One of the special events this past weekend was a walk in the "footsteps of Davy Crockett" along El Camino Real, which connected Nachitochez (pronounced NackOHtish) Louisiana, with Mexico. El Camino Real runs right through Crockett and that's where Davy Crockett would have walked as he came from Tennessee to the Alamo to help fight for Texas independence. The walk was held in the Mission Tejas State Park, which houses a lot of different parts of Texas history.
We have been meaning to go out for 2 years and haven't ever done it, so we were happy to take a break from our work and go enjoy the park. It is so beautiful! We really enjoyed our time there.
First off, we got to see a remnant of El Camino Real.
In some places there is a lot of conjecture if it is the real trail, but in other places, it's pretty obvious that people have been walking there for hundreds of years, as the trail is worn down into the ground like a deep cow trail.
I really enjoyed listening to the quiet of the woods and imagining all the different people who moved up and down this "royal road"--Indians, traders, Spanish priests and soldiers, and people wanting to settle in Texas.
After we saw the trail, we walked up the hill to see a prototype of what the first Spanish mission might have looked like. The Spanish first established the mission in the 1690 as a roadblock to French expansion into the area. Only a handful of priests and soldiers stayed in the area to live among the Indians and learn from them.
The Spanish came and went from the mission pretty often during the next century or so. Often the mission buildings were burned, either by the Spanish as they left, by the Indians, or by the French. The building there today was rebuilt by the CCC in the 30's as part of the WPA project.
Even though it was a hot day outside, inside the mission it was nice and cool.
Jed got a big kick out of being able to lean out the windows, since there were no screens.
After we saw the mission, we went to tour the Rice family home. The Rice family were some of the earliest white settlers in the area, and their house grew as their family did.
It started out as just a one-room cabin, the room on the left. As the family grew and prospered, they added the dogtrot--the open breezeway in the middle of the house that served as an "air conditioner"--and then the next two rooms, one at a time.
The original one room cabin was turned over to a grandson and his wife as the family grew. The wife, a girl from town, apparently had pretty fancy tastes, which seems fitting, since her name was Nancy. Her husband did a lot of work to the room to make it suitable for her.
He put up wallpaper
and painted the ceiling blue. Rumor has it that wasps and dirt-daubers won't make nests on the color blue, so not only was Nancy fancy, but she had a really clean house!
Nancy's husband also raised the ceiling in the room, since she had some tall furniture and it wouldn't fit with the ceiling at the original height. Now the ceiling is right at the level of the upper window. I'm sure that attic is really tiny now!
The other two rooms in the house have a chimney that runs down the center of the house, between the rooms. The bricks pictured aren't the original bricks, however.
The house is unique in another way as well. The well, instead of being far away, was situated in the nook by the chimney between the two rooms. The family was able to draw water and keep their milk, eggs and butter cold and close at hand.
We had such a good time at the park. The staff that led the tours were really nice and very well informed and Jed had a great time running around the trails and buildings. I am sad we waited so long to visit the park, because it has a lot of great trails that would be fun to explore. It was a fun little break!
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