Red Roads State Pages
Brackettville
Alamo Village Movie Location
Canyon
Palo Duro
Canyon State Park
Fort
Davis
McDonald
Observatory
San Antonio
Brackettville
Alamo Village Movie Location
About 120 west of San Antonio and 30 miles east of Del Rio, on Highway 90, is the little town of Brackettville, Texas. The county seat of Kinney County, an area almost as large as Rhode Island, the town was established as supply village for adjacent Fort Clark in 1852.
Seven miles north of Brackettville, on FM 674, is the Happy and Virginia Shahan HV Ranch, home of Alamo Village, the first movie location built in Texas. It features the world's only replica of the 1836 Alamo Mission/Fortress. Built for John Wayne's epic movie The Alamo, the adobe mission and town took almost two years to complete. Special attention was paid to authentically replicating San Antonio during the early 1800's. The village was constructed to allow great flexibility in the use of the location for filming. Since The Alamo, more than a hundred major movies, TV shows, documentaries, commercials, and music videos have been made here.
When we arrived on December 9, 2002, the place looked deserted. (That's often how we find tourist spots when we visit the off-season!) We parked near the Alamo mission site first. As we walked around the
inside and the
In the village, we ambled into the cantina, hopeful (but not at all confident) that we would be able to get some hot food for lunch. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that we could enjoy some delicious Mexican food in this movie-set restaurant. We were not the only people eating there, either. In fact, we met and had some conversation with a man named Richard Curilla, who seemed to know a lot about the place. It wasn't until later that I discovered who this man is and what his connection is to Alamo Village.He pointed out to us the cantina's
As we took our own walking tour of the village, using a brochure as our guide to the different buildings, we saw a few more people exploring the location. We posed for our own photos inside jail cells and examined artifacts in the museum. We tried to pay attention to details of the various buildings, noting when a sign told about a particular moving having been filmed there. We hoped to recognize some of the location shots if we ever saw one of the movies.
Here is a personal website that has some great pictures and descriptions of sights at Alamo Village.
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Canyon
Palo Duro Canyon State Park
On November 2, 2003, the first anniversary of our leaving Ohio as fulltimers, we crossed the state line into Texas for the second time. At the welcome center, I picked up some tourist information. For the first time, I learned about the 120-mile long Palo Duro Canyon, dubbed "The Grand Canyon of Texas." The state park that was opened in 1934 contains more than 18,000 acres of the northern-most portion of the canyon. Most of the buildings and roads in the park were constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corp; some of them are still in use today. Since it was along the route we planned to take, I thought we should stop and check it out.
After spending a couple days at Plainview, where I did some genealogical research, we left town after lunch on November 5, and drove north on I-27 to Canyon, Texas, south of Amarillo. We registered at Palo Duro RV Park, along the highway, unhitched the fifth wheel, and headed to the Palo Duro Canyon State Park in the truck. Since it was off season and we knew services would be limited, we took some sandwiches with us in case we got hungry.
From the
We were very glad that we went to the park, even though it was late in the day. We really enjoyed seeing the sunset and the moonrise as we drove on the canyon floor.
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Fort Davis
McDonald Observatory
When we were at Rainbow's End, the Escapees Rainbow Park and national headquarters in Livingston, Texas, a fellow fulltimer recommended that we go to McDonald Observatory, near Fort Davis, Texas. She told us about the nighttime star parties held there several times a week. We took her advice and it turned out to be one of our favorite stops! (She's also the one who told us about Alamo Village. Thanks, Liane!)
The day after visiting Alamo Village Movie Location, on December 10, 2002, we stopped at Davis Mountains State Park and asked about the nearby observatory. We learned that a star party would be held that night, so we dropped our fifth wheel in a site at the park's campgrounds and hurried up the hill to McDonald Observatory, at the summit of Mt. Locke, the highest point on Texas highways, with an elevation of 6791 feet.
With our ASTC membership, we could have received free admission to the visitors center, which has an exhibition hall. However, we opted instead for "combo" tickets, which included admission to the exhibit hall, a guided tour of two of the telescopes, an hour-long twilight program, and the star party. We ate lunch at the StarDate Café, where I ate focaccia bread for the first time. Yum! Then we attended the solar viewing program in the multimedia theater. This involved seeing real-time images of the sun, projected onto a large screen through a system that made viewing safe. A staff member explained what we were seeing, including solar flares. After that program, we joined the group taking the
After the tour, we had time to browse in the gift shop. J and Bud each bought a black t-shirt that had glow-in-the-dark constellations of the night sky printed upside down, so they can view the stars in their proper position while wearing the shirt. Then we explored the visitors center's
The twilight program was held in a classroom, where a staff member gave us an introduction to the night sky and instructions for using the star chart we were given (ours to keep). We moved outside for some application of the instruction. We were certainly glad we had brought along our winter coats and hats; the elevation made the evening weather quite cool. The stone benches in the outdoor amphitheater made for very cold seating! During the star party, we got to look through several telescopes and a pair of giant binoculars at several pre-selected sky features, including Saturn and the Orion nebula.
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San Antonio
Overview of our visit to San Antonio
We spent two days in San Antonio in early December, 2002. The first day was for sightseeing; the other was for shopping. We were staying at Lone Star Corral, the Escapees Co-Op park near Hondo, Texas. Facilities were quite nice there and the people were friendly. The fifty-mile drive to San Antonio, though, made us think that maybe "next time" we'll stay closer to the city when we want to explore.
The streets of downtown San Antonio seemed narrow to me as navigator, so I was quite pleased to discover a large, open lot in which to park our big truck for the day. It was only two blocks from the Alamo Shrine and was probably used by school buses on a regular basis.
Our first stop was the RiverCenter Mall where there was an IMAX theater. Ever since seeing the Lewis and Clark previews at the Pink Palace Museum Museum (See my description.) in Memphis, I had wanted to see that movie. It was playing then and we had arrived close to a show time, so we bought tickets. It was a thrilling film and I thought it would be a good background for later visits to Lewis and Clark historic sites, during the bicentennial of The Corps of Discovery journey. With 20/20 hindsight
I think I should have chosen to see "Alamo...The Price of Freedom," since it is shown exclusively in San Antonio.
After the movie, we headed to the Buckhorn Saloon and Museum for lunch. This San Antonio landmark has been in continuous operation since 1881. Teddy Roosevelt recruited Roughriders here, and cowboy Will Rogers frequented the establishment. We didn't tour the free museum but we enjoyed our lunch in the saloon-turned-café.
After lunch we went to the Alamo site. The
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The Alamo
Here I learned a lot about the history of Texas! Previous to our visit, the only thing I knew about the Alamo was that a small band of men, including Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, lost their lives during the Texas struggle for independence from Mexico. I was not prepared for the reverence with which the site is regarded today. In 1905, the Texas legislature officially designated the
In 1793, after serving as a mission for nearly seventy years, the Alamo was secularized by Spanish authorities. The church building was still roofless at this time. From the early 1800's, the former mission compound was used by various military forces. The official website has so much information about the history of the site!
In the long barracks, one of the remaining portions of the compound where the 1836 siege took place, we watched a short, specially-produced History Channel film called "Introducing The Alamo." It chronicled the battle and gave a brief historical overview of the site. Then we looked at the exhibits in the rest of the long barracks building.
As we entered the Shrine, we saw flags representing the states and nations of the "heroes of the siege." Each flag had a number on it, indicating how many of the men were from that place. We took special notice that the Ohio flag had the number four. Near the front of the church was a guestbook, which we each signed.
