Big and Easy 'Boxing

Lafayette, LA to New Orleans, LA  Whew!  We spent the final two days of this trip on a letterboxing marathon in New Orleans.  Having found most of the existing boxes in the Big Easy in December of 2010, we watched the Atlas Quest web site with growing interest as more and more boxes were listed in this fascinating city over the past year.  And then more.
    
A letterboxer who moved to the Crescent City from Florida planted the vast majority of the letterboxes.  Old New Orleans cemeteries were among his favorite locations for hiding these urban treasures.  Although we have visited some of these hallowed grounds before, we became much better acquainted with them on this visit.
    
Established in 1867, the Valence Cemetery was originally laid out for residents of a suburban village later annexed by New Orleans.  Valence houses a number of society tombs.  Professional and benevolent societies were very common in early New Orleans.  In addition to other services, these organizations administered to the burial needs of their members by providing mausoleum-like structures for the exclusive use of their organization (example pictured above).  Ethnic groups such as an old Italian Mutual Benefit Society also built society tombs in Valence.
    
Owned by the city of New Orleans, Carrollton Cemetery dates back to 1849.  The graveyard was originally divided into sections for "colored" and "white." With the differing financial means available to each group, a distinct contrast can still be seen between the two, with mostly in-ground burials in the "colored" section and more elaborate tombs and markers in the "white" section.
    
Lest it appear disrespectful to search for letterboxes in these hallowed grounds, let us point out that the clues for these boxes gave very specific locations, down to pinpointing the x and y axis in photo clues.  When you looked at the picture in imaging software and identified the coordinates provided in this clue, you knew immediately to look in the bottom of the two stacked concrete blocks.  There's no willy-nilly turning things over, so nothing important is disturbed in the search.  We had not seen this particular strategy before but really appreciated the idea.
    

Holt Cemetery

Begun in 1879 as a burial place for the city's indigent, Holt Cemetery continues to serve the burial needs of those who cannot afford more expensive options.  For the cost of a burial, the plot is given to the family of the deceased as long as they maintain it.  As in most graveyards, some plots are well-tended while others are sadly neglected.  After Katrina drove so many residents from the city in 2005, many of these deceased no longer have local family members to take care of their graves.
    
Unlike other New Orleans cemeteries where most deceased are interred in above-ground tombs due to the city's shallow water table, Holt's graves are all underground burials.  And as is common in the city, multiple burials are allowed on the same plot.  Almost all markers and plot edgings are home made and bear tender sentiments of those who loved these people.  We were particularly saddened by the relatively young age of some of the deceased and wondered how their young lives had ended so abruptly.
    

Greenwood Cemetery

Treasure at Loyola University Law Library

Texas, We Don't Get It!

Katy, TX to Lafayette, LA In 15 days driving around the great state of Texas, we never once forgot that we were in a unique and sometimes difficult to understand place.  In particular, we were often confused about the motivations and intentions of the Texas Department of Transportation, or whoever is in charge of road building in the state.  Just in case some Lone Star road commissioner ever reads this, here are our specific questions— five things we just don't understand about the Texas highway system.

1.  Why so many entrance and exit ramps?

For example, on Interstate 410 in the San Antonio suburbs, there is an entrance and exit every half mile or so.  Not only does this excessive merging introduce redundant risks for collisions, it restricts the length of ramps to unsafe conditions.

2.  What's the purpose of all the high speed one-way frontage roads?

Frontage road speed limit 65 mph

In so many Texas cities, even places as small as Texarkana, we have seen parallel frontage roads running beside the freeway.  We understand the concept of having these roads for local access, but when they are one-way roads with three to four lanes of vehicles traveling at 65 mph, it's equivalent to having additional freeway lanes and using them for local access is hazardous.

3.  Why promote wrong way driving?

An invitation for confusion

We were shocked to find that rather than offering dedicated entrance and exit freeway ramps, so many interstate access points are intertwined with two-lane roads.  Again, the ramps quite often provide a grossly inadequate distance for safe merging and the confusion in signage promotes accidental wrong way driving.

Last year more than 500 wrong-way drivers were reported in the San Antonio area alone.  We understand that the state is now investigating a wrong-way driving alert system.  How much easier to design roads that do not promote this problem!

4.  Why the obsession with flyover bridges?

Why the obsession with flyovers?

