Missions Along the San Antonio River

There are five missions in this area. The first one built on the San Antonio River was San Antonio de Valero, now known at the Alamo, in 1718. The others are down stream from it at spaces of around three to four miles apart. Some have original stone work still standing and some have original painting still visible. Some chapels are still used. We got to see some nice nativities in the ones that are still being used.
Their chapels were small and narrow.

We came across the middle one, Jan Jose, just driving into town so we stopped in. A lot of it has been restored. It also has a small grist mill with a horizontal wall wheel. It was a small mill.

The Indians had small two room homes that formed the outer walls.
Most Missions weren't enclosed at the beginning but when the Apache Indians started invading them they walled the Missions in for defense. There were outdoor ovens and the foundations of building that were within the walls.

Next to the church was usually a convento where the missionaries lived. These formed some nice arches and were sometimes two stories.

The buildings were made of lime stone and some bricks that they made on site. They weren't meant to last forever. In time the missions were turned over to the Indians and the missionaries only took care of the church duties. Without guidance, the buildings started falling apart. At the time of the Battle of the Alamo, it was used to house military. Due to the history of them, they have been restored. During this time there was even graffiti.
We found an interesting stairs in one of the churches. The steps were cut from logs and stacked one on top of the other.


This is the front of some of the churches.The last one is of Mission Concepcion. You can see the dome that is inside the chapel. It is larger and more elegant than the others. This is the dome inside.
I also found the doors interesting. Most of them were double doors, both of which were very narrow. I also liked the work that was done on the doors themselves.I just found these next two interesting.

Unfortunately, we didn't have sun when we went to most of the missions, so the pictures weren't as interesting. However, it was interesting seeing them.

Seeing San Antonio

We arrived in San Antonio and have enjoyed some warm and sunny weather. We have taken in some of the things to see around here.

Through our exploring, we have noted some good things about this area. We have been impressed with how clean it is. There are even people out cleaning in the down town area. The roads are easy to get around on and there seems to be an adequate interstate system with many spokes going into the down town area. They have also done a great job on keeping and restoring historical areas and buildings.

One of these areas is La Villita. It was the beginning of San Antonio. It has original buildings that were built in the late 1700's. They have specialty shops, etc. in them now. It was in this area that Santa Anna lined up his cannons for the fight at the Alamo.

Another area is The Market. Years ago the local farmers and Mexicans would bring their wares here to sell. It is now Mexican shops, restaurants, music, etc.

Another historical area is the King William district. Here many old Victorian style homes, that were the homes of German merchants, have been brought back to their original glory. One man has personally bought 13 of these homes and restored them.


We were able to meet up with one of my brothers and his wife, who were here for the holidays. Since they are familiar with the area, they were our tour guides for some of it.

We went down to the River Walk. I was surprised with what I saw. I thought that it would be at street level, (it is below.) There are lots of shops and restaurants . The walk way follows the horse shoe shape of the river, which is more of a canal now. There are boats that you can ride on it. It is a very pretty part of the city even if it was very busy with people.

There are numerous bridges across it and you can come up to street level in many places. In one place there is a falls.

We came up near the Alamo and walked over to it. We did go back the next day so that we could go inside the Alamo.

The saddest part of this area is that the business stores of today are all just across the streets from the Alamo. It is too bad that there isn't some open space and not just commercial buildings. The other missions do have some space. There is a monument out front listing the names of those who gave their lives here fighting to defend it.

This is from inside; one of those large oak trees.

We went back down to the river walk and ran into Samson trying to hold up the pillars and Deli cutting his hair.

We drove out to one of the Universities and drove through their campus and all the lighted trees. It was very beautiful. It is in this area that the San Antonio river comes bubbling out of the ground as a large spring.

The following day my brother took us to the New River Walk, which is up stream from where we were. This is a nice area for joggers, bikers, and walkers. There is a lock on the river and they do bring some of the tour boats up it also. There are lots of native plants along the sides and some built in attractions, one of which makes it look like you are under ground.

They have also added falls where water enters. It is nice that the sides aren't built up with businesses but that will probably happen some day.

This is looking back towards the main part of town.

Much of the river has been straightened. The part that goes through town use to flood the town. They have done much to prevent this. First they dug a canal that joins the bottoms of the horse shoe. There are flood gates here so that the water can be shut off from going in the horse shoe. Also, upstream they have drilled underground tunnels to divert water past the down town during heavy rainfall.

We took in the Missions in this area but I will save that for the next blog.

