History – Natural Musings

No Kings Rally In Austin, Texas

I had the October 18th No Kings Rally on my radar and calendar for weeks and planned to attend. I had not shown up at a political rally since January 21st 2017 when my daughter and I attended the Women’s March Against Trump at the Texas State Capitol. At that time I attended a volunteer session put on by the organizers and helped pass out signs (I forget what they said). I carried my own sign which read “To gather strength and give support”). I grew up in Austin and I remember my dad taking me, my brother, my 3 stepsisters, and my stepmother to see the Klan march at the State Capitol in 1965. I was 11. I remember my dad saying that if there was trouble, we should meet back at the car. I also remember being appalled that there were little children in klan garb. Over the years I have attended many rallys and protests at the Capitol, mostly to take photos.

This time I felt compelled to show up because I have been sitting on the sidelines doing nothing as our country needs help. I have sent a few letters to Congresspeople supporting the ones doing the good work, but other than keep track of what is going on, I have done nothing. It was forecast to be very hot that day and I kept going back and forth. Am I going or not? Finally I made my decision and planned to meet up with a friend there. My family members opted out for heat and other reasons. I would represent our family.

Well, folks, it was horribly hot! The temperature was 95 and it was humid and I don’t tolerate heat as well as in my earlier years. But, I brought water and wore a hat. I also wore my bluebonnet t-shirt (our state flower) and my monarch butterfly earrings. My husband and daughter dropped me off on the northwest side of the capitol and I joined others the few blocks to the grounds.

Our bags were checked for weapons before we were allowed on the grounds.

I wandered around looking at all the colorful costumes and signs and listened a bit to the speakers. I mostly gravitated to the shade of the old oaks on the grounds. My friend texted she was running late (we never did meet up). The Austin police were there and I spotted our police chief standing under a tree while one of her fellow officers spoke to a reporter. Our police chief and other officers did join the march.

I walked south hoping to get a shot of the march coming down Congress avenue. I had to dodge people on scooters and bicycles (including some cops riding on the sidewalk) as I waited. Chatted with some friendly folks. The energy was joyful and strong.

The March Begins at 11th st. and Congress Ave.

“Humanity Over Greed”

“World Without Caesars”

Guy In Banana Suit “Bananas For Democracy”

The costumes were fun, but I imagine very hot!

The pink costume is an Axohotl …Sorry the shot is not better…there were more Axohotl costumes there and many dinosaurs and a bee and a chicken…

I heard people singing Bye Bye Mrs. American Pie and drummers and there was a woman leading an aerobics dance group in the middle of the march (her face was very red!). I saw a banner that read “Raging Grannies” and yes, there were frog costumes.

One complaint I have is that there were people with dogs on leashes and one guy had a live chicken in a plastic box…it was way too hot to drag these little critters along.

On a positive note, there were multiple people working the crowd offering water and a woman handing out small American flags (I took one). And the age range covered the old and the young. There were people of all colors, some with rainbow flags, some with American flags, and some with an interesting hybrid Mexican and American flag. I saw people in wheelchairs and blind people with canes.

It was wonderful being there with all these beautiful people standing up for our country!

(full disclosure…it was hot and I only went as far as 5th street where I peeled off and walked west to hitch a ride back home with my husband and daughter)

*Check out info on the Axohotl at this link:

britannica.com/animal/axolotl

Good Ground

The first time my husband proposed to me I was stopped at a red light while driving him to the airport to fly off to a work conference. I said “Yes!” and managed to drive the rest of the way to the airport (we were only about a mile away when he proposed) and drop him off.

The second time my husband proposed a bit differently. We were out on a drive through the Hill Country outside of Austin. He was doing the driving this time and after we had been driving for awhile, he pulled over at a State Historical marker near Pack Saddle Mountain. The marker says that at said mountain in 1873, the last “Indian battle in this region” was fought when a group of 8 white men (I am assuming they were white) “routed a band of Indians thrice their number.”

I had been here before with my brother and Dad on one of my Dad’s long Hill Country drives, where he would point out various Texas landmarks and tell about the history.

Here is the historical marker:

Here is Pack Saddle Mountain:

On this occasion, my husband got out of the car, walked around and opened the passenger door, rummaged around in a brown paper bag, got on one knee, and asked me to marry him while holding out a toy ring. At least this is how we have remembered it all these years later. I again said “Yes” and we did eventually get married after I got a proper engagement ring.

