Monday, 29 March 2010 Nice weather, 200 miles.
Link to pictures..
We slept in, then got going west and slightly south toward Goliad.
We followed the Gulf Coast as far as Freeport, still seeing lots of hurricane damage and rebuilding. Then inland to Brazoria (on the Brazos River), and Bay City.
Continuing then to Edna, and Victoria (the big city in this part of the state) and on to Goliad.
There, we entered Goliad State Park and arranged for a camping space. We went to it and set up the trailer, not without difficulty (leveling) and got things going.
We walked up the hill to the reconstructed Mission Espirirto Santo. The original Spanish mission was settled in Matagorda in 1759 and moved here a few years later. Eventually the Spanish gave up on trying to colonize this area and pulled out in 1832. The mission lay abandoned until 1933, when Goliad and the CCC got together to reconstruct it.
All Spanish missions followed certain H-W-D ratios and the foundations were still present, so the dimensions were used and known construction techniques followed to build up many of the buildings.
Archeologists helped in determining what was where back when.
The effort continued to the end of the CCC in 1940.
Reconstructed are the first chapel (later the granery, now the museum), the last chapel, and the mission workshop. It certainly looks good. The paint colors were taken from a sister mission a mile away, where they found a segment of interior wall with paint and simple design on it.
Unresconstructed foundations present are for the priest's quarters, and the 4-foot bastion (or wall) enclosing all the buildings.
We spoke with the guide, who gave a great overview of the mission era.
Then we returned to the little house, relaxed, had dinner, and went for a short ride. We drove first around the park, and Dolores took many pictures of the flowers present – Phlox, Daisies, Paintbrush, others. Then into Goliad the city, and found the county courthouse, a spectacular tall edifice reminding you of “Giant”, which sits in its own square and dominates the entire town of 1,950 people. On its north lawn is the “Hanging Tree”, which people insist was used often – in those frontier days, a death sentence was carried out within the hour.
We went back and forth and up and down, but didn't find much. We did find a nice little grocery, so we bought ice cream. Then back to the little house, download pictures, write notes, and now to read and settle in. TV in the hinterlands consists of Fox, ABC, and NBC, all from Victoria.
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