September 19, 2018

We spent Tuesday night in Austin with friends, Scott and Barbara, who had relocated from Lake Ridge last year. We enjoyed the chance to get caught up with them and get their sense of the area, because we weren’t going to spend time in Austin, at least on this trip. Scott still is a charter member of our Lake Ridge running group, the THuGs (cryptically means Thursday-Gold’s, because the group started meeting at the Gold’s Gym to run at 5:00 AM on Thursdays).

Sandy and I were feeling a little schedule pressure. We have to be back to Lake Ridge for my appointment Sept. 26, but want to visit our daughter Laura in New Orleans, who’s posting these blog entries, and second daughter Marie, son-in-law Mike, and grandsons Noah and Patrick in South Carolina.

The Alamo, in San Antonio, still was in front of us. We headed down I-35, passing some of those Hill Country places, San Marcos and New Braunfels, that we would have to miss on this trip.

The Alamo, site of the tragic battle of 200 Texans, Tennesseans, and others against a 1,500-man Mexican force on March 6, 1836, is reverently preserved in the heart of the city. The original mission church is only part of the complex of fortifications built several hundred feet out from and behind the church, which stretched the defenders thinly against the final Mexican assault. The names of all the defenders who are known are engraved on gold plaques, with some extra recognition given to the most famous, Davie Crockett, and original co-commanders, Jim Bowie and Col. William Travis.

Because Bowie was ill, he ceded command to Travis, a South Carolina native, 26 years old, who had brought his wife to Texas, hoping to set up a law practice. He was appointed counsel for Texas by “Father of Texas” Stephen F. Austin, then commissioned a lieutenant colonel in the Legion of Texas by the governor and ordered to recruit a militia. He arrived at the Alamo with 18 men, joined by Bowie’s 30 men. Other volunteers trickled in, including Crockett’s 30 Tennesseans. On Feb. 24, as the Mexican siege began, Travis wrote, in a letter seeking reinforcements: “I am determined to sustain myself and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his honor and that of his country. VICTORY OR DEATH.”

The rest of the story is well-known. The reinforcements never arrived. On March 6, after a 13-day siege, the Mexican army overwhelmed the defenders, taking no prisoners. On April 12, the Texans, under Gen. Sam Houston, defeated the much larger Mexican army in the Battle of San Jacinto, an 18-minute fight that led to the establishment of the Republic of Texas.

Heartened by the spiritual substance that emerges from story of the Alamo’s defense, we left reluctantly. Across North Alamo Street one finds the famous San Antonio River Walk, an exercise in conventional American tourism. We hiked a short way down the Walk, mostly to say we saw it, then headed back to the van, found I-10 and got out of town. Next stop: New Orleans. No, wait: Galveston.

September 19, 2018

We left Fort Stockton before dawn. We had become efficient at breaking down the tent, heating up water for coffee, gulping our oatmeal, and packing up. We said goodbye to the RV Campground, appreciating the “God Bless You” sign at the gate. The first mileage sign reported Ozuma at 100 miles. We roared over the empty countryside, passed by and occasionally passing big rigs and long pickups. We felt confident staying at 80 with so little traffic, actually no traffic, as the green hills and prairie flashed by. Still, the road atlas map of Texas showed us at just couple of inches of progress from El Paso.

We were able to gas up at Ozuma, after a tense half-hour after I noticed the gas gauge needle hovering at a quarter-tank with 20 miles to go. We drove through the town. A few stores, gas stations, small homes. We didn’t stay long.

Our target for the day was Austin. We got off I-10 where it intersects with U.S. 290, a local road as fast as the interstate. We cruised through pastures, relieved, somehow, to feel we finally were making headway against the huge remoteness of West Texas. We broke free of the prairie and gradually moved into the famous Texas Hill Country, the pretty rolling center of the state accented by Austin, San Antonio, and dozens of smaller towns, many, like Gruene and New Braunfels, named for German immigrants who settled the region. Then I saw the sign: Harper, Texas.