Recently, on our way to San Angelo, we again stopped at this marker and took a few photos and reminisced.

Here are some flowers near the marker:

I wrote about our trip in my May and June blog posts, but didn’t tell about something that happened on this trip. On the way back to Austin, we stopped again at the pullout for this roadside marker and view of the mountain. We stretched our legs and I got back in the car. My husband comes up to my window and presents me with a pretty little flower! How sweet.

Here is the flower:

I thanked him and we did a little kiss. Then, while I was proceeding to put the flower in the center console area to take back home, I noticed some webbing. And then a little spider was dropping down out of the flower on it’s spinneret thread. I didn’t want a spider in the car with us and I didn’t want to hurt the spider. So, I scooped the spider up in the flower and put the flower at the base of a nearby tree to protect it and the spider from the wind.

Below is a photo of the replaced flower (circled in blue):

Talking about this recently…about the second proposal…he mentioned that it seemed like “good ground” when describing the place by the mountain. He said that was an old army term when they were looking at topographical maps. It meant a good place to be in terms of a being able to have the advantage in a battle. I don’t know who had the advantage in the 1873 battle…maybe the white guys since they won. The marker was defaced a few years back with grafitti reading “White history celebrates genocide.” It did get cleaned up and no trace of those words remain as of the last time I saw it this spring.

My husband and I will celebrate our 28th anniversary next month. Our marriage is on good ground and we have both worked at defending it over the years. Many small battles after which we both emerge with a stronger marriage bond. Happy Anniversary Honey!

Photos by B. McCreary

Check out a web page about the marker at The Historical Marker Database:

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=20643

Not Just A Name On The Map

(San Angelo Trip Part II)

Last month I shared my trip to San Angelo State Park with you. It had been the sole reason for our trip out there…well, I did tell my husband about the historic fort we could visit as a way to get him even more interested in the road trip. I ended up finding the town itself pretty neat and thought I would share more of our trip.

“a West Texas oasis” is the description of San Angelo in the Texas State Travel Guide, a wonderful free publication put out by Texas Highways Magazine (www.texashighways.com).

Where history meets geography meets art is how I would describe the town.

Here is a multiple choice quiz:

Which of these three things can be found in San Angelo?

Statues of painted sheep
International water lily collection
Air Force Base

I you guessed “all 3”, you are correct!

According to Wikipedia a Spanish mission was founded here in 1632 to convert the native peoples (Wikipedia say “to serve the native people”). As the years went by the area was under the rule of Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, and the U. S. The city itself began in 1867.

Today there are at least 99,853 people in the town and at least 121,516 if you include the area surrounding the town (2020 U.S. Census). Goodfellow Air Force Base is here, as is the historic Fort Concho (1867). There is a growing art and music community, Angelo State University, and several reservoirs based on the damming of the Concho river. The surrounding area includes farming, agriculture, an oil and gas industry, and the wonderful state park we visited. Here are some of the things we saw:

Historic Fort Concho

Buffalo Soldier Exhibit In Fort Concho Museum

Old Barracks In Fort Concho Museum

Ground Squirrel Near The Fort

Flowers On Fort Grounds

Pond At International Water Lily Collection

More Water Lilies

Mural Of Willie Nelson

One of Many Decorated Sheep Statues In Town.

This one is on the grounds of a mortuary. We shopped at a grocery (HEB) that had one in its parking lot.

The train museum was closed the day we were there. And we also didn’t visit the downtown Concho River Walk. Maybe some day I will go back and explore more.

Lastly, I want mention that San Angelo was one of many smaller cities that had it’s own nice turnout of folks on the recent No Kings Saturday protest.

For more info: discoversanangelo.com

Photos by B. McCreary

Lift Every Voice And Sing

I wrestle with what to write about. So many ideas. Do I post more pictures of critters from my yard? Do I write about more important to the world sorts of things, like the dismantling of our government? Ideas come and go and I jot down notes on a variety of topics. I write 3 legal pages of notes about my family’s relationship to music, from me to ancestors I’ve never met. I have been hearing more bird song lately and think maybe I should write about that. Or, I should finally write up my words about Harriet Tubman that I have been meaning to write up for about a year. It is Black History month. My mind keeps churning out subjects.