Yes, after driving in all 50 states, including California with its notorious traffic issues, we have certainly seen our share of flyovers.  But there seems to be an addiction to this highway design in Texas.  Even in areas with no apparent need, like in the middle of nowhere, rural, Texas where the bridge isn't even leading to a road, we have seen flyovers.  Too much money on your hands and looking for creative ways to spend it?

5.  What's the big hurry?

What's the big rush?

From our limited experience, drivers on Texas highways with an 80 mile per hour speed limit acted much like drivers on highways with lower limits; they drove 10 miles above the speed limit.  Yes, that's 90 miles an hour.  And when two-lane rural roads have posted limits of 75 mph ("slowing down" to 65 through small towns), the driving is just plain unsafe.  Yes, we get that the state is quite large.  It took us two weeks to get through it.  But maybe your residents and visitors would enjoy the state more if it didn't zoom past their windshields in such a blur.

Katy, Bar the Rain (But Not the Door)

San Antonio, TX to Katy, TX  Yesterday's fog and gentle rain seemed but a sweet memory when we were startled awake before dawn this morning in San Antonio by a pounding thunderstorm.  As it moved east, this springlike weather system dipped into the Gulf of Mexico and dumped six to eight inches of rain across central Texas, hammering our plans to drive across the area today.
     
By the time we left San Antonio, the storm had moved out and blue skies held sway.  Having no desire to drive through torrential rain, we headed east and monitored the system, making sure we stayed behind it.  San Antonio was still visible behind us when we spied the edge of the front ahead.  As long as we played tortoise to its hare, we thought we might stay dry.

Geronimo Creek near Seguin

San Marcos River

There's an App for That!

San Antonio, TX  Today dawned gray, foggy and rainy in San Antonio.  After the scheduled service on our car was completed at the local Acura dealer, we decided to take it easy for the rest of the day.

For lunch, we gave Romano's Macaroni Grill one more chance, primarily because it was close to the hotel and we had some coupons.  Macaroni Grill used to be one of our reliable favorites when traveling because the quality of the food and service was consistently excellent.  Recently they seem to be in a downward spiral.  Our last three experiences have been uniformly bad, resulting in two free meals and a couple of coupons for a free meal that we have yet to use because the meal today was comped.  Giving the managers credit, they always respond appropriately when we point out the poor quality of the food and/or service.  But just because a meal is free doesn't mean it's good.  So we're done with Macaroni Grill.  Anyone want $20 worth of Macaroni Grill coupons?

Although rain normally doesn't stop us from letterboxing, the traffic in San Antonio, America's seventh largest city, is frenetic, a quality that doesn't mix well with pea soup fog and pouring rain.  So we found a few drive-by boxes (close enough to where you park that you can grab the box and stamp in the car) and called it a day, making this the perfect day to talk about some of our favorite iPhone apps that make travel so much better.
     

The great thing about the convenience of being "connected" 24-7, of course, is that it makes so many things much easier and more convenient.  If there's a downside, it has to be losing touch with how to function without the gadgets.  But the world continues to move forward and so are we.  Some apps we use daily, even multiple times a day but these are the ones we use most often for our travel-related needs.

Where to Stay:
Once we decide on our destination, we depend on Trip Advisor to identify the best place to stay.  The many travelers who post reviews to this site don't mince words.  If there are bed bugs at a hotel, you don't have to find out the hard way.  Someone will have posted that nasty bit of news on Trip Advisor.  We have found the reviews to be quite reliable and wouldn't select a hotel without consulting TA.
Now that we know our desired lodging, we turn to the hotel apps to find a place to stay.  Of the three we use most often, Marriott is by far the best, making it very simple to schedule, review and manage our reservations.  Priority Club, the Holiday Inn family, is probably next best, and Hilton is the worst.

How to Get There:
In addition to our car GPS, we find ourselves using the iPhone Maps app, which employs the Google maps database.  Even though Google has a map app themselves, the iPhone app is far superior.  We especially find it useful for locating the nearest... whatever.  For example, we located the nearest Macaroni Grill with the Maps app.  That was a mistake, but it was easy to find.

Maplets helps us when we need a map of a particular place such as a national, state or local park, a college campus, or a subway system.  Our efficiency is increased if we don't have to track down a map when we arrive at a place.  It's great for situations like looking for a letterbox near the football stadium of a unfamiliar campus, for example.


