Thursday, November 24, 2005.  Today is the American Thanksgiving Day.  Happy Thanksgiving, U.S.A.  It was a good drive.  Hardly anyone on the road.  Everyone is eating turkey.  We have lost a part of our trailer hitch.  We think it broke off while leaving the ferry that took us to Galveston (who sang that song?).  We heard a loud click there but could not pull over to check.  We parked at Wal Mart and went back seven miles but he could not see anything.  We have bought heavy duty straps from Wal Marts to hold the sway bar for now. 

 

Stayed the night at Wal-Mart, what a horror picture.  The day after Thanksgiving all the stores have a sale that starts at 5:00 a.m.  The parking lot was full at 5:00 a.m.. This is their kick off to Christmas.

Along the way to Galveston. Who sang that song?

Denise, you win the lollypop.  Good girl. She said "Glen Campbell" sang Galveston~!!!!
 

We spent a night at a free road site camp which you are allowed to stay for 3 nights.  There was another couple from Ontario, it was nice chatting with them.  We decided to leave the next day because there were visitors of about 20 guys there at midnight.  We were parked across the road from them but our other couple were parked amongst them, they said the next morning that they overheard it was their Friday night meeting,  the cops dropped in for a visit and many of them left at that point.  We made our way to Magnolia Beach.  It is so nice to camp on a beach and free to boot.

 The view is great, Matagorda Bay, on the beach, in the Gulf of Mexico.

Velma and Shark.....A fisherman next door caught this....not me.

View of birds from our trailer window and temperature outside.
Monday, November 28, 2005.  It is one thing to be in a trailer overnight along the river or lake in a storm but it can be frightening on the Gulf of Mexico.  I did not sleep most of the night.  The trailer is swaying and the waves are roaring.  I ended up taking an Advil at 3:30 a.m., my right shoulder ached from the tension.  I think we will be here until Denis gets the trailer hitch fixed at a welders. It being Thanksgiving has delayed us but the day after Thanksgiving is their kick off to Christmas and a lot of radio stations throw in some Christmas music every so often.  Not enough for you to get sick of it.  That's neat.
Thursday, December 01-02, 2005.  We are now in Castroville, TX.  Went through San Antonio, via interstate, with the trailer.  It is sooo tense.  Pictures below are in San Antonio.  What a place.  If you want a vacation this is the place.  Sites to see, shopping and good food.
There are 5 Missions there; The Alamo, Concepcion, San Jose, San Juan, Espada.  Missions were originally communities built of wood or adobe.  Later came the stone structures with encircled stone walls.  They housed a whole community.  Mission Indians built the communities under the direction of skilled craftsmen recruited from Spain.  

This is Mission San Jose.  It dates back to 1720.  The church was the central feature of every mission. The importance of community life is evident in the physical arrangement of the mission compound.  The massive stone walls reflect its defensive role.  Because of the threat of raids by the Apache & Comanche Indians, mission residents learned to use firearms to defend themselves.  This training along with the imposing walls, discouraged enemy attacks.


The fine detail at the Mission San Jose demonstrates the high craftsmanship of the artisans who worked on the missions.
 

 


 

The mission San Antonio de Valero was the first mission built in San Antonio area. Dates back to 1718. 
This is now called "The Alamo".(night picture) 
The Alamo played a critical role in the Texas Revolution from Mexico.  The Texians & Tejanos defended the Alamo against Mexico's General Santa Anna's army with a siege of 13 days, eventually giving up their lives.  Some of the well known dead are; William Travis, Jim Bowie (of Bowie knife fame), David Crockett (famed frontiersman & former congressman from Tennessee).  Their names are inscribed in a monument there.  Later Sam Huston defeated Santa Anna's army at what is now known as Houston.  Texas then became an independent state (country) for 10 years.  "Remember the Alamo!"