Serendipity strikes. Many things have entered my life in the past few months that seem connected.

Have you ever heard of the Rosenwald Colored schools? Neither had I until the past year. I had first run across them in a legal document among some old family papers.

The document reads in part:

“Be it known and remembered, that on this the 10th day of March A. D. 1926, I, Mrs. Ellen J. Buie, widow of H. H. Buie, deceased, have granted, bragined and donated, and by these presents, grant, bargain, donate, set over and deliver unto the Franklin Parish School Board, of Franklin Parish, La. herein represented by H. W. Gilbert, President, accepting this donation in all its parts and clauses, the following described property, towit:” A description of the property’s boundaries follows, and then this:

“To Have And To Hold the said property unto the said Franklin Parish School Board for the use and benefit only of the Rosenwald Colored School.”

My great grandmother was born in 1856 into a family that owned slaves. In the 1860 U. S. Slave Census her father owned 32 slaves aged 50 years old down to 6 months old. 66 years later she gave something back to the descendants of the people her family had enslaved. 2 acres for a school. When she was 14 she had been sent away to a convent school in St. James Parish. Maybe it was this experience that made her value education? And her daughter, my grandmother Mary, became a school teacher.

Here is a photo of my great grandmother Ellen Julia Copeland Buie (1856-1935):

But, the name Rosenwald meant nothing to me at the time I first looked at the document. Some months later, I happened to read a genealogy blog post about the Rosenwald schools. (there is a link to the blog at the end of this post). Then I happened to be showing the family document to my brother and I realized the importance of the name Rosenwald Colored School.

And then…I saw an advertisement for a special exhibit at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum that was about the Rosenwald schools in Texas. And they would be showing a film about Rosenwald on February 8th, with a panel discussion afterwards. I felt compelled to go. The film, by Aiva Kempner, was about 90 minutes long and told the story of Julius Rosenwald who was a rich philanthropist. Descended from Jewish immigrants who instilled quite the work ethic in him, he eventually bought Sears and Roebuck. He believed in giving back to the community. One of his projects was building schools for colored children in the southern states. He partnered with Booker T. Washington to do this. He built these schools during the Jim Crow era. “Separate but equal” was not equal at all. His generosity led to the building of thousands of schools to educate black children. He had three parts to these projects. One, he put up some money. Two, the community also raised funds, and Three, the community did the labor to build the schools.

This exhibit at the Bob Bullock museum only runs through February 23rd, so I urge all my Austin friends to go before it ends. There is also a former Rosenwald school near Bastrop that has been renovated. The panel discussion after the film talked about this. It is called the Hopewell school and we plan to visit it soon. (American Youthwork’s Youth Build Program put in some labor on this renovation).

Here is where the serendipity keeps on giving…

The film has interviews and photos of many African American celebrities from politicians to those in the arts…actors, singers, poets, composers, business people…people who either went to Rosenwald schools or benefited from Rosenwald’s other philanthropic projects: Rita Dove (poet), Maya Angelou (author, poet), Gordon Parks (photographer, filmmaker), John Lewis (politician, activist), Marian Anderson (singer)……

On the way home from the museum we stopped to pick up our mail. There was only one piece. The envelope’s stamp was a picture of John Lewis!

At Christmas I was gifted a book that I had never heard of and now am currently about 3/4 of the way through this novel. It is based on the friendship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune. It follows their friendship and how they worked together to advance the rights of black people in this country. Two women with different skin colors working together. The authors of the book are two women, one white and one black. One episode in the book is about securing a public appearance for the singer Marian Anderson when the DAR refuses to let her sing in Constitution Hall in Washington, D. C. She ends up singing for a huge crowd at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The book is entitled The First Ladies and the authors are Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.

Flipping through t.v. channels earlier this month I came across a film on PBS about the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. I had heard the name but was not familiar with his work. I learned that Maya Angelou’s title “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” is based on a line from one of Mr. Dunbar’s poems (“Sympathy”).

See what I mean? ….birds,singers, arts, education, history of our country and the struggles of blacks in this country…

There is a threat to dismantle and destroy the U. S. Department of Education right now…and any kind of diversity initiatives. What can we do? We can all take positive actions to lift up our values, be it contacting our representatives, to showing up in solidarity, to giving money to those organizations that lift up our sisters and brothers, neighbors and friends. No matter your political sympathies, the current destruction of our government will affect us all.

