El Camino Real Tour Update - October 25, 2005

San Pedro Park, San Antonio
Hello. We are back on track and we are back in the land of the Ethernet connection so it’s time to bring you up to date. We are with our very good friends Holly and Kate in San Antonio. Here’s the last two days…

Buddy Garza left us Friday evening to head back to Fort McKavett. We were really glad to have him with us, if only for a day. Fort McKavett State Historical Site outside of Menard, Texas is a magical place – we will tell you more about it on another trip. Now, let’s recount the last few days.

What a day! Big event and welcome for us in beautiful San Pedro Park and Springs, one mile north of downtown San Antonio, site of the early Spanish settlements, second public park in North America. Lydia Kelly, ped/bicycle coordinator for the Alamo Area Mobility Planning Organization, with Scott Erickson, their public involvement coordinator, have really lined up a program at noon for us. They were…

Bexar County Judge Oscar Kazen (Court No. 9) and Commissioner Tommy Adkisson spoke effusively about our efforts vis a vis cycling, health and Texas history and dispelled any doubts I may have harbored about taking on this project.

Corinne Staccke and Sylvia Carvajal Sutton of the Texas Connection to the American Revolution, Rudy Elizondo, Living Historian came in living history costume.

Billy Gordon, President of the Bexar County Buffalo Soldiers, also came in 1870’s cavalry uniform. I’ve met Billy at Fort McKavett during some of the events there. Their development of the Buffalo Soldiers' heritage trails along the chain of frontier forts in Texas was the impetus for me to consider marrying cycling with historic trails.

Burma Hyde of the Alamo Area Council of Governments, who was my first contact in San Antonio and brought to my attention the existence of San Pedro Park as a site for this event.

Cliff Hickel of the San Antonio Wheelmen, Greg Hammer of South Texas Off-Road Mountainbikers (STORM), Officer Rick Olivares of the San Antonio Police Department, and Lydia Kelly rode with us for a while heading out of town after the event. Greg rode with us all the way to Evans road.

We also had two TV stations and two newspapers (one Spanish) interview us.

And (best for the last) Escaramuza AKA “Rosas de Castilla,” a Spanish dance troupe of about a dozen young girls (youngest about five) and women in beautiful regalia. Two of them were mounted on horseback.

The ride north from downtown was great while we were still in the old city grid. Through old neighborhoods of all economic levels and into Olmos Park Basin – an urban forest. North of the 410 Loop it got to be work and the sun got hot. Narrow, potholed roads in the older suburban neighborhoods with lots of after-school traffic. Cars were slow and drivers were generally patient, it was just too much work for everyone. One of our goals is to get large cities like San Antonio and Austin to build dedicated or semi-dedicated bike routes to get in and out of town along the historic routes. The inner city grids are great and the rural areas are great but there is no connectivity in the suburban areas.

But we achieved our goal of getting out to the northeast edge of San Antonio at Nacogdoches road and Evans Road so that tomorrow we can start off toward Austin without dealing with much of the morning rush traffic. And as we finished, we touched the limestone exposures and cuts of the east edge of the Texas Hill Country, known locally as the Balcones Escarpment (the hills looked like successive “balconies” to the Spanish.) Tomorrow we will follow that ridge past the clear springs of the Comal and San Marcos Rivers.

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