Harper is Sandy’s maiden name. With all the tiny-print towns on the Texas map, how did we find ourselves in her namesake? She loved it. It was about lunchtime. I couldn’t help myself—I parked next to the Longhorn Café, your classic small-town Southern diner, old folks and young construction workers keeping their caps on indoors. Me too—until Sandy frowned at me.

We passed on the chicken-fried steak and all-you-can-eat buffet. She had the chicken sandwich, I asked for the four-vegetable platter. The waitress smiled but gave me a puzzled look. The food seemed to take a while. It’s on the menu, but they probably don’t often get an order for the veggie plate. Just a guess.

Afterward, per the waitress’s directions, we drove out of town a way to get a photo of the “Harper” sign at the edge of town. That was it for Harper, and we got back on 290. The next stop was Fredericksburg, a well-known outpost of the Hill Country. We drove slowly past the art galleries, chic boutiques, wine-tasting parlors, cute restaurants, and souvenir shops heavy on U-Texas and Texas A&M gear, which every younger guy seemed to be wearing. Apart from that I felt I was back in Old Town Alexandria. We got back on the road for a long winding drive past endless wineries with faux English and German names, towards Austin, the high-tech, high-prosperity, high-traffic volume state capital.

 

September 17, 2018

FORT STOCKTON, Tex.: We left El Paso refreshed and restored, but without a concrete plan for a next stop. We headed out I-10, got gas, and pushed past the industrial side of the city as it fell away to the south alongside Mexico, which stretched out green and rugged to the horizon.  This was the section that we had heard extends for some 90 miles with few services. Within 30 minutes we were practically on our own with the long-haul trucks. The two interstate lanes shimmered in the heat in front of us at 80 mph in miles-long curves and straightaways, bordered by the west Texas scrub.

We took turns driving, talking, going back over the trip, and what was to come. Even in its truncated version, the trip would be our last big splash for who knows how long. As we raced across the West, the future seemed sharply defined by what the doc would tell us September 26.

We had to get there first, we reminded each other. There were only a few “picnic areas” along this stretch of I-10. The rolling green scrub flew by. I pulled off at an exit labeled “Plateau,” but saw only a shut-down gas station and café. The road at the end of the ramp simply ended.

Occasionally we saw a structure, but no cattle, no farm vehicles, no human beings. This is West Texas, I reminded myself, while Sandy dozed—vast and nearly empty, prompting thoughts of Dostoevsky’s description of the Russian steppe that, he wrote, drove the insane political visions of the country’s 19th century radical fringe, most of whom were executed.

Eventually the interstate splits, with I-20 leading northeast toward Odessa and Midland, Texas’ big oil country, while I-10 simply drags you due east. We hoped, because of the mild weather, that we could find a state park for camping close to the highway. I studied the map—nothing. Finally, as the miles flew by, we settled on the Fort Stockton RV Park. I called, yes, they had a tent area, sites for $19.00. Sounded good. Did we need a reservation? “Never hurts,” the woman on the phone said. “We’re at exit 264, you can’t miss us.”

We hoped to avoid a commercial campsite, but this was it. We passed through a couple of Fort Stockton exits. Gas stations, stop-and-go convenience stores, mobile homes. There’s a Walmart, we were told, but never saw it. At exit 264 we saw the sign and pulled up to the office. Monster RVs lined the lanes of the place. The woman explained that the tent area had four sites, one already taken. “Take your pick,” she said.

We followed the map to the end of the lane. The tent section was squeezed between the RVs, the bath house—and the interstate. We stared as the big trucks roared by a couple of hundred feet from our assigned site, generating a constant breeze through the underbrush that served as the only buffer between our site and the highway. The site itself was OK, soft patio stone along with a picnic table. I set up the tent and we headed for the camp café for a Texas catfish-and-hush puppies dinner. While at dinner I squinted at our map to find Fort Stockton. It’s there, in slightly bolder print than Plateau. 100 more miles to Ozuma.