Take action with Love in your heart and as John Lewis is quoted:

“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the Soul of America.”

*”Lift Every Voice and Sing” is the title of what is called The Black National Anthem and was written by James Weldon Johnson.

*I don’t know whether or not a Rosenwald School ever got built in Franklin Parish, Louisiana on the land my great grandmother donated.

Links:

donorschoose.org Donate directly to individual teacher’s projects

rosenwaldfilm.org

thestoryoftexas.com

americanyouthworks.org

http://creolegen.org/2014/10/13/the-unfortunate-lost-history-of-rosenwald-schools/

Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rita-dove

Some Things Old, Some Things New II

(musings on our trip to the Bay State-Part II)

Salem, Massachusetts is northeast of Boston on the coast. The highlight of our trip there was the Peabody Essex Museum (pem.org). The museum has something for everyone, from Asian contemporary art to native American art to a natural history exhibit (with live bats). There is a snack bar and we took a museum tour break there to fortify ourselves. Our small family group only had time to sample some of the museum’s treasures. Here are a few photos:

Yin Yu Tang Home Outer Wall

This house was the familial home of the Huang family in Huang Cun, Anhui Province. It was built in the 1790s and was the home to eight generations. The name Yin Yu Tang means “The Hall of Plentiful Shelter.” It was last occupied in 1982. The whole house was dismantled and shipped to the U. S. as part of a “cultural exchange agreement.” About 40% of the objects inside belonged to the Huang family.

Kitchen Outside Courtyard

Image On Courtyard Wall

Interior Room

View Of Upstairs From Courtyard

Visitors can go upstairs and visit the rooms in the upper floor.

Interesting Chinese Statue In Hall Adjacent To The Old House

“Magic Crow” by Rick Bartow (2014) In The Native American Art Exhibit

“All The Flowers Are For Me”

Art projected on walls of museum room by artist Anila Quayyum Agha

Although I only took “mind photos”, one exhibit keeps coming back to me. A small room showing many examples of illustrations from the book Moby Dick. From early editions to comic books. One was a book of t-shirts, each illustrated with single lines from the novel. The exhibit is called: Draw Me Ishmael: The Book Arts of Moby Dick.

The creativity of artists never ceases to amuse me and fill me with hope.

Within walking distance of the Peabody Essex Museum is the historic Charter Street Cemetery. The oldest burying ground in the U. S. is what the brochure says, but that ignores the burying grounds of the Indigenous People….just saying…. There is the grave of a person who came over on the Mayflower and other early townspeople. Nearby are monument memorials to the victims of the 1692 Witch Trials.

All of these victim memorials had offerings of flowers, fruit, coins and other tokens. The victims are honored and remembered.

If you ask people what they think of when you mention Salem, Massachusetts, they are likely to say “The Salem Witch Trials.” There is a whole museum dedicated to this history and if I get back up there I will check it out. So many things to see, so little time.

This is a fitting place to end for today. Happy Halloween!

(Photos by B. McCreary)

Some Things Old, Some Things New

(Musings On Our Trip To The Bay State – Part 1)

In July, my husband and I flew north 1,963 miles to Boston, Massachusetts to visit family. We have been there before and seen most of the historical sights related to the birth of our nation. This trip would be a little bit different. Here are a few highlights:

One of our resident family members suggested going to the Paul S. Russell, MD Museum of Medical History and Innovation in Boston (russellmuseum.org) at 2N. Grove St. We saw all sorts of interesting things such as an iron lung and early medical instruments.

Mosher Coin and Button Tube (for removal of foreign objects)

Foreign Objects Removed After Accidental Swallowing

Fascinating and disgusting!

Glass Eyes

It is a small museum with a nice roof top garden with a city view. And admission to the museum is free!

Our family member guide had been wanting to try a Uyghur (pronounced weegur) restaurant in Cambridge (west side of Boston). Neither my husband or I had ever tried Uyghur food or even knew what kind of food it might be. It turned out to be pretty good. All of us ordered noodle dishes.

The menu has lots of noodle dishes. The meats range from lamb to chicken to shrimp.

Check out Silk Road Uyghur Cuisine at 645 Cambridge st., Cambridge, MA.

