Friday, January 29, 2010

Thugs

Javelinas are notorious citizens of the national Park. We had just read the Ranger Newsletter with a gruesome tale of the wild pigs feasting on a poodle, thoughtlessly left leashed to a picnic table by its owners who were going to be gone for "just a minute". While we were eating lunch, a pair of Javelinas aggressively came out of the brush and advanced on the ranger's medium sized dog. She quickly locked the dog in the truck while the pigs pretended to be interested in the mountain view.
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New Land

Big Bend National Park was an unknown territory, and so we headed south. Happily wading in the shallow Rio Grande, Vinnie warned me that splashing any further required a passport.
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Outside the city

And as were drove through open country, it was easy to imagine my parents hiking and hunting in the rolling hills and brush land.
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Home Again


On the outskirts of San Antonio we found another house where my parents lived early in their marriage. It was so changed that it took a long period of examination to declare it found.
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A new face

In the middle of a familiar old mission, there were surprises. We do not know the story of this small statue near the sanctuary, but she was an intriguing mystery.
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The Missions


Starting at the Alamo are a string of beautiful old mission churches. They were much as my parents remembered them from so many years ago.
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Along the River

In the heart of the city we walked along the River Walk, a place where my mother and her parents had walked long before my birth.
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Lure of the West

We left New Orleans for the Bar B Ques of San Antonio and they were worth the trip.
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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Haunted Hotel?


The old apartment on Ursulines Street was unchanged, except for the "Haunted Hotel" sign. The door on the street could not suggest what life was like for my parents when they lived here, very young and newly married.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Looking In


We found Royal Street and their old apartment there, but the only way that we could see the inner courtyard  was in faded black and white pictures.
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Sights

We wandered through the art on the plaza and the stillness of the St. Louis cemetery.
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Return to the Quarter

We began our visit to New Orleans in the French Quarter where Stuart and Thelma had lived early in their marriage. It was much the same, only now instead of mopping the blood off their front stoop and staring at the tourists, .... they were tourists.
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