studying nursing and hoping to work in a cardiac ward in six years.
The meal was a mere $23. Wow! I love excellent finds and I'm sure I won't forget that place any time soon. Even Mark liked his taco platter.
Amarillo didn't strike me as a very wealthy town, even though it had more high rises than Lubbock. The one thing going for it, besides its many limestone government buildings, were its "Amarillo Horses," a collection of plastic horse molds painted by local artists and displayed all over the downtown area. Each horse has a different name. We only saw about seven of them, and my favorite was "Patriotic Pony" with a head full of blue stars and a body full of red and white stripes. The colorful horses stick out at street corners and add some life to the otherwise hues of brown in town. The horses reminded me of Harrisburg's Cow Parade back in 2004, a collction of over 50 cows in several molds, painted and decorated by local artists, displayed in town along the river for a few weeks, and then auctioned off to businesses. The cows brought tourists to town who then were tempted to walk the entire course finding, rating and judging the cows.
With our bellies full, we drove the 120 miles back to Lubbock, but not before stopping at a Hasting's in south Amarillo for a decent cup of coffee. The server, who looked either Spanish or Italian, asked me if I wanted a wet or dry cappuccino. Huh? I thought all cappuccinos were wet!
A wet cappuccino has more milk than a dry one; a dry one has more frothy milk. The coffee was tasty and accompanied me back to Lubbock on the darkened highway. The near fullmoon rose behind us.
A gas station off I-17 in Lubbock is now selling unleaded gasoline for $2.79, the cheapest I've seen anywhere this year. That's another two-cent drop in town, which was already the cheapest I've seen in Texas. (Later I learned that a barel dropped below $89 on the world market.)
We were back on our way to Lubbock and made it home by 9pm. I showered at 9:30pm and it was the first hot SHOWER I've had since coming back from Indiana, as my apartment's shower head still doesn't work properly.
Driving to Lubbock
It rained the night before well past midnight. Yesterday morning the cars in the parking lot were covered in a half-inch thick layer of ice. I had to pull the van door violently open to get in, start the engine, and let it warm up for 30 minutes before anything even melted. It was 22F outside.
The fields in the early dawn were glazed over in ice, even in Brownwood at 8am with the sun fully up. It didn't get passed freezing until I hit Lubbock at 12:40pm, right on schedule.
It was a pretty drive. I stopped for most of the historical markers, which were plenty in the first hour. I drove through the deserted towns of Goldthwaite, Lometa, Brownswood and the Howard Payne University campus, onward to Coleman, Sweetwater, Snyder.
The terrain at first was rolling hills, but north of Brownswood and over one butte with a foggy view back on town, things began to flatten out. Pump jacks and wind mills popped up south of Sweetwater. Near Snyder the Caprock Encarpment and its red soil came to view. It wasn't that boring of a drive at all. Flying hawks overhead entertained me.
But it was cold and blustery. A quick visit to Lubbock's Maxey Park, home to what seems like a million Canadian geese, conglomorate here. The banks were covered in goose shit. A few hungry souls marched toward us in hopes of food.
Mark also showed me the rest of town, which I didn't see much of last time. Lubbock's main industry is agriculture, with giant storage silos around town, tractor sales around the loop, and cotton gins. There are also plenty more restaurnants from last time, although I don't remember much from the last time, nor did anything along the way on Highway 84 look familiar.
The highlight in the evening was a nice meal at the Triple J Bewery and Chophouse. We ordered samples of all nine beers but never ordered one pint, although I will note that their Dos Czechies is quite flavorful and well-bodied for an amber. We shared a veggie pizza and left two hours later. I was tired and went to sleep, after reading yahoo! news that McCain won the Republican primary in South Carolina and Sen Clinton the Democratic primary in both South Carolina and Nevada. Romney won Nevada but didn't even place in the top three in SC: McCain, Huckabee and Fred Thompson placed there.
The fields in the early dawn were glazed over in ice, even in Brownwood at 8am with the sun fully up. It didn't get passed freezing until I hit Lubbock at 12:40pm, right on schedule.
It was a pretty drive. I stopped for most of the historical markers, which were plenty in the first hour. I drove through the deserted towns of Goldthwaite, Lometa, Brownswood and the Howard Payne University campus, onward to Coleman, Sweetwater, Snyder.
The terrain at first was rolling hills, but north of Brownswood and over one butte with a foggy view back on town, things began to flatten out. Pump jacks and wind mills popped up south of Sweetwater. Near Snyder the Caprock Encarpment and its red soil came to view. It wasn't that boring of a drive at all. Flying hawks overhead entertained me.
But it was cold and blustery. A quick visit to Lubbock's Maxey Park, home to what seems like a million Canadian geese, conglomorate here. The banks were covered in goose shit. A few hungry souls marched toward us in hopes of food.
Mark also showed me the rest of town, which I didn't see much of last time. Lubbock's main industry is agriculture, with giant storage silos around town, tractor sales around the loop, and cotton gins. There are also plenty more restaurnants from last time, although I don't remember much from the last time, nor did anything along the way on Highway 84 look familiar.