Silk Road Restaurant Window Curtains

Hopeful Graffiti Spotted In Cambridge

We chose to stay in Somerville, Mass. (northwest of Boston) in an area called Assembly Row. An old Ford factory used to be at that location. Now it is a mixed use area with hotels, shops, restaurants, and sports grounds. One tourist highlight is the LEGO Discovery Center (legodiscoverycenter.com/boston/). Lots of Lego displays and kid friendly activities. And, of course, you can buy Legos there. We didn’t actually go in, but I shot this Lego giraffe outside the place.

And last, but not least, we visited the New England Aquarium (https://www.neaq.org.We) had been here before, but this time our family member guide happened to volunteer there and gave us a personalized tour. The aquarium is a must see. Only draw back to me was how crowded it was.

The Large

Sea Lions

Myrtle The Turtle

The Small

Penguin

The Tiny

Sea Horses

The Secretive

Octopus Leg (the creature was hiding)

The Other

In Your Face Fish (don’t know species)

Just a few Summer Trip Tidbits….

Photos by B. McCreary

Once Upon A Time In Austin, Texas

Once upon a time in Austin, Texas, maybe in the Spring of 1955, a little tow-headed baby girl was visiting the Texas Memorial Museum with her parents. As they entered the building, the little girl looked up, pointed, and blurted out “PISH!” Her startled daddy and pregnant mother followed their little girl’s pointing finger and saw a large, framed fossil of a fish mounted over the doorway to an exhibit room. The baby girl only knew to say a few words and they didn’t realize that fish was one of them. This incident became a family story that her parent’s would tell over and over throughout the years, much to the little girl’s delight.

A few years after, maybe 1962 or 1963, the little girl’s elementary school class visited this same place and she saw the fish fossil with new eyes. And her new eyes saw many other delightful sights.

Beautiful Windows Grace The Main Entry Floor-Second Floor (seen as you enter museum)

Pterosaur Replica Flying Overhead (cast from bone fossils found in Big Bend, Texas)

She marveled at the flying dinosaur over head and was a bit unnerved by the large Tyrannosaurus skeleton across the room. The guide said that it also had been cast from fossil bones found at Big Bend. She knew her parents had been to Big Bend because they talked about that place a lot. Maybe some day she would go there and see where these dinosaurs had roamed.

From this floor her class crowded into a hallway and one by one went down the steps to the first floor.

Staircase To Exhibits

Oh My! So much to see here! Meteorites from outer space… fossils and bones galore…

Star Fish Fossils

Label reads:

Starfish

Crateraster mccarteri

Skeletons in Slab

Cretaceous

Travis County, Texas

These had been found right here in her own county! The guide asked them to see if they could find the four legged starfish amongst all the five legged starfish.

Four Legged Star Fish Amongst Five Legged Star Fish

Sea Lily Fossil

The little girl didn’t know what a sea lily was, but she knew they must have been pretty. She remembered all the fossils she had collected on family hikes in the area…mostly snail looking critters that lived millions of years ago. It was hard to get her mind on how far back that was.

Around the corner was more…

Glyptodon

She had seen armadillos before, but never one that was as big as a small car.

Long-nosed Peccary Skeleton (Pleistocene, Bexar Co.)

And nearby was a giant that used to swim in Onion Creek. Scary to think of…the little girl had been to Onion Creek and seen little fish and frogs…things this creature might eat…this one was big enough to eat her.

Onion Creek Mosasaur (Cretaceous)

Mosasaur and Large Mammal For Size Comparison

Then the little girl and her class trekked up the stairs to the Third Floor. There were animals here that she recognized and knew were still around.

One Of Many Dioramas Depicting Texas Wildlife

Beetles, Butterflies, Moths

The little girl would remember this class field trip as one of the best ever fieldtrips. Better than the bakery where they got to sample fresh baked bread and better than the Coca Cola bottling plant.

Years later, when the little girl became a grown woman, she took her own little girl to visit the museum. She showed her the fish fossil and told the story.

Now the woman is an old woman. She recently visited the newly refurbished, repaired and reopened museum. Now, it is called The Texas Science And Natural History Museum. Some of it has changed. There is no longer a framed fish fossil over a doorway. But, much has stayed the same. During this visit she did not take the stairs. She and her husband chose the elevator.