Exploring and Learning

Last Thursday B and I were feeling better, we have had colds, so we decided to take the 240 mile drive we had been looking forward to taking. It consisted of going on west to the little town of Kaplan and then heading south on Louisiana 35. This road is marked as a scenic route, but we have since learned that it was built as an evacuation route for those living in the area. Their only other route is the water way.

We thought that maybe we would see an alligator but no such luck. We did see lots of snowy egrets.

Here they don't look very large but they are large. They are pretty to see in flight but we weren't able to get a picture as we were usually driving when we saw some flying and there wasn't a place to stop.

The area consists of many wetlands, swamps, bayou, canals, or what ever else you call them. We took the ferry across at Cameron. There are some beach communities, or maybe I should say were, after we crossed on the ferry. We parked and went down to the beach at one of these. The water was pretty brown. The sand is loaded with tiny pieces of shells, not like the sand we saw in Florida. (I wondered if that was due to the hurricanes that they have had.)

From here we could see out into the gulf. Here we saw many oil platforms. What businesses we did see at Cameron were related to these.

We had hopes of getting lunch at a local eatery along the way, but no luck. (It was Lake Charles before we found anyplace.) In the beach areas the only buildings we saw were fairly new or they were trailers/fifth wheels parked on lots. There were many vacant lots with concrete slabs. There were no businesses of any kind. This is one of the homes.
Note how high up the building is from the ground. We saw nothing lower than this or older. Hurricanes Ike and Reta both came through here. From the looks of things, they wiped out everything. We did see some twisted cars/trucks (it was hard to tell) in a swamp area. We also saw a metal building with nothing below about twelve feet except the metal studs. Above that the walls were there, although the sea side was bent inward. In another area we saw two trailers about ten feet up on stilts with water marks and damage half way up their sides.

As Rita and Ike came ashore, I'm sure that there were sighs of relief that they ONLY came to sparsely populated areas. I'm sure that those with property, etc. in the sparsely populated areas weren't feeling very much relief. After seeing some of this destruction and also learning how the communities where we are currently staying (a good thirty miles from the coast) were flooded, I will never again think, "Oh, it is good that the hurricane is coming in there, a sparsely populated area."

A Few of Our New Found Things

We have had some fun exploring Cajun country and learning about the area.

One of the first things that we noticed as we were driving towards Abbeville, Louisiana was the smell of smoke in the air. This is sugar cane country and they are in the middle of harvest. After they cut it off they burn the fields. We were driving close to a field the other day and decided to stop and get a picture. Do you see B. at the edge of the field?
About six miles from where we are staying is a small town that we found sort of interesting.
The land for the town was purchased by an August Erath, who was a Swiss German. He was instrumental in getting the railroad to come to the town. It is named after him even though he never lived there. He lived in New Iberia, a neighboring town that is much larger. The town has been flooded numerous times due to hurricanes coming ashore near it or due to the back wash from others.

We also found this sign not far out of the town of Erath.
I never really understood the difference between Cajun and Creole. I have learned that Creoles are of French and European descent, mainly aristocracy who settled in cities. Creoles take to culinary spices and generally use vast ingredients and several courses.

Cajuns were French, Catholic settlers of Acadian Nova Scotia, Canada. Looking for freedom to live as they pleased, in 16o4 they began moving into eastern Canada. They found fertile fields and abundant fish and wildlife. To them it was heaven on earth so they called it Arcadia, or 'Acadie'. Acadia was a distinct colony of New France, and was geographically and administratively separate from the French colony of Canada (modern day Quebec), which led to Acadians and Québécois developing two rather distinct histories and cultures.

In 1713 the English took control of their settlements after a war with France. The Acadians struck a deal with their new rulers and agreed to remain neutral in any future conflicts between the English and French. In return, they asked to be left alone to live in peace and isolation.

Faced with the refusal of the Acadians to pledge allegiance to the British crown and Anglican Church in 1755, English Governor Charles Lawrence took action on his own and gave the orders that led to the expulsion of the Acadians. Families were scattered and many lost their lives. Some returned to Europe, others moved to French speaking areas, and some went to the English colonies to the south. By 1784 the King of Spain consented to allow them to settle in South Louisiana. The Acadians then joined a scattering of their people who had arrived as early as 1765 from the Caribbean and the East Coast. Since they received a hostile greeting from the French aristocracy, they headed west and into the unsettled territory. They settled along the bayous of south central and south western Louisiana.

Now you know what I've learned.

We went to a concert where some well know Cajun players participated. Last evening we tried out some of the food. This isn't crawfish season so my fish platter didn't have them on it, however the catfish, crab, shrimp, frog leg, etc were good. Bob had alligator and it was good. They also had Cajun music and dancing. The music is interesting. Most of it is a fast three four time played by fiddles, guitars, accordians, and sometimes drumsets.