The highlight in the evening was a nice meal at the Triple J Bewery and Chophouse. We ordered samples of all nine beers but never ordered one pint, although I will note that their Dos Czechies is quite flavorful and well-bodied for an amber. We shared a veggie pizza and left two hours later. I was tired and went to sleep, after reading yahoo! news that McCain won the Republican primary in South Carolina and Sen Clinton the Democratic primary in both South Carolina and Nevada. Romney won Nevada but didn't even place in the top three in SC: McCain, Huckabee and Fred Thompson placed there.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Copperas Cove Classic Road Race this Saturday
http://teambicyclesinc.org/TBiClassic.htm
Cove is sponsoring the year's first road race for Team Bicycles right here in town tomorrow. Weather doesn't look too good, "wintry" is still in the forecast, but it may hit 48F tomorrow with the sun back out. If I hadn't made any plans already I'd have tried my luck on the 49-mile loop route. I've ridden part of this loop two months ago when I bought my Trek1200 road bike; 26 miles later my ass was grass after not being on a bicycle for over three years.
This is a very popular race and always has a good turn-out. In fact, Copperas Cove is a very cycle-friendly town, with several Farm-to-Market roads with wide shoulders meandering through this friendly town of 29,592 (according to the town's sign I pass every day). When I rode part of this route I could still see the various painted arrows on the shoulders, clearly marking the routes for the cyclists.
The gently-rolling hills seemed like mountains to me. So either I was in poor shape or I'm simply getting too old...I want to think it's more the former. Perhaps I can still do this loop on my own right before I leave Texas and start my trip...which may not be until Monday, February 11 now.
Update (24 Jan 08) There were over 300 cyclists in this year's Cove Classic, up from 75 last year when cyclists endured near-freezing weather.
http://www.kdhnews.com/news/story.aspx?s=22252
Cove is sponsoring the year's first road race for Team Bicycles right here in town tomorrow. Weather doesn't look too good, "wintry" is still in the forecast, but it may hit 48F tomorrow with the sun back out. If I hadn't made any plans already I'd have tried my luck on the 49-mile loop route. I've ridden part of this loop two months ago when I bought my Trek1200 road bike; 26 miles later my ass was grass after not being on a bicycle for over three years.
This is a very popular race and always has a good turn-out. In fact, Copperas Cove is a very cycle-friendly town, with several Farm-to-Market roads with wide shoulders meandering through this friendly town of 29,592 (according to the town's sign I pass every day). When I rode part of this route I could still see the various painted arrows on the shoulders, clearly marking the routes for the cyclists.
The gently-rolling hills seemed like mountains to me. So either I was in poor shape or I'm simply getting too old...I want to think it's more the former. Perhaps I can still do this loop on my own right before I leave Texas and start my trip...which may not be until Monday, February 11 now.
Update (24 Jan 08) There were over 300 cyclists in this year's Cove Classic, up from 75 last year when cyclists endured near-freezing weather.
http://www.kdhnews.com/news/story.aspx?s=22252
Stephenville, TX UFO
On 8 January, shortly after sunset, a few dozen people in and near Stephenville, TX over Selden field outside of town, saw what they say was a UFO. Officials from the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON, came to town to interview witnesses. They believe the sightings are quite credible, especially since several saw F-16s in pursuit. The UFO sightings were all over the news last week, both nationally and of course locally. Documentarians and UFO specialists are in town making a documentary on the recent UFOs. It sounds like that little town Southwest of Fort Worth is pretty busy these days!
MUFON will pay $5000 to anyone with a good photo of the UFO.
Now Science Club members from the Stephenville High School are selling t-shirts commemorating this news-making event with the logo "Erath County--the next Roswell!" with a Holstein cow on the front getting beamed up by a UFO. On the back of the shirt is the saying "They are here for the milk."
The recent sitings in this town north of me by 100 miles will be on my return trip Tuesday. So much for avoiding "oddball curiosities" during my travels. It's no doubt going to be listed in the next edition of Texas Roadside Curiosities.
Update 24 Jan 08: Now the Air Force is claiming there WERE F-16s flying in the area where the UFOs were sited. http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/f-16s-at-the-scene-of-ufo-sighting-in-texas/?hp
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-ifos_24met.ART.North.Edition1.3787cf0.html
______
http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/01/10/news/news02.txt
http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/01/11/news/news01.txt
http://www.mufon.com/
http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/01/13/news/news01.txt
http://xzone-radio.com/
starpathways.com
http://jasonleigh.org/
http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/01/14/news/news01.txt
http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/01/16/news/news02.txt
http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/01/17/news/news04.txt
http://www.star-telegram.com/metro_news/story/449747.html
MUFON will pay $5000 to anyone with a good photo of the UFO.
Now Science Club members from the Stephenville High School are selling t-shirts commemorating this news-making event with the logo "Erath County--the next Roswell!" with a Holstein cow on the front getting beamed up by a UFO. On the back of the shirt is the saying "They are here for the milk."
The recent sitings in this town north of me by 100 miles will be on my return trip Tuesday. So much for avoiding "oddball curiosities" during my travels. It's no doubt going to be listed in the next edition of Texas Roadside Curiosities.
Update 24 Jan 08: Now the Air Force is claiming there WERE F-16s flying in the area where the UFOs were sited. http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/f-16s-at-the-scene-of-ufo-sighting-in-texas/?hp
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-ifos_24met.ART.North.Edition1.3787cf0.html
______
http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/01/10/news/news02.txt
http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/01/11/news/news01.txt
http://www.mufon.com/
http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/01/13/news/news01.txt
http://xzone-radio.com/
starpathways.com
http://jasonleigh.org/
http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/01/14/news/news01.txt
http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/01/16/news/news02.txt
http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/01/17/news/news04.txt
http://www.star-telegram.com/metro_news/story/449747.html
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