Decoration Inside The Elevator (circa 1930’s)

She knew the building was old, but didn’t realize that it was built during the Roosevelt administration and that many of the fossils were found during excavations under WPA (Works Projects Administration) sponsorship. Thank You FDR!

The woman hopes everyone gets to visit this small, but mighty museum that tells some of the story of the natural history of Texas.

————————————————————————————————————————-

*If you are in Austin on Sunday September 22nd you can visit the museum for free on Austin Museum Day. There is a parking garage adjacent to the museum.

Museum website:

sciencemuseum.utexas.edu

*Photos by B. McCreary

*some info from museum Visitor Guide and some internet surfing

My Visit To Memphis-PartII-If I Can Dream

Our tour bus parked on a side street. We got off the bus and headed up the hill, The Lorraine Motel sign as our beacon.

I got to the top of the slope and looked to my right. The sudden view of the hotel balcony was like a gentle gut punch. In my mind’s eye I could see the iconic image of Reverend Martin Luther King lying dead on the balcony, one man kneeling at his side and others pointing across the street.

Balcony of the Lorraine Motel-White Wreath in Front of Area MLK Was Murdered

I began to sob. I don’t like people seeing me cry and moved away a bit from our group and guide, my husband comforting me. I put my camera between me and the scene before me. I recorded the building and the bricks below my feet.

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered April 4th, 1968.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was murdered two months later on June 6th, 1968.

Elvis Presley was preparing to film his Comeback Special for NBC in June of 1968. Since it would air in December of that year there was some suggestion of the special being a Christmas special and that the final song would be a Christmas song. Elvis was upset enough about the murders of MLK and RFK that he asked one of his writers, Walter Earl Brown to write a song. He patterned it on MLK’s I Have A Dream speech and it was titled If I Can Dream. It was the last song in the Comeback Special. Over 40 million people watched the special.

Background for Comeback Special (aired December 1968)

Link to You Tube video of Elvis singing “If I Can Dream”:

https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tVP1zc0TEmriK8wTEk2YPQSyUxTyFRITsxTSClKTcxVSM0pyywGANcUC_U&q=if+i+can+dream+elvis&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS886US886&oq=if+i&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqDAgBEC4YQxiABBiKBTIGCAAQRRg7MgwIARAuGEMYgAQYigUyCggCEC4YsQMYgAQyBggDEEUYQDIOCAQQRRgnGDsYgAQYigUyBggFEEUYPDIGCAYQRRg8MgYIBxBFGDzSAQgzNjA5ajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:e0365a52,vid:xA142IsjQiE,st:0

(If link does not work, the video can be found by searching for Elvis If I Can Dream)

Link to article about Elvis supposed Racism:

https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/question/2006/march.htm

Other Sources: Wikipedia.org, Graceland.com, youtube.com

Photos by B. McCreary

My Visit To Memphis-Part I-Graceland

“There’s some part of me wants to see Graceland”-line from Paul Simon’s Graceland.

Graceland has not been on my bucket list, nor has Memphis, Tennessee. Not that I had anything against the city or the home. I always enjoyed Elvis as a singer and entertainer, but did not really appreciate him until I was an adult. I remember as a kid looking for something to watch on t.v. and when one of the few channels we got was showing an Elvis movie, we were not too happy. We did watch them, but I remember most of them being not very good, if mildly entertaining.

But, when my husband and I found ourselves in Memphis for a few days in early March, we saw the sights. And there must have been a little part of me that had always wanted to go to Graceland, because I enjoyed the whole Elvis experience.

First we toured the large museum devoted to all things Elvis. One room had his cars. One room had info on his Army years. Other rooms covered his first records, his movie career, his outfits, and the other singers that influenced him and those that he influenced.

Then we visited Graceland across the street from the museum. The furnishings in each room were amazing. He seemed to have a t.v. in every room.

And we walked the grounds. There are 3 horses there (said to be rescue horses). It had been raining earlier and we didn’t see the horses at first. But, then they must have been released from the barn and we got to see them (all with braided manes).

Visitors Have Left Their Mark On Wall In Front Of Graceland

Almost a month later I still hear snippets of Elvis songs in my head.

