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dolariThe Thursday from hell was a prelude to the Best Weekend Evar.
FRIDAY
The Funness began Friday Morning (which on Jenn Time is Thursday Evening - Days don't end till I go to sleep). I called the hotel where Trinoc was being held, and with $450 in my bank account I hoped that I had enough money to get reservations. SURPRISE - they don't charge my card till the dat before I get there. So I had $450 I didn't before. HOT DAMN!
That afternoon, I took off and put some gas in the truck. Good thing about the truck is that it's really good with gas, and has a 30 gallon tank. LAst time I filled it up gas was at $1.70 a gallon. Bad thing about this is now that it actually NEEDED gas, we were at $1.90 a gallom and I needed all 30 of those gallons.
Afterwards, I hit the PO box to clean it out (lots of direct deposit reciepts) to find out that my maps of the Camino Real came in! And a CD and Book that I didn't expect! AND a CD of "12 Bar Blues" I ordered a millenia ago came in, since I'd never been able to find his version of Barbarella anywhere. And a book about the origins of Dracula. WOO HOO!
When I got home, all the maps came out and the new maps and I FINALLY traced the Camino Real route through the area. Boy was I wrong. :)
The maps solidify my idea that VN Zivey and the DAR markers in South San Antonio are wrong. In San Antonio proper, there're four markers. Of those four, two are in "wierd" spots, where if you connected the dots, you got a bit of an inconvenient S curve. Once I saw the route traced out by VN Zively himself, the S curve turned into a hard Z curve that makes no sense. All the more reason that I think he mapped the wrong set of roads...but I can see why he did it:
There are two myths about San Antonio, that, depending on what you believe, change the route:
1) MAjor roads in San Antonio (and nearly ALL of them directly downtown) are based on old roads that existed in at it founding (Fredericksburg Road = San Saba trail, Flores Street = San PAtricio Trail, Pleasanton Road = LAredo Road)..
2) The Camino Real hit all the missions in the area.
If you believe #1 (like I do), then there is not one specific road following his route. Instead he has linked together the Pita Road (Laredo Street), Mission Road and Pleasanton Road (Laredo Road), linked together with cut offs. His route also misses "downtown" San Antonio (Military Plaza).
If you blieve #2, then his route is correct and mine is wrong, but it sure is a severe set up turns for being so close to Downtown. No everyone on the Camino Real was visiting the Missions.
Anyways, I'll cross that road when I get to it.
Using the maps I got, I DID manage to accurately map the path through Atascosa county, directly south of San Antonio. Each of those maps shows the course of the road as a line with very few landmarks, but DOES have a set of instructions showing the angle of the road, and ow many feet it traverses at that angle. Basically - go this many feet, turn this far. This translated into plotting lines I could transfer to almost any scale! Now if I could find a program that would make a logo-ish set of commands into a graphic (FD 23 RT 23), it would make this a LOT easier )Right now I'm drawing lines so many pixels tall, then rotating them).
Taking that map, I found several of the markers that the DAR hadn't been able to find in their recent "rescouting" of all their old markers. I took what I had, and sent it to the DAR responsible for the Camino Real project. They were elated to see what I was doing and asked for my finished maps.
I've sent them the Atascosa map, and asked them if it's kosher with the marker's they've found, but didn't mark GPS coordinates for.
Yes, I'm a map geek, why do you ask? :)
SATURDAY
Woke up and took off to the Royer's Round Top Cafe some 1 1/2 hour from here. I've written about Rounf Top before, and only a few weeks ago, so I'll skip the History Lesson.
The place was packed, and we had a 20 or so minute wait to get in. The owner, Bud, seemed a bit gruff and almost angry, but from what I've heard they were slammed REALLY REALLY hard. There was a classical music concert going on not too far from Round Top and everyone wanted food before the concert.