There are also lots of oak trees in this area. I now understand "in the shade of the old oak tree." This tree is in the down town area and as you can see it extends out over half of the street. It would cover close to half a block. It is not the only large tree like this.
That is B standing under the tree.
We also took a side trip to Avery Island, home of the McIlhenny Co., Tabasco. I was surprised to see some higher ground. Everything is extremely flat around here with the exception of this island, which has an area over one hundred feet high.

We took the tour and learned that the peppers are not picked until they reach a special shade of red. The same day they are mixed with some salt, ground, strong vinegar added, then the mash is placed in oak barrels, and closed with lids which in turn are covered with salt. Some holes have been drilled in the lids to allow expansion when it ferments. Then the barrels are aged for three years before it is bottled. The salt that is used comes from a salt mine on the island. It turns out that the island is a huge salt dome. The salt was first found about fifteen feet below the surface. They don't know how deep it goes but think it may be many miles. They also found oil.

It has been great seeing and learning about this area. The people here are relaxed, (last night the waitress sat down with us for a chat) and very friendly. We are enjoying our visit.

Cold, Cold, and Cold

Plan A:
Take several pictures, then post them, see how far down the row of pictures before you realized where we were.

Plan A failure:
Got in too late on Saturday to go to the down town area, was too COLD on Sunday and Monday (it got below freezing and the wind was gale force), I came down with a good head COLD on Saturday, still too cold and sick on Monday, finally made it on Tuesday - but my camera decided it was too COLD to work. Only got one picture.

I tried to get a picture of the gas lanterns that were burning, but no cooperation from my camera. I also wanted to get a picture of how narrow the streets are, only two cars wide. You can see that the sidewalks only allow two people to walk side by side down them. We wanted to take in some of the music, but only heard a band as they were in the process of making a movie and they were marching towards Bourbon Street.

Oh, that was our New Orleans experience.

Just Another Day in Paradise

Our youngest son is always accusing his dad of being 'Bah, Humbug' at the holidays. I guess you could say that, maybe, he got his wish. We had a different Thanksgiving.

We have been visiting B's brother and family in Tennessee. The four of us decided to go to Apalachicola Bay, Florida, for an extended Thanksgiving weekend. They have a friend staying down here.

So this is the way we spent the day.

George kept telling his wife that where we were staying was very primitive, no TV, outhouse, etc. He made it sound like maybe this is were we would be.

However, this is where our quarters are, on the top floor.

The bay.

Spanish moss.

There were no turkeys in sight, on or off the table, but lots of peacocks. This one was sitting in the tree, just off the balcony, grooming himself. I love the feathers.

There are also lots of these. They are there at the fish cleaning dock.

This area is noted for it's oysters. Here are some of the boats that do the work.

The 'gravel' along the pathway is interesting.

This is it closer up.

In other parts of the country, there are piles of gravel. Here there are piles of oyster shell as high as those gravel piles.

We also drove out to Cape St George. This is the old light house. Yes, of course we went to the beach, ocean side.

When it was all done, we decided to have our Thanksgiving dinner.
The restaurants were closed.

This is the group.


We all hope that you had a fun Thanksgiving and remembered just how fortunate we are due to the hardships the early pilgrims and pioneers endured.

Radford, Virginia

We made a stop in Radford, Virginia, on our way south to see B's brother. We stopped here because we wanted to see a niece who is working on her PhD, close to here in Blacksburg.

Since we have been away from the trailer for awhile, we needed to move some of our things back into it. We had picked it up from storage on our way from DC. After a long day of driving, getting lost because our GPS sent us astray making us late meeting up with our niece, we decided to lay over a day.

One of the things that B wanted to do was to get a hair cut. So the next afternoon we went into town and found a barber. We decided to take a drive along the river, the New River, back to the trailer. While we were driving I saw a two story log cabin down in a flat field closer to the river. As we went further down the road we say a sign. On it was written: The Ingles Farm 1747. The cabin was on the farm. We tried to go in to it but the gate was closed.

Now that wouldn't have meant anything to us if it hadn't been for a book, "Follow the River," that my sister gave us to read when we were at her place last spring. It is the story of Mary Ingles who was taken captive, along with two of her sons, her sister-in-law,and another man, by Indians at the start of the French and Indian war. She and another captive escaped in late September and made her way home, over three to four hundred miles.

We knew that we would be close to where she had lived but didn't realize how close we would be. Today, it is hard to imagine that this area was the frontier. It is also hard to imagine what she went through to get up the New River, through its gorge, and back to her home. I'm glad that I live now.