 

September 17, 2018

EL PASO, Tex. The Wall is already there. Not the one the Trump Administration is flogging constantly. A wall of about eight feet of stone, topped with razor wire, as well as a high steel fence, separates El Paso from Juarez, Mexico, at the international transit point between the two cities. It serves to channel the flow of motor and foot traffic towards the security checkpoints. Thousands cross legally in both directions every day: Mexican students at Univ.-Texas El Paso, and at various high schools, American students studying in Mexico, technical people, executives, and managers at dozens of high-tech and heavy manufacturing businesses, teachers, hotel managers, restaurant staffers, tour guides, and on and on.

The people of these neighboring cities, living their own lives, don’t generate conflict or animosity, which is imposed on border policy by scapegoating outsiders. Border security personnel surveil those thousands of crossers and frequently apprehend very bad people. But with a few exceptions, they are not of Juarez or El Paso. That’s not a theory of mine, but one validated by those with years of experience here.

We did walk over to the border and saw the wall and fence, and the security personnel doing their jobs. The tragedy of family separations of last summer didn’t occur among those who live, work, and study here tolerantly and respectfully of their neighbors. They occurred because desperate poverty, lack of work, and fear for life at home drove Central Americans to test the border.

The border here is a place of prosperity. Businesses of all kinds boom along El Paso Street, which extends from the international crossing the half-dozen blocks to our hotel. People stream through the gate, dressed for work or school, in large and small groups. Vendors chatting in Spanish and English arrange their shelves loaded with merchandise: clothing, shoes, small electronics, jewelry, oddball stuff—big sombreros, sharp-looking cowboy boots polished to a high sheen.  Shopkeepers smiled and waved as we walked by. It was the start of a new workday. Were desperate people hiding in Mexican culverts watching for their chance to make it across? They were, and are. But fast-paced business activity was taking place here, giving people economic purpose, decent incomes, and enduring hope.

 

September 16, 2018

EL PASO, Tex.: We were heading to El Paso, another warm place at the corner of the country. After our tough night at Pacacho, we needed a cool Sunday night at the El Paso Marriott Courtyard, a 350-mile trip. We backtracked to Eloy for Mass, then pushed on towards Tucson. The turn east after Tucson meant that our long southern detour was over and we finally were pointed toward home. We shared the driving, taking turns catching the sleep we didn’t get last night. I was excited about seeing El Paso, a key junction point of two cultures. Also, reported to be a lovely place with a mild climate, and a big college football town.

Across the state line into New Mexico, you face another anonymous landscape of sand and scrub. The remoteness of the state is brought home along I-10 by the breadth of the desert, out to the horizon in most places, here and there accented by bare, craggy peaks, and scattered shacks and mobile homes. In many states, I’ve noted, the prosperity of the largest cities is set off sharply by the poverty and accompanying social problems fostered by isolation of communities miles from the large urban centers that are rewarded by business investment and effective management by strong local governments. Not my original theory, but I think an accurate one.

The New Mexico leg isn’t a long one. The desert starts to show more green, and the approach to Las Cruces is spectacular, from a high point the city shows itself as a broad swath of attractive stucco, stretching for miles against a high ridge of the rugged Organ Mountains. The interstate then turns sharply south towards Texas. Crossing the border, you can’t miss the sign that announces the vastness of Texas: “El Paso 40, Beaumont 851.” Beaumont, bordering Louisiana, is at the easternmost point of the state. I gulped.

We unpacked at the hotel then set out to stretch our legs. “Go to the plaza and turn right,” the desk clerk instructed us. Within a few blocks we crossed San Jacinto Square, a lovely spot of green set off by twinkling, delicate white Christmas lights strung through the trees. Young people socialized and children played on the manicured turf while their parents relaxed on benches nearby. Unfortunately, we then turned left.

Away from the square, downtown was deserted, not a restaurant, bar, or coffee shop open. It was a Sunday evening, sure, but no one was on the street. El Paso, I guessed, has not yet figured out how to bring people downtown on weekends. The streets got darker, a little seedier. We kept walking until the legs were well-stretched, and then some. Finally, a few hundred yards from the international border, we turned back. A block away from the hotel, like Hemingway’s clean well-lit place, was a decent restaurant. We had a nice dinner, toasted our 350 miles, and went to bed.