The next day we took a bus tour of Memphis with several stops: Sun Recording studio where Elvis and others recorded their early records; The Memphis Welcome Center that has statues of both B. B. King (the King of the Blues) and Elvis (the King of Rock and Roll) and exhibits on other entertainers with a Memphis connection; the Peabody Hotel where live ducks parade in and swim in the lobby pond twice a day; and the Lorraine Motel where the Reverend Martin Luther King was murdered. It is 7. 6 miles from Graceland.

Photos by B. McCreary

Beach Trip III

During the Covid lockdown I longed for a trip to the Texas coast. But, we didn’t go anywhere and I felt beach deprived. I am making up for it now. Our first post lockdown trip to the coast was described in my January blog post, where I wrote about our visit to the Rockport area and the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. Our second trip was this past week.

It is almost 252 miles from Austin to Port Aransas and usually takes us at least 4 -5 hours, depending on stops. We took our usual route from Austin down hi-way 183. But, instead of our usual bypassing of Gonzales, we decided to check out the Gonzales memorial Museum.

It is a small museum with stories on the early and later pioneers of this area. But, the main attraction is a small cannon. This cannon was given to the settlers of Gonzales by the Mexican government for protection in case of attack by the indigenous people of the area. A few years later, in 1835, the Mexican government wanted it back. The people of Gonzales refused to give it back and voiced one of our iconic Texas slogans, “Come and take it.” In the Fall of that year, the little cannon fired the first shot of the Texas Revolution. I had never visited this museum before and was surprised how small the cannon is.

Then we headed on down the road to our usual stop in Goliad for lunch. We picked up burgers and fries at Whataburger and headed down the road to Goliad State Park. This is always a nice break to eat, stretch our legs, and do a little nature viewing. There are also several historic sites to visit. This trip we just ate and sat in the park.

Continuing on, we arrived in Aransas pass and boarded the ferry to Port Aransas.

We picked up supplies of food and drink at the local grocery and headed a few miles down the road to our vacation rental. We spent three nights there. Here are several views from our balcony.

We walked on the beach, but the water was a bit cool. We didn’t go in past our calves.

I love the sound of the Gulf surf and the cry of the laughing gulls. I love the feel of moist, salt spray on my face, the soft grit of sand between my toes, and the rush of waves over my ankles.

Oyster Shell My Husband Found…Looks Like A Fish Head

We took a dolphin watching cruise of the channel on The Scarlet Lady.

Along our route was the oldest working lighthouse in Texas. It is privately owned.

I highly recommend this dolphin watching cruise. We saw lots of dolphins, birds, ships, and history.

Another highlight of our trip was visiting the various nature trails and birdwatching spots in Port Aransas. A particular favorite is the boardwalk at the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center. On our last visit it was closed due to being destroyed during a hurricane. They have rebuilt and it is better than ever. Besides birds, one critter we look for is a large alligator. We don’t always spot it, but we were lucky this trip.

We decided to return to Austin via a slightly different route. We headed down the island to Corpus Christi. I wanted to visit the Selena Memorial at the Corpus Christi Bayfront Seawall.

Texas Historic Plaque honoring the 1966 Farmworkers March. The farmworkers were pressing for better wages and working conditions. They left Rio Grande City, Texas on July 5th and marched 380 miles to the state capitol in Austin. They passed through Corpus Christi on the way and arrived in Austin on Labor day where possibly 10,000 people rallied for the cause.

The memorial to Selena Quintanilla-Perez is not far from the farmworker plaque. There is a statue of her that is made of bronze and a plaque with words honoring her and a sculpture of a white rose, which was her favorite flower. The words “Mirador de la Flor” (Overlook of the Flower) are on the memorial.

This was our final goal and we headed north out of Corpus Christi, exited east and went through Beeville, Kenedy* and Nixon before rejoining hi-way 183 in Luling. We got back to Austin about one hour before a major thunderstorm hit. Good timing.

I am so grateful for a wonderful trip to my beloved Texas coast and for a wonderful traveling companion.

Photos taken by B. McCreary

*We stopped for lunch on the way back at a wonderful city park in Kenedy, Texas. Picnic tables, shade, playscape, clean restrooms. Saw an Eastern Bluebird there, mirroring my happiness.

Check out:

http://www.gonzales.Texas.gov

https://TPWD.Texas.gov>state-parks>goliad

https://Scarletladydolphincruise.com