San Antonio Missions, The Second One

Hello, everyone. The weather around the home place has been its usual August self: hot, sunny, and dry. There might have been a few drops, but not enough to be an actual watering. And we planted fall seeds this week, in hopes that something will come from them.

But returning to the missions, after our visit to San Francisco de Espada, we drove back along the city streets to San Juan. 

Sadly, the Blogger app refuses to let this view of the surviving aqueduct display right-side-up.

Also at the aqueduct are some of the old terraces. The bottom of this little set of terraces has the river bank. The river flows under the aqueduct. These are on the way from San Francisco to San Juan, so we stopped to see them, too.

The missionary fathers built a church, as usual, 

The interior of San Juan Mission. The large figures at the side are carried in processions.

They also set up the Stations of the Cross outside so everyone who wanted to could participate in the devotion.

The Fourteenth Station: Jesus is buried in the tomb. As y'all can see, the later walkway was poured going around the stone markers.

Memories from the Camino del Norte

Hello, everyone.

Someone we know is going to walk along the Camino del Norte ("the Northern Road") to Santiago, and it brought back to us memories of that walk in 2018. 

The morning after we slept in Tapia de Casariego--at the very scenic but very basic municipal albergue in an old school house--we walked along beaches and stopped for breakfast coffee at a small hotel. As we didn't stay there, we probably forgot to get a sello in our credencial to remember the visit. Thus, we didn't know the name of the lovely place with the gorgeous beach view! Until today, that is, when I was prompted by the memories of our walk to look into Gronze.com and study the detail maps. 

Then I found it! The giveaway was the porch fence visible in the window of the photo on Google Maps.

One of our photos of the beautiful Playa de Penarronda, lots and lots of sand with a collection of interesting rock outcrops

On the porch of the Hostal with a glass of Aquarius sports drink

Someday I want to go back to that little place and spend the night there, enjoying the serenity and the views.

The hostal is exactly along the walking path of the Camino del Norte.

A pleasant visit in nature

Hello, everyone. 

A couple of days ago I went with family to visit the area around Battle Creek, Michigan. There is a lovely state recreation area called Ft. Custer State Recreational Area there. 

A cute, little mushroom alongside a walking path.

This is a sample of poison ivy, which is native to most of the US. For my European readers, this is a plant you should not touch. It doesn't sting like nettles, but it does in most people create an irritated rash. If you're looking it up online, try the generic name Toxicodendron, IIRC.

This is the outflow from one of the three little lakes/large ponds. There are many lily pads growing in the water.

Goldenrod!

Some lily pads with their blossoms.

This is a lovely natural area, with paved access and many walking trails. There are areas with picnic tables and little fire boxes. 

This was a very pleasant outing, and the walking trail was gentle and not too much for my recovering leg.

It's been busy (edited for formatting)

 Hello, everyone. I had intended to post earlier, but got distracted and forgot. We did make a small family trip, to a wedding on St. Thomas.

From the plane en route

The day before the wedding gatherings commenced, we visited the famous mountain top viewing spot. The water there is so amazingly blue! And everything was so, so green. It rained once or twice in each of the days we were there.

We had gone across to Mexico to find clothes for the wedding before leaving, as the bride had chosen a patio wedding in the afternoon. This little blue dress is cotton, very comfortable, and with a cascade of necklaces worked out great. (The long one is jades, some from my grandmother, and aventurine. The short one, a gift from a relative, is cultured pearls. The middle one, like the long one, is from my stringing, but it's just a pretty color combination I had seen in a magazine.) 

I learned that all of the beaches there are artificial, which explains why the sand is the exact same stuff as we see at South Padre Island. Ours comes from the Mississippi River outflow, I don't know where the landscapers at St. Thomas got theirs. The natural shore there looks a bit more like this:

Pretty! And just chock-full of lovely oxygen for the fish. Not really a place to wade, though. Looks really turbulent.

