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.
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.
And as were drove through open country, it was easy to imagine my parents hiking and hunting in the rolling hills and brush land.
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.
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.
We left New Orleans for the Bar B Ques of San Antonio and they were worth the trip.
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. 