There was a little FAQ there about why they're selling the cafe, and it seems that the owner, Bud, has grown tired of Country Living and would like to move back to Austin. There were also these little hints that he LIKED the cafe, but it wasn't his passion. Made his demeanor a bit more reasonable. :(
That was probably the best restaurant dinner I've EVER had. Honestly. The food there was TREMENDOUS. IT was very bold, tasty and kind of "unexpected." I had a shrimp alfredo that was more tangy than creamy, and Dean had an extremely tender lemon dipped batter friend chicken. Holy cow they were good. Definately worth the trip and the price. I kinda thought this restaurant would just be a one-time thing, but I'm definately thinking this could be a once every few months kind of thing.
Oh! I had a slice of the Sin-amon pie. I thought it was just a name they used for a Super Sweet Cinnamon Pie. IT's not. I ordered a slice of pie and was seved a HUGE Cinnamon Roll with a scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream. Holy cow that was good. And WAAAAY too sweet. The ice cream really DID cut the sweetness.
After our respective desserts, we didn't end up going to La Grange for tke home deserts...it was just TOO much. We DID see the worlds smallest Catholic Church again, and Dean was impressed with it's smallness. We took LOTS more pics. :)
Finished up a final DAR version of the Atascosa map that night.
SUNDAY
Time to visit Mud City.
I took off down FM 969 for a tour of Mud City. I took my 1940s map with me via the laptop, and took off. I first hit the Hornsby Cemetary, which I had seen signs for, bt never visited. So I decided to check it out. Down a long dusty lonely road I found a marker for the old Hornsby household, the first White Settler's house in Travis County. Farther down the road was the cemetary. I've never seen so many historical markers in one spot. I counted at least ten, mostly Hornsby relatives. One of which was a Major League Baseball HAll of Famer. His grave had a very very very old baseball glove and baseballs. Not sure if they're his originals, but they had seen their fair share of exposure to the elements.
http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/hofer_bios/hornsby_rogers.htm
From there I hit downtown Hornsby bend, which is hiddent behind a old house. AS it turns out, the are we now know as Hornsby Bend is Mud City. The old Hornsby bend is now just a tiny collection of rotting tin shacks.
From there, I took a turn just to see where a road went. So down I went Dunlap Road...and came across a NEAT looking ranchhouse:
While I was taking pics of the old ranch house the owner accosted me demanding to know what I was doing on his property (I was actually on the road, but whatever). After telling him I was just taking pictures of Mud City and the area, he lightened up and talked with me about the area. His name was Jim Clay and had lived in the ranchouse for years. It was built in the 1900s as part of the Hunter's Bend Ranch. The building across the street was an old farm store for the tenants who lived int he ranchhouse doing work.
He really warmed up to me after a few minutes and really helped me confirm the area of Mud City and Deatsville down the road. Wonderful man. I plan to stop by with a note of thanks in the near future.
From there I took off towards Deatsville, which I kinda knew where I THOUGHT it was, but not specifically where. Jim Clay's directions were "Three houses just after the Webberville road curves away from Taylor." The area seemed to be the one I thought it was. And of the four houses in this area, one was having a cookout. So I stopped by and asked "Is this Deatsville?"
This turned into an hour and half long conversation about the Deats ouse, the Burleson's and their own house, Texas Rangers, Webberville, Fort Coleman and just on and on and on. Two history buffs in one room, and a decendant of the original Hornsbys as well. I was nearly abducted for dinner as well. :)
After that, a quick jaunt to the Tangent Household for a nice visit. I hadn't seen them in a year and ahalf at the very least. And I felt it was time I did so. There was much picture sharing and catching up. :D
MONDAY
Mapped half of Bexar County. Also saw all the movies I'd bought with the unexpected cash. LOTS of movies. :)
Back to work tomorow. Oh, well, all good things must end....
FRIDAY
The Funness began Friday Morning (which on Jenn Time is Thursday Evening - Days don't end till I go to sleep). I called the hotel where Trinoc was being held, and with $450 in my bank account I hoped that I had enough money to get reservations. SURPRISE - they don't charge my card till the dat before I get there. So I had $450 I didn't before. HOT DAMN!
