South of the Border

"The sun has ris,
The sun has set
And here we is,
In Texas yet."

Or was (were), at any rate.

Yes, we had a very enjoyable time. It was great fun to
meet my dad's relatives he grew up with and see his stomping grounds. My family are very welcoming and likable, and we heard lots of good stories and saw a lot of family resemblences (my dad has a twin uncle). We ate at Jim's (home of the best onion rings in the world) and went to the Alamo, and C almost set off the smoke detector in our room. And we found a trail of Starbucks along the way.

It was only slightly confusing at times, given the gorsy-ness of my family. An example: my great-aunts and uncles started talking about their Aunt Ollie coming. This took me a moment, because Aunt Ollie is also my great (count it- one)-aunt. And, while she is their aunt by marriage, she's a cousin (by marriage) to their step-brothers and sisters. This is because my grandma's half-siblings on her mother's side, although sharing no parent with her half-siblings on her father's side, are their first cousins once removed. No prizes for figuring it out, but you see why it's sometimes difficult to say exactly how someone is related to me (and kind of hard to keep track of their names, as their parents liked alliterative R names ending in ie/y). It might mean that I end up being some kind of cousin to myself, but I haven't gotten that far yet.

On the way back we went the less-interstate and more scenic route, winding around west Texas (not to be confused with West, Texas) hills and between cell phone towers. We started out with water over the road in San Antonio, but by the afternoon it was hot enough that the only water we saw disappeared just before we could get to it. The glare was bright enough that I thought I saw flashing lights in my rear view mirror once.

We wandered around to the metropolis of Santo, stopping at the convenience store to meet Aunt Ollie (yes, the very same). Then we took out across the railroad tracks, down the road, and had to turn around because the bridge was out. After going about twelve miles out of the way, we made it around to the other edge of the bridge, where we turned into someone's driveway and drove past the house and through the gate and across the cattle guard through their pasture, past some inquisitive cows and a calf that dashed across in front of us, through another gate, where my mom waved the flag and I put on my sunglasses/security/motorcade look, across a high railroad crossing where we scraped the bottom of the car, through a couple more gates, and into the East Santo Cemetery.

My family had done some history detection in April, and found, in the very back corner, my great-great-grandparents, Isaiah and Amandy, and an unmarked grave we believe to be that of my great-grandmother, Katherine Serena. After planting some flowers and waving to the engineers of the train going past, we wandered around looking at the graves that had names, all of whom seem to be relatives of some sort or another. C and I had fun running our fingers over mossy slabs trying to make out the letters. One I finally figured was "infants of" who "was borned April 20, 1877." Eventually we headed back to air conditioning and cold drinks and the cookies Aunt Ollie had brought us. CLC said I'm going to be like Aunt Vicky--I let them have cookies before supper.

From there we headed to my mom's twin's house and family, where we spent a short night and morning/afternoon. We girls actually had a slumber party at the neighbors' house, since they weren't there (well, except their daughter) and it was Saturday night with one shower. Then church--their pastor used to be one of my parents' professors in Bible college. He has a marvelous Scottish accent, even if he has given up the bagpipes. Then more food and visiting, and eventually

home.