 

 


San Antonio has a "River Walk" through a large portion of their downtown area.  It is so neat to stroll along the walk and then sit and have dinner and a Margarita. The whole thing is one level below street level and at places the greenery is so thick, you fell you are in a forest by a river!

This River Walk is about 20 to 30 miles long but only a portion of it is along the downtown area.  The rest you would be walking and only see the buildings above.

This was the view in the evening after dinner all decked out with Xmas lights.

On the way home Denis went the wrong way on a one way and his excuse was "Boy, that one Margarita was a good one.

     

We think this is a biting red ant but it is suppose to have a black head???
Saturday, December 3 - 4, 2005.  Visited the first movie location built in Texas for John Wayne for the movie "The Alamo", along with San Antonio of the 1800's in behind, in 1957. Filming began in 1959.  The cost for the movie was $12 million and was the largest budget for a film in the US up to that time.  Since then other movies, documentaries, etc. have used this set e.g."Arrowhead"-Charleton Heston, "Bandolero"- Raquel Welch, Jimmy Stewart, Dean Martin and numerous more.  We are now travelling to "Big Bend National Park" in south western Texas, the heel of the boot that makes Texas.

Denis pretending he is a cowboy at a Saloon in San Antonio "Alamo" movie set.  Can you believe a couple of people thought he was an American.

This is the Pecos River. You can see it ends at the Rio Grande river and Mexico on the other side. Now, everything west of here is "The law west of the Pecos".

This is judge Roy Bean's saloon, where he conducted his court cases and dispensed law according to his way, which was "the law west of the Pecos".
Monday December 5 - 8, 2005.  We have been at the Big Bend National Park (the name Big Bend refers to the great U-turn the Rio Grande River makes here), camped for 3 days on the east side, one of those was in the middle of the desert, and 2 days on the west side.  The park is huge.  We hiked to a beautiful window view, have seen road runners (Beep-Beep!), deer, vultures! 

Look!! A sunburnt cactus.

 


This was the view from our one night in the middle of the desert at K-Bar site!

A picture just cannot describe it.
 

This is the "Window View", what a view. It's the end of the creek from a canyon where it dumps water high off a mountain side.


 


We met this guy on our way to a hot spring.  The Roadrunner runs at speeds up to 20 mph but they prefer to fly, it pursues lizards and small rattlesnakes.  It pecks them to death with stunning blows of it beak. They are about 22 inches in length.  (Beep-Beep!).

Went for a canoe ride on the Rio Grande in "Santa Elena canyon", a ride I will never forget!  We had to haul the canoe, motor, nap sack for about a 1/4 mile, part ways through 2-3 inches of cold fine silt mud.  Our feet froze but the view was worth it.
We left the park by way of Study Butte (west side) and went along the Rio Grande River for hours, through Terlingua, Lajitas and Presidio (usually hottest spot in Texas), what a ride.  We went up one hill which was a 15% grade, all the way down to first gear  The view was beautiful.
Old adobe houses along the way and on the Rio Grand river... Mexico just across.

 

 

 

 

 

A canyon view of the Rio Grande river from the top of one of the "hills" we had to drive up.
Friday, December 9, 2005.  Denis made me sleep by the highway, with a train tooting it's horn every time it passed us" (you swore it was going through the trailer) so that we could watch for the "Marfa Lights", in freezing weather.  Marfa Lights, check on Internet because you will not see them at the site (ha ha).
Denis reading instructions on how to spot Marfa lights at the State built viewing centre in the middle of nowhere! ohhhhhh!!!
Denis still looking for the lights before sun-up!
Went to Big Bend Museum at Sul Ross University in Alpine (a University that offers a degree in rodeo cowboying!). The museum was not what we thought it would be, as they moved to a temporary location and did not have the artefacts we had expected. We were disappointed.  The trip north to Pecos was through beautiful Balmorhea State Recreational Area.

Me at museum with my cowboy. Met real Texan cowboy who had the real lingo. Isn't he cute.

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