Remembering the Alamo and other historical places

Remember the Alamo? Neither did I until we visited. We buy audio tours for $5 apiece. I’d have wanted to read everything if we didn’t.

Supporters from many states arrived to help defend the fortification. Even Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey and Maryland all sent one man. Ever optimistic, the Alamo defenders never gave up hope that reinforcements would come any day; sadly, every last white man died. But the Mexicans spared most women and children and the few fighting black men.

A woman whose leg had been injured in the battle walked 75 miles to deliver news of the defeat. The Mexicans were defeated soon after the Alamo, and Texas gained its independence—for 10 years until it joined the United States.

In San Antonio Mark and I brush up on our knowledge of the Alamo and attend the rodeo before driving west.

After an early afternoon picnic at Amistad National Recreation Area, we drive halfway across a dam just for the view. We don’t go all the way because the other side is Mexico, complete with border guards. The crossing is not at all busy; no car passes in either direction the few minutes we are on the dam.

I would love to cross the border, just for the experience, but, alas, we did not bring our passports, now required for entry into Mexico.

So on westward. Our destination is Big Bend National Park, smack-dab in the middle of Nowhere, South Texas, but for a diversion we stop at Seminole Canyon State Park and take a guided hike 1 mile into the canyon to a rock shelter with pictographs, dated to 4,000 years ago.

From a park brochure “Seminole Canyon received its name in honor of the U.S. Army’s Seminole-Negro Indian Scouts…. The scouts protected the West Texas frontier from marauding Apache and Comanche bands between 1872 and 1914. Known for their exceptional cunning and toughness, no scout was ever wounded or killed in combat, and four earned the prestigious Medal of Honor.” The four earned their medals after rescuing their captain, a white, from his band of about 75 captors. Four vs. 75, and they all survived!

The guide leads us past certain plants and cacti and tells us how the canyon inhabitants made use of them in the exhausting heat, a heat that is obvious on the canyon floor this February afternoon. It’s so hot I find it difficult to concentrate on what the guide is saying. It’s hard to think of anything besides the heat and how to escape it. I consider plopping down and rejoining the tour on their climb out of the canyon, but the shelter with the paintings is only about 100 yards further, and that’s the nearest shade as well.

A line of pictographs runs the entire length of the overhanging rock. They are of a resin of mineral pigment in animal fat or in urine and painted with fibrous plant leaves. Supposedly, these are some of the best examples of rock paintings in the world.

The guide says that scientist continue to learn more about people who lived there. For instance, weather continually unearths petrified poop! Adding a certain chemical to the rock-hard poop brings it back to “live” poop—with the smell and everything, our guide tells us—and the poop gives hints as to what the people ate—seeds and such.

Once we start our climb out of the canyon, we catch a bit of breeze, enough to energize Mark and me to separate from the group and take a side trail for an additional mile or so. Our curiosity of what the other side of the canyon looks like overtakes our thirst but we are, as we say, “bookin’ it” because we don’t have water. I am reminded of the horses I rode when I was young. The horses may have been only limping along and may have sweated through their saddle blankets, foam at the corners of their mouths, yet once reined toward the barn, when they knew their service would be over once they got there, it was tough to hold them back.

I feel like one of those horses now, hurrying to the car and water. When will Mark and I learn to take water with us, even for short hikes?