  

Ghosts in Texas

Del Rio, TX to San Antonio, TX  At last.  In Del Rio this morning, we found what we had sought in vain in Lajitas and Terlingua.  A commodity that is easily taken for granted, often not even considered, except when you desperately need it and can't locate one.  Yes, we're talking about an automobile vacuum cleaner.  We must have brought at least 40 pounds of grit with us from southwest Texas and finally this morning, we were able to shed most of the layers of grime inside the car.  Ahhh!  We can even breathe better without coating the inside of our lungs with dust.
   
Leaving Del Rio, we headed east on US-90.  Our first stop was in Brackettville (pop. 1,876) at the Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery (pictured above).  The Black Seminole Scouts were descendents of Seminoles and free blacks or runaway slaves who made their way to Florida and lived with the Seminoles there.  The scouts were recruited by the U.S. Army to protect the Texas frontier settlers from hostile Native American tribes in the area.
   
During their service from 1873 to 1881, the scouts played a decisive role in the Indian campaigns, yet not one of their number (around 50) was killed or seriously wounded.  Four scouts were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for valor, and all four are buried in the Seminole Scout cemetery along with other scouts and their progeny.  Many of the descendents of these courageous men still live in southern Texas and northern Mexico.
   

But we want to see the village!

Another place we wanted to visit just north of Brackettville was Alamo Village, a complete replica of a western frontier town built for the filming of John Wayne's 1960 movie The Alamo.  The "set" has played host to more than 200 additional feature films, TV movies, mini-series, documentaries, commercials and music videos, including one of our favorite movies, the quirky Barbarosa, starring Willie Nelson as a legendary outlaw and Gary Busey as a green cowboy-wannabe.  But alas, our visit to the village was not meant to be.  We found the gates padlocked.   Unlike in the movies, no amount of shooting at the locks would remove them.  (Maybe we should have used something besides a camera.)
   
East of Brackettville, we passed another Border Patrol checkpoint.  The agent confirmed by inquiry that we were both U.S. citizens and waved us through.  Later in the little town of Knippa, we saw an agent standing on a tall platform next to the railroad tracks, visually inspecting rail car contents as a long train crept slowly past his watchful eyes.
   

One of many Border Patrol checkpoints

Just west of San Antonio, we detoured to the site of Old D'Hanis.  Established in the spring of 1847, D'Hanis was settled by 29 Alsatian families, some of the hundreds of families recruited to emigrate to the Republic of Texas by colonization agent Henry Castro.  The colony thrived, a post office was established, and, in 1869, St. Dominic's Church was built.

Quihi Gun Club

St. Dominic's Church

Though it flourished as a stage stop on the San Antonio-Rio Grande road, the town suffered when the railroad bypassed it.  In 1881, tracks were laid a mile and a half to the west.  Over the next few years, the businesses, citizens, and post office relocated around the train depot, an area which came to be called "New D'Hanis," and later simply D'Hanis.  All that remains of the old settlement are the church ruins and the cemetery.
   
Our last stop of the day was the Quihi Dance Hall at yet another Texas ghost town.  Also one of Castro's colonies, Quihi was the target of repeated attacks and eventually the town was disbanded in the 1880s.  However, the Alsatians and their descendents continued to live in the area.  In keeping with their European heritage, residents formed the Quihi Schuetzen Verein (later the Quihi Gun Club) in 1890.
   
More social organization than shooting club, the group has grown to more than 1,000 members across Medina County and most weekends the hall is the site of social gatherings.  Dances are held twice a month and draw participants from far and wide.  Unfortunately for us, there was no dancing at this tin building under the moss-draped ancient oaks on a Monday afternoon.

You Might Be in Southwest Texas if...

At every turn, you see vast unspoiled landscapes of beautiful natural scenery.

The biggest local employer is the U.S. Border Patrol.

The nearest Walmart is 200 miles away.

Land of the Pecos

Lajitas, TX to Del Rio, TX Reluctantly we left our Lajitas hideaway this morning and departed this little slice of tranquility.  Yes, we'll be glad to return to the land of reliable cell signal and internet connectivity, but our three-day sojourn in this tiny town provided a much-needed respite in our one-night stand wanderings.
   


Big Bend was our westernmost destination for this trip, so today we began our trek back east toward Georgia.  To reach the road that would take us north to US-90, we drove back briefly through the national park this morning.  Then it was up to the town of Marathon (pop. 430) where we searched for a letterbox devoted to that legendary south Texas cowboy, Pecos Bill, the folk hero star of numerous tall tales.

