Marathon, TX

 Spent the last 3 days in Marathon, TX.   It is a town of 400 people.  The closest town to Big Bend National Park.  It was a lazy couple of days, but still included some interesting stuff.

The campground that we stayed at had a nice courtyard with a water fountain.  Due to the cold snap it was all frozen.  It was cool at night because they had colored lights in it.

One evening we went to the distillery in town.  We ended up talking to a local couple for a couple hours.  Turns out the woman had written a book and was meeting a film director at the distillery to talk about a contract to turn her book into a movie.  She gave us a copy of the book.  I look forward to reading it.  It was interesting talking about the area and they gave us a food recommendation for the town of Alpine where we were planning to go.  It’s one thing we like about going to distilleries and breweries is we learn about the local area and meet different people.  

We also went to the local BBQ place.  It was in an old gas station, so had cool architecture to it. The BBQ was good but I REALLY enjoyed the peach cobbler.  So much so, another night we went just for the cobbler.  

We did walk around the town and up to the schools.  They have all grades with 4-5 students per grade.  They had a sports field, but I wonder how they are able to field any type of team.  We saw several different historical buildings of the town, the first school house and the Gage Hotel.  When we did walk to town we saw this interesting Street Sign.  It was on a side street and we have no idea what it means. 

We ventured into Alpine the last day we were there.  We needed to do some wash as the laundry at the campgrounds pipes froze the night it was 18 degrees.  After the wash, we hiked to “the desk” at Sul Ross University.  It was a nice rocky trail, one of my favorite types, with wide open views.  Dave estimated we could probably see about 15 miles.  

We saw different kinds of cacti

This was a dead cactus with the green gone and you could see the veins.

The story of the desk is that in 1981 three Sul Ross students decided they needed a quiet place away from the dorm to study.  Together they carried a desk up Hancock Hill.  Soon they were spending hours up on the hill studying and enjoying the beautiful surroundings.  One day, one of them left a notebook in one of the desk drawers and when he checked it later, someone had written in it.  He replied and soon the tradition of a notebook associated with The Desk was born.  Now people just sign the desk and the original notebook is in the archives of the Big Bend in the Bryan Wildenthal Memorial Library.

                                            Boy, this would be a really nice office

                                          Dave signed on the edge “Strohmetz 2025”

After the hike we went to the Cow Dog, the place the people from the distillery recommended.  They sell hot dogs only with various kinds of toppings.  Dave had the Mexican and I had the El Pastor.  They were very yummy.  They also had an open mike, so there were some poeple playing music.  We then found a local shop that had ice cream and other treats and had a cone.  Real nice day in Alpine, TX.  

Today we moved to Big Bend National Park.  Service will be spotty or only at the visitor centers, so will post when I can.  

Till next time.  

 Seminole Canyon State Park is near Comstock, TX.  We arrived on a Sunday.  

You are only allowed to go into the Canyon with a ranger or guide.  Because it is off season, these walks are only offered Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  We were going to be leaving Wednesday.  It was also NFL playoff time and the Eagles were playing the Rams.  So….I went on the hike and Dave watched the game.

The hike was to the Fatte Bell Annex and Shelter.  They were named after the person who sold the land to the state.  The showcase of these two caves are the pictographs.  There also were some fossils near the base of the caves.    The pictographs were Pegus River Style and only used black, red, yellow and white, which was also the order the colors were painted on the walls (all black, then all red, etc.).  The paints were mineral based.  The type of mineral determined the color.  There were also binders used, which were most likely bone marrow from deer and the bulb from a plant that was like a soap.  For paint brushes they most likely used plant, animal fur and their fingers.  They would also put paint in their mouth or a tube and spit/blow it out around their hand on the rock.  (Lynn, how do those paint supplies sound?)

Picture of the shelter where the pictrographs were

Tree at the end of the shelter still surviving

Fossils 

Fossil

                                                    This picture shows various pieces of shells

The indigenous people who lived here were nomads, but used this shelter for over 8,000 years.    They noted that they were nomads within a 60 mile radius of this cave.  There is all kinds of conjecture about the meaning and purpose of the pictographs, but it is something that we will never truly know. 

These were names written in 1884, people who were building the railroad

This was conjectured to be people holding hands

In the middle of the picture are handprints in red

On the right is some type of creature and on the left is a fern like drawing, plus lots of dots

There are several pictographs along the center of this phot on the whitest part of the rock

This is one of the most well preserved of the pictographs.  

