Down on the San Pedro...

 It seems like I know a lot of people with international travel plans right now. My grandson, Luca  and I spent the afternoon on San Pedro Creek and hiking around Mission Tejas State Park. It's not far but if you have an imagination it is travel back to another time. 

There is a lot of Texas history in the park. The original sites of the local missions, Mission Tejas and Mission Santissimo Nombre de Maria are lost to time as are the locations of the mission bells which were buried when the Spanish fled the area in 1693 after activity of the soldiers stirred the local Tejas tribe up, crops were failing, and an epidemic swept through killing priests and indigenous alike. 

Luca stands along a section of the Old Spanish trail, or El Camino Real. The trail was first marked by the Spanish in the 1700s but it's 2500 mile length had been in use long before that.    

My experience with more recent trails through the East Texas wood that have disappeared make this amazing to me that there was enough traffic on this road to leave it as visible as you see it here as it winds through the pines. Thousands of early peoples, indigenous people, Spanish, French and later anyone of note in Texas history including Davy Crockett on his way to the Alamo walked right down that path and that little hill through this forest. Me and Luca walked down it also.  

I saw this trail to San Pedro Creek on the map with a little fish symbol and that meant I had to check it out. Usually you can find out a bit about Texas water ways online but other than the fact that the mission was near here and the Tejas village was along the banks there's not much. I did find a journal article on a search for the village in 1929 and I spotted several off limits trails that probably lead to undeveloped archeological sites within the park.  

There are bass in San Pedro creek which is an impressively swift flowing body of water. Maybe old Davy stopped there, the El Camino Real trail is less than 100 yards from this point and caught a bass and ate it. 

We casted lures at the park pond also and had a couple of bites but no fish there. I think maybe try for catfish sometime as many state park ponds get regular stockings. 

We took the easiest trail and Luca was grateful that I brought the wagon. There look to be some interesting and challenging trails that might be good for the big kids. Our total walk was about 1.5 miles and took us an hour and a half including the fishing stop at the creek.  

The hilly ridges in the park were left from the Eocene Period. Probably shark teeth to be found digging around here.  

A recreation of the old mission. The park, lake, trails and facilities were developed in the 1930s by the old Civilian Conservation Corps. 

I was trying to get a photo of us and a dogwood but it came out looking like wild boys in the woods. 

Here's a nice dogwood. 

There is a folklife festival with old time stuff and reenactors the last weekend in April. I would like to make it but that's one of those conglomeration days for me with a lot going on. Maybe you can make it for you own trip back in time.