That afternoon, I took off and put some gas in the truck. Good thing about the truck is that it's really good with gas, and has a 30 gallon tank. LAst time I filled it up gas was at $1.70 a gallon. Bad thing about this is now that it actually NEEDED gas, we were at $1.90 a gallom and I needed all 30 of those gallons.
Afterwards, I hit the PO box to clean it out (lots of direct deposit reciepts) to find out that my maps of the Camino Real came in! And a CD and Book that I didn't expect! AND a CD of "12 Bar Blues" I ordered a millenia ago came in, since I'd never been able to find his version of Barbarella anywhere. And a book about the origins of Dracula. WOO HOO!
When I got home, all the maps came out and the new maps and I FINALLY traced the Camino Real route through the area. Boy was I wrong. :)
The maps solidify my idea that VN Zivey and the DAR markers in South San Antonio are wrong. In San Antonio proper, there're four markers. Of those four, two are in "wierd" spots, where if you connected the dots, you got a bit of an inconvenient S curve. Once I saw the route traced out by VN Zively himself, the S curve turned into a hard Z curve that makes no sense. All the more reason that I think he mapped the wrong set of roads...but I can see why he did it:
There are two myths about San Antonio, that, depending on what you believe, change the route:
1) MAjor roads in San Antonio (and nearly ALL of them directly downtown) are based on old roads that existed in at it founding (Fredericksburg Road = San Saba trail, Flores Street = San PAtricio Trail, Pleasanton Road = LAredo Road)..
2) The Camino Real hit all the missions in the area.
If you believe #1 (like I do), then there is not one specific road following his route. Instead he has linked together the Pita Road (Laredo Street), Mission Road and Pleasanton Road (Laredo Road), linked together with cut offs. His route also misses "downtown" San Antonio (Military Plaza).
If you blieve #2, then his route is correct and mine is wrong, but it sure is a severe set up turns for being so close to Downtown. No everyone on the Camino Real was visiting the Missions.
Anyways, I'll cross that road when I get to it.
Using the maps I got, I DID manage to accurately map the path through Atascosa county, directly south of San Antonio. Each of those maps shows the course of the road as a line with very few landmarks, but DOES have a set of instructions showing the angle of the road, and ow many feet it traverses at that angle. Basically - go this many feet, turn this far. This translated into plotting lines I could transfer to almost any scale! Now if I could find a program that would make a logo-ish set of commands into a graphic (FD 23 RT 23), it would make this a LOT easier )Right now I'm drawing lines so many pixels tall, then rotating them).
Taking that map, I found several of the markers that the DAR hadn't been able to find in their recent "rescouting" of all their old markers. I took what I had, and sent it to the DAR responsible for the Camino Real project. They were elated to see what I was doing and asked for my finished maps.
I've sent them the Atascosa map, and asked them if it's kosher with the marker's they've found, but didn't mark GPS coordinates for.
Yes, I'm a map geek, why do you ask? :)
SATURDAY
Woke up and took off to the Royer's Round Top Cafe some 1 1/2 hour from here. I've written about Rounf Top before, and only a few weeks ago, so I'll skip the History Lesson.
The place was packed, and we had a 20 or so minute wait to get in. The owner, Bud, seemed a bit gruff and almost angry, but from what I've heard they were slammed REALLY REALLY hard. There was a classical music concert going on not too far from Round Top and everyone wanted food before the concert.
There was a little FAQ there about why they're selling the cafe, and it seems that the owner, Bud, has grown tired of Country Living and would like to move back to Austin. There were also these little hints that he LIKED the cafe, but it wasn't his passion. Made his demeanor a bit more reasonable. :(
That was probably the best restaurant dinner I've EVER had. Honestly. The food there was TREMENDOUS. IT was very bold, tasty and kind of "unexpected." I had a shrimp alfredo that was more tangy than creamy, and Dean had an extremely tender lemon dipped batter friend chicken. Holy cow they were good. Definately worth the trip and the price. I kinda thought this restaurant would just be a one-time thing, but I'm definately thinking this could be a once every few months kind of thing.