Also for the first time in my life, I saw sargasso weed. DSIL1 tells me that the sargassum patches are popular with bait fish, and if he sees them while boating on the open water, he will dive in and hunt for the predator fish that come to eat the bait fish hiding in the weeds.  

Another recent walk, this time at Bentsen Park

Hello, everyone.

Just before everything combined to reschedule our Camino walk, we did a relaxed walk at Bentsen-RGV State Park.

The bird-feeder season was pretty-much over. Except for those feeders that had been stocked! We saw some pretty birds. One type we were seeing, in addition to the green jays, the red-winged blackbirds, the chachalacas, and various full-colored red cardinals, were these ones:

Near the bridge over the irrigation canal at the entrance. His color looked rather orange-ish that time.

At the water-enhanced bird blind with benches, getting a drink.

Also at that bird blind? He was eating sunflower seeds here.

These don't really look like the female cardinals. They might be. Or they might be another color variant. Or desert cardinal? the bill in the internet images of the desert cardinal seemed more sharply curved but the feathery look to the crest--sorry, those pictures came out blurry--made me think it's not a regular cardinal.

The weather was cloudy that day and it seems to have convinced the birds to keep their little caps down.

Israel pilgrimage, eighth in series

Hello, everyone.

Apologies for the break in posting, it was a busy week. Today's post begins the third day of visiting in the Holy Land.  We got out early as it was our day to change hotels as well as visit places. Our bus toted all of our luggage around in the hold all day as we went around.

Qumran region, Dead Sea in background

It was a desert day this day. We headed out onto the highway and went to Qumran and then over to a place with a camel ride (five minutes for those who wished) and then on to the Jordan River. Qumran is in a desolate place--a good trick for a region as small as the Holy Land. It isn't Texas, friends. It isn't even Wyoming. Think more like one of the East Coast states...Rhode Island? New Hampshire might be larger than the Holy Land. But in this highly populated area there are desolate, empty zones.


Qumran is famous because it is the site where the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls was discovered. The Israeli government maintains the place as an archeological site and has a small museum.






















They have what I think I remember as a reproduction of a scroll unrolled in the case for visitors to appreciate. The actual scrolls, being extremely old and written on animal skins for the most part, are kept in climate-controlled conditions I think. They were apparently the main project of a secluded religious community that lived on a hill overlooking the Dead Sea. The scrolls date back to the time of Jesus, give or take a few decades, and after the wars of the late first century AD the community was gone and later completely forgotten. Their stored scrolls were in caves around the area. Every so often a new collection of ancient scrolls gets discovered.

The first scroll cave (extra entrances added by archeologists)

The first scroll cave had only one entrance when its nature as a store room was discovered. A local shepherd was looking for a lost critter (goat? sheep?) and as the hold was deep and dark, he tossed a rock down to see if his creature was down there. I guess the logic is, if it's down there it will say something when the rock comes rolling down. Instead of a bleat, however, he heard the sound of breaking pottery. "Hmm," he said, crawled down to have a look, and the rest is history.







The ruins of the community there have been excavated, at least in part, and various features of the facility are labeled for visitors' information. There is a paved path as well.

They had a really big cistern to store the winter rain water. It might not have seemed so big toward the end of summer when the water would have been running low.

After visiting Qumran, and a short stop at the place with a couple of riding camels--and a shop--we rode over to the Jordan River.

Going to the Jordan meant driving through military areas. We saw people walking around in their uniforms, possibly training, and saw signs requesting that photos not be taken.

There is an Israeli government operated visitors center at the Jordan River at the traditional place St. John did his baptizing. The bathrooms were nice, there were assorted sitting areas, and while we didn't wander in there was a shop.

View of shrine on Jordanian side of the river

 Signs helpfully informed the visitor that immersion gowns were available for $9 each in the shop. Being Catholics, we didn't have interest in that. (The sacrament of Baptism is a "once and done" thing with us.) The folks at the water's edge did, however, have a bowl and shell for our pastor to pour water onto our heads in memory of our baptisms and in honor of St. John.

