Passing the time before the appointment, playing Mexican Train with Maggie, Kelvin & Marc!
A biopsy was recommended and taken. Waiting for results, we moved south to Hondo to check out the Escapees Lone Star Corral Co-op (Texans love Texas themes). In winter the area is rather barren, but the history of small towns once accessible only by buggy and the railroad seems starkly real.
The closest town to the campground is D’Hanis, founded by twenty-nine families from Alsace, France in the mid 1800s. The San Dominic Church was abandoned in 1914 when the town center relocated closer to the train route. Many graves are early immigrants and children who died during an 1810 diphtheria outbreak.
San Antonio has the largest group of Spanish Colonial missions in the US, and a unique history! The area was home to semi-nomadic Indian populations when it was contested by Spanish and French explorers. The Spanish built the missions, and taught the Indians to farm and raise cattle. Some Spanish horses escaped or were stolen, and spread north across the plains into Canada. In 1722, San Antonio was the capitol of Spanish Texas. After Mexico won independence, they governed the land north of the Rio Grande. In battles following the 1836 fall of the Alamo, the independent Republic of Texas was born, which briefly became a US state before seceding in 1861
Here in San Fernando Cathedral lie the remains of Travis, Crockett, Bowie and other defenders of the Alamo. In 1936 they were disinterred and placed on public view for a year before being placed here. You’ve got to wonder, would they do that sort of thing today? Bones?
We’ve visited all five Spanish missions along the San Antonio River. At Mission San Juan, dating prior to 1750, a docent told about his great-grandparents of Mexican heritage, who were married in the San Juan Mission Church, where he attends services each Sunday. Electricity is installed, walls crumbling.
Today San Antonio is a vibrant multicultural city, as we learned at the beautiful San Antonio Museum of Art during a visit with Curator of Contemporary Art David Rubin, who I worked with at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans.
We came back to Marc’s in mid-January. Chuck had his follow-up visit and the biopsy was positive – which or course is NOT good, he has cancer. Fortunately it is small, contained and not aggressive. He’ll have a series of radiation treatments in Austin.
More Texas icons:
Yes! Extreme hog hunts! Come & get ‘em.
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