In Marathon, we picked up US-90 on its run from the Texas border to Jacksonville.  The Pecos Bill styled speed limit for this two-lane road was 75 miles per hour, except on the rare occasion when you ran through a town, where you were forced to slow to 70.  Some two hours and 120 miles later, we reached the tiny town of Langtry (pop. 145), most noted as the home of another Texas legend, Judge Roy Bean.

Though the town is a bit off the beaten path, the Texas DOT has established a Visitor Center and museum at the site of the Old West's most colorful justice of the peace, Roy Bean, who called himself "the law west of the Pecos." Books have been written about the unconventional style of justice that Bean dispensed from his saloon and billiard hall, which also served as his courtroom.

On a Bender

Big Bend National Park, TX At long last, we entered Big Bend National Park this morning.  Big Bend refers to the great southwest dipping turn that the Rio Grande River makes in this area, defining the park boundary for 118 miles.  Covering 801,163 acres, Big Bend is one of the largest, most remote, and least visited national parks in the contiguous 48 states.  Across the river, adjacent Mexican territory enjoys a protected natural area status, forming a "sister park" with Big Bend.  And twelve miles to the west, Big Bend Ranch State Park, which enthralled us with its scenery yesterday, extends this preserve another 60 miles or so.

Our visit to the park began with a drive down Old Maverick Road, a 14-mile washboard dirt/chunky gravel track, headed toward Santa Elena Canyon, recommended as one of the most impressive areas of the park.  The landscape along Old Maverick was quite monochromatic, a warm yellowish beige, but the variety of plant materials and rocks rendered a canvas with luxurious texture.

Off Old Maverick Road (Santa Elena Canyon in distance)

Before we reached the canyon, we caught a glimpse of some type of animal scurrying across the road.  Stopping amidst the dust swirls stirred up by a half dozen motorcyclists roaring past, we were far too late to catch up with the mystery critter.  Fox?  Javelina?  We'll never know.

Approaching the floor of Santa Elena, the vegetation increased in frequency and variety thanks to the regular summer overflow of the Rio Grande at the canyon floor.  Like the other dozen or so tourists on site, we climbed the trail up the hill for a vertical view of the canyon's stunning vista.

Santa Elena Canyon (U.S. on right, Mexico across the river on left)

Near the top of our climb, we were startled when Ken's phone rang.  Cell service in this remote part of West Texas is as rare as cheap gas, and we almost fell off the side of the canyon from the shock.  It was one of our godsons, Max, whom we had tried to reach for his birthday yesterday.  As long as we stood perfectly still, we were able to sustain the signal for a brief visit with Max.  Only later did it occur to us that we might have been engaged in an inadvertent bit of international roaming off a Mexican cell tower.  We'll know the rest of the story when our next Verizon bill comes to call.

From Santa Elena, we took the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive up through Castelon to the main road. Along the way we traveled through the geologic history of Big Bend.   

Cerro Castellan

Stacked in the layers making up Cerro Castellan is evidence of millions of years of volcanic events, lava flows piled on ash deposits with layers of gravel and clay amassing in between periods of eruptions.  Farther along the road, ash deposits are much closer to the road, creating a dramatic landscape of fudge-rippled contrasting colors.

Ash deposits on Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive

Tuff Canyon provides more geologic history and drama.  Tuff is a sort of compressed volcanic ash laced with hot rock and other material spewed out during an eruption.  And this tuff is really tough.  It's been around more than 20 million years.

Tuff Canyon

Our final destination in the park was the Chisos Basin.  The southernmost mountain range in the U.S., the Chisos Mountains are completely contained within Big Bend National Park.  Having risen up from the desert floor as we drove toward a cooler mountain habitat, we entered the tree zone as we reached the Chisos.

At the Chisos Basin Visitor Center, we encountered one of the local paisanos, the local nickname for the roadrunner, a bird often used as a symbol of the area.  This poor guy was running around the parking lot as I stalked him for a photo op.  Posted on a map inside the center were reports of mountain lion and black bear sightings, which had been frequent.  Those I would not chase after, even for a close-up shot.

Big Bend Paisano

From an elevation of less than 2,000 feet along the Rio Grande to nearly 8,000 feet in the Chisos, Big Bend encompasses rugged deserts, rocky canyons and forested mountains.  With so many scenic vistas, we found ourselves again lamenting our failure to bring Woodie to capture worthy photos of these picturesque panoramas.  Once, just after we called out to him, a phantom motorcyclist zoomed past us and we had to wonder, was it Woodie?

Woodie does love motorcycles...

ROAD NOISE