View of the baptizing area.

The water may be very edifying but I don't think I'd want my head to go under the surface with all that mud in it.

As y'all can see, the Jordan River is not, pace the song, "deep and wide" and it may not even be deep. The shed on the other side of the water is in Jordanian territory. The banks are steep enough that quite a crowd could have stood around listening to the prophet preach and call the repentant to come forward and wash off their old sinful ways.

There is a gentleman that offers to take pictures of the group. He brought the group prints to the hotel a couple of days later. The price was reasonable--about $10 for the group photo print.

The Baptism Site seems like a good stopping point for this post. More of the third day later!

Israel pilgrimage, seventh in series

Hello, everyone.

The remainder of this day, in the area of many Gospel incidents, has more churches, and a boat ride.

The area is named for the seven springs in the vicinity.

The Benedictine fathers placed a sign explaining the significance of the several churches in a small area. It's in reasonable boat riding distance from Capernaum and probably could be reached with a hike from there as well.

There are churches in memory of the Feeding of the Multitudes and others whose names escape me at the moment. There is a list on this sign.

This was another one of those moments when we were surprised to see how close together everything is in the Holy Land.




This is the stone, mentioned first in the letters of Egeria in the fourth century, which local tradition says is the place Jesus blessed the loaves and fishes.

It's easy for us, in the very mobile-oriented US, to laugh and say "sure it is." But these places were remembered from generation to generation and the places were passed down in families. In the fourth century, when it was finally legal to reverence the places Jesus walked, people still remembered where things had happened. And after shrines were built, even when conquerors later knocked them down and piled trash on the site, people remembered where they had been. When they could, they rebuilt the shrines in the same places. Rinse and repeat.

There are a number of interesting mosaics on the floor of this church. Of them all, this guinea hen is my personal favorite. (Photo edited to cover a bright white splash of light in upper right corner.)

 Not the same church, this one was a Franciscan one. Anyone who recognizes which one it is is welcome to contribute the information in comments! All I can remember is it was one of the three.

After visiting the churches of the Tabgha area, we went to an area restaurant (popular with tours--an amazing lot of buses there!) and ate fish from the sea of Galilee: "Tiberias fish." Which when DH inquired we learned is a kind of tilapia.


There were the customary mezzes: cabbage salad, eggplant and tomato I think at the bottom, tomato sauce, corn, tabouli...














And the whole fish, with fries on the side and a lemon wedge. They serve so many of these plates that they were already prepared...maybe because of the moment when we hit the place...the fish was tasty.

The waiter had an amazing way with removing used water glasses from the tables.
















After lunch, we went to a port, walked through a sculpture garden and out onto the dock and boarded a boat for a ride on the Sea of Galilee.

One of the boats offering this ride. The experience showed us, again, how close together these things are, as we passed the famous Golan Heights area and viewed the landscape.




The boat crews raised the flag of the tour groups' origin with each ride. We saw a Korean group, and ours of course had the Stars and Stripes. I think the crew members were a little surprised when, at the intro to the Star Spangled Banner, we all stood up, put our hands on our hearts, and sang along. (Hey, if you're going to have your flag out there waving in the breeze, have a backbone about it!)

At the end of the ride, we disembarked in Tiberias and met up with our bus. The day was pretty well gone and we returned to the hotel.

Walk: Return to Estero Llano Grande

Hello, everyone.

Last week we drove over to Weslaco and visited Estero Llano Grande.

"You don't see me! I tucked my bill down!"

This little fellow was sitting in the grass at the edge of Alligator Pond.

The birds at Estero seem to have had a good year for babies. We saw a lot of tree ducks, several family groups, and some avocets and at least one heron. This little guy might be a young green heron, or some other bird in that family.

The alligator was not visible when we were there. It was early in the day, perhaps too early for sunning. The banks of the pond had quite a bit of vegetation, too. Perhaps the gator wandered off elsewhere to sunbathe without visitors.