They said this rock in the shelter was used as a cutting board and place where they worked on various things.  

Weather effect on limestone wall

The only other thing we did while at this park was tour the museum.  The museum spoke about the pictographs and their history.  It also explained the industry from 1880 - 1973 when the area became a state park was overwhelmingly sheep farming.  

This was during the cold snap and it was in the 20s at night and maybe 40 and windy during the day.  We did take one short walk one day, but enjoyed our toasty camper and other activities.  These are a couple pictures from our walk. 

Til next time. 

San Antonio Part II

 Day 2 in the San Antonio area took us to Mission San Jose, a National Park Site.  They had a ranger walk that we took from the Mission to Espada Dam.  The Mission built this dam with a weir, to back the water up to the channel to go to the Mission.  The Mission was built 1/2 mile from the river so as not to flood, but could still direct the water to the Mission.  Every time I visit a site like this I am amazed at how much they did with so little “technology”.

Along the walk we saw the modern dam, seemingly being protected by the birds.  

This next picture is the original dam built for the Mission.  I tried to get the channel and the dam in the same picture, but it just looks like a picturesque scene.  I am including the plaque that explains the dam.  If you zoom in you can read it fairly clearly.  

When we were at the dam we had some time to roam.  The infrastructure on the trees is evident in these pictures of the top and the roots.  

When the hike was over we went across the street to the Sip and Sit for a hot beverage before going to explore the Mission.

Mission San Jose’s purpose was to convert the indigenous people to catholicism.  Within the security of the walls that doubled as housing, the transition from traditional hunter-gather society evolved.  New forms of shelter, food and trades were becoming the norm.  

The priest and friars lived in the Mission church building with many luxuries, while all others lived in much lesser accommodations, hence emphasizing the status of the clergy.   

I found this one particular part of the building extremely interesting.  The common folk or neophytes were not allowed in the church until they converted to Catholicism, which was a long process of learning tenets and receiving sacraments.  The Clergy would stand at this Rose Window and teach and preach to the neophytes.  It seems that you would want to be much more welcoming and understanding to people you want to convert.  Instead the neophytes worked hard all day building and maintaining the Mission, but were not welcomed into the church to learn and grow into the religion.

There is so much history in these Missions that is hard for me to express in words. So here are just some pictures of the building and a map of the grounds.  The detail in the building and meanings behind the carvings is beautiful and interesting.  

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I am a nature lover.   I found this tree quite interesting, its weaving and going back into the ground and back up.  Wonder what weather conditions caused all the twists and turns. 

Til next time. 

San Antonio, Texas

 San Antonio, Texas - 1/17 - 1/19/2025

We stayed a Harvest Host for two nights called the Texas Air Museum at Stinson Field.  The museum was on one side and the municipal airport was on the other.  The lights of the airport were cool at night.  Also no loud planes because it was a municipal airport.  Lots of small planes and helicopters taking off. 

The museum recorded the history of Kelly Field in addition to having lots of military artifacts, planes, some space information and all kinds of memorabilia.

Here is the history of the establishment of Kelly Field and the role of the airfield.  Easier for me to provide the pics if you are interested in reading than trying to summarize. 

The Aztec Eagles were a group of Mexican pilots who assisted the United States in WWII.  It is an interesting story if you care to look it up.  It is something neither Dave nor I had known about.

Operation Little Vittles with Uncle Wiggly Wings is a happy story from the war. 

These are just for fun.  Can you imagine sitting in these cockpits and flying up in the air?

Interesting facts learned throughout the museum:

* How young some of the military personnel were, Veterans of Underage Military Service.  One sign they had showed a 12, 14 and 16 year old who served.  There were over 1,000 underage military service men.

* HAM was a chimpanzee that rocketed 155 miles high and 420 miles downrange aboard a Mercury Redstone rocket on January 31, 1961.  Ham’s Orbital flight paved the way for the flight made by the first astronaut, Alan Shepard on May 5, 1961.  Ham was trained to manipulate the two levers in the couch whenever the light appeared beneath them.

* The museum had a collection of books which included archived information from all space activities from Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Space Shuttle Missions and International Space Station Missions.

Enjoy some additional pics.

Gas refill station for planes

Till next time