Oh! I had a slice of the Sin-amon pie. I thought it was just a name they used for a Super Sweet Cinnamon Pie. IT's not. I ordered a slice of pie and was seved a HUGE Cinnamon Roll with a scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream. Holy cow that was good. And WAAAAY too sweet. The ice cream really DID cut the sweetness.
After our respective desserts, we didn't end up going to La Grange for tke home deserts...it was just TOO much. We DID see the worlds smallest Catholic Church again, and Dean was impressed with it's smallness. We took LOTS more pics. :)
Finished up a final DAR version of the Atascosa map that night.
SUNDAY
Time to visit Mud City.
I took off down FM 969 for a tour of Mud City. I took my 1940s map with me via the laptop, and took off. I first hit the Hornsby Cemetary, which I had seen signs for, bt never visited. So I decided to check it out. Down a long dusty lonely road I found a marker for the old Hornsby household, the first White Settler's house in Travis County. Farther down the road was the cemetary. I've never seen so many historical markers in one spot. I counted at least ten, mostly Hornsby relatives. One of which was a Major League Baseball HAll of Famer. His grave had a very very very old baseball glove and baseballs. Not sure if they're his originals, but they had seen their fair share of exposure to the elements.
http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/hofer_bios/hornsby_rogers.htm
From there I hit downtown Hornsby bend, which is hiddent behind a old house. AS it turns out, the are we now know as Hornsby Bend is Mud City. The old Hornsby bend is now just a tiny collection of rotting tin shacks.
From there, I took a turn just to see where a road went. So down I went Dunlap Road...and came across a NEAT looking ranchhouse:
While I was taking pics of the old ranch house the owner accosted me demanding to know what I was doing on his property (I was actually on the road, but whatever). After telling him I was just taking pictures of Mud City and the area, he lightened up and talked with me about the area. His name was Jim Clay and had lived in the ranchouse for years. It was built in the 1900s as part of the Hunter's Bend Ranch. The building across the street was an old farm store for the tenants who lived int he ranchhouse doing work.
He really warmed up to me after a few minutes and really helped me confirm the area of Mud City and Deatsville down the road. Wonderful man. I plan to stop by with a note of thanks in the near future.
From there I took off towards Deatsville, which I kinda knew where I THOUGHT it was, but not specifically where. Jim Clay's directions were "Three houses just after the Webberville road curves away from Taylor." The area seemed to be the one I thought it was. And of the four houses in this area, one was having a cookout. So I stopped by and asked "Is this Deatsville?"
This turned into an hour and half long conversation about the Deats ouse, the Burleson's and their own house, Texas Rangers, Webberville, Fort Coleman and just on and on and on. Two history buffs in one room, and a decendant of the original Hornsbys as well. I was nearly abducted for dinner as well. :)
After that, a quick jaunt to the Tangent Household for a nice visit. I hadn't seen them in a year and ahalf at the very least. And I felt it was time I did so. There was much picture sharing and catching up. :D
MONDAY
Mapped half of Bexar County. Also saw all the movies I'd bought with the unexpected cash. LOTS of movies. :)
Back to work tomorow. Oh, well, all good things must end....
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no subject
Date: 2004-06-08 06:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-08 06:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-08 01:55 pm (UTC)That's it. ^_^
no subject
Date: 2004-06-08 10:43 pm (UTC)http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0891230300/qid=1086759706/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-7041594-1460046?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
That's where I found out about these places to begin with. My only complaint with that book is the maps in it are horrendous.
I've thought about writing a Hill Country Reporter-ish book, in all honesty. But I doubt there isn't anything I've seen that hasn't already been written. I'd be happy to add pics and better maps, though. :D
no subject
Date: 2004-06-08 10:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-08 10:48 pm (UTC)Real life quote from my roomie. :)