Day 6  San Antonio to Comstock TX

Our site at Seminole State Park Historic Site (Comstock TX)

                                                                                     
                                                         Shrub to be named later.  Really!

                                                         

                                                        It took many tries but this one was decent!   March 6, 2012

We left the hustle bustle and historic city of the Missions, and headed west again out of the rolling hills that surround the city. The sun was shining, and although there were some clouds in the sky it still was  pleasant 72 degrees F almost all day. 

We traversed John Nance Garner’s home (Vice President under FDR) where he did return to his home town, Uvalde, after retirement and lived there where he died at 98 years of age. * What was his nickname ? (See end of article)

The rivers are mainly dry out here so that there is a severe fire alert in most of SW Texas covering San Antonio and parts west.  We camp this night in the middle of that alert. 

The road was long and quite straight.

 BTW... Did you know that when President Eisenhower moved forward with the Freeway system in the 1950‘s that he mandated that there be a one mile straight road every 4 miles. For military emergency airplane use!  Check it out!

Where was I? Oh yes, heading west on US 90 toward Del Rio, crossing the Nueces, Sabinal and the Frio Rivers all of which were all but dry with some ponding in them. We did find a very good bakery in Castroville called  Haby's Alsatian Bakery. I couldn’t resist and Ruth didn’t object. I could have stayed there all day and gotten FATTER. There were 35 feet of baked good in the counters  with lots of coffee and beverages. I commented to the lady what a wonderful assortment of baked good they had. She stated that the customers are often lined up at 6:00 in the AM when they open to get in the door. It was marvelous and so were the cinnamon bun (Ruth) and apple turnover that I had.  Once in a while one has to splurge.

Back on the road the miles went smoothly in spite of a 15 minute  delay for some “cuts” in the road removing limestone rocks by the truckload. Lots of that ubiquitous Mesquite all across the land.   Del Rio, a town of 35,000 has a one million gallon (daily) spring that supplies the city adequately. The Rio Grande at this point is backed up by a Mexican/USA dam that created the Amistad  Recreation Area and Reservoir. We will visit that on Wednesday as it has bird potential written all over it when we drove by today. Those who followed the Alaska trip remember Ruth’s story about the apples at the border. Today we saw an  “Inspection Ahead” sign and we thought it was a fruit inspection again. Ruth had thoughts of losing her apples again. But, wouldn’t you know it was the Border Immigration Inspection team (7 men and women and a dog)  checking the cars as they went through. We were cleared in a few seconds.  NO contraband on us!

We arrived at the Seminole State Park and National Historic Site and secured our site for the two day stay. By now the clouds covered the sky.  Never mind that I had entered the wrong days when I secured the reservations a month before. The ladies straightened it out for me as there were adequate sites available.  (Shhh don’t tell Ruth!) Our site was on a ridge in the middle of the Texas desert surrounded by cacti, and all sorts of flowering shrubs that we hope to name for you soon. The view a few miles away of the Rio Grande Valley and the ZAPILNAME Mountains of Mexico on the southern horizon (Some at 12,000 feet).

We had no more settled in when the winds picked up quite fierce and will blow most of the night I believe. Probably at 25-30 mph , so it won’t blow us over with our 3 1/2 ton rig in spite of some 45-50 mph gusts.Whew! I went out to check the rig (all Ok) and saw that Venus and Jupiter are visible now so the wind may be abating soon.(No clouds) 

Tomorrow we will explore the Amistad Reservoir for birds and some of the Seminole canyon here as allowed .There are many hiking trails here and it is a wonderful spot to do just that for hiking and biking families or individuals.

This is a short one tonight and I am not sure this will get sent out  .Already we are having trouble receiving mail. We shall see. 

*Answer to questions about John N. Garner...”Cactus Jack”.