Nacogdoches part two

We spent one night here, but we toured twice.  This morning we checked out of our motel and started the day by finding an Urgent Care center for Mark to get his stitches out.  There were only 2 stitches that he got 8 days ago at the dermatologist.  If Medicare doesn't cover it, it's $100 a stitch.  Ridiculous.  Anyway, he's glad that's over.

Then we made our way to the Welcome Center, which had some great exhibits and a video.  That was followed by a walking tour of four or five historical sites, lunch at Subway, and then the Old Stone Fort Museum on the campus of Steve Austin State University.  Once we did all that, we had a pleasant two hour drive to Huntsville, partially through the Davy Crockett National Forest.

This morning we will be going to the Sam Houston museum and then driving to Washington, Texas for the Washington-on-the-Brazos State Park before heading to our motel in Brenham tonight.

I tried a new dinner at Denny's last night, the salmon skillet.  Mark and I both had it, and it was great. Unfortunately, I went back to the motel and finished off the box of ginger snaps.  My calories were about 2,000 yesterday, a normal day for most people who aren't trying to lose weight.  We also did a fair amount to walking on the tour in old Nacogdoches.  Still, I'm up three pounds this morning, back to 271.1.  Maybe yesterday's 268.3 was wrong.  My scale is not that accurate anyway.

We are still having fun!  Here are pictures from yesterday.

Heading in to get those two stitches out.

The old downtown Nacogdoches street on the way to the Welcome Center

Looking at the many exhibits in the Welcome Center.

Statue outside the Welcome Center

This area, near the Sterne-Hoya house was a bivouac area for hundreds of soldiers recruited by Sterne from the US and brought to Texas to fight in the war for independence from Mexico.  They camped by his house and had a big feast before going to places like the Alamo and Goliad where most all of them died.

The Sterne-Hoya house, only those two families ever lived in this house.  Davy Crockett and Sam Houston were frequent visitors and lived in the house sometimes with the Sterne family.

Adolphus Sterne 

According to some historians, Sam Houston converted to Catholicism, as all citizens of Mexico had to do then to own land.  He had his baptism in the parlor of Adolphus Sterne.  Sterne's wife served as his sponsor and Godmother.  He had asked his good friend Adolphus, but he said no because it was Yom Kippur.  Sterne's father was Jewish and his mother was Lutheran, but he identified himself as a Jew, even though later he had converted to Catholicism at his wife's insistence; however, he didn't always practice it.  Legal conversions for land ownership and secretly retaining one's old religion was not uncommon in old Mexico.

A few blocks up from the house is the cemetery

Thomas Jefferson Rusk's grave

Adolphus Sterne and his wife

As we walked, we saw this sign on a business.  These two names, Nacogdoches and Natchitoches, are the names of two twin brothers from the Caddo Indian tribe.  According to their legend, Nacogdoches was sent a three days march west and founded the town named for him.  The other brother waked three days east and founded his namesake town in what is now Louisiana.  The two brothers remained friends and established a road and trade between the two villages.

The Old Stone Fort is now on the campus of Austin State University.  It looks rural, but a parking garage is right behind me here.  This is now a museum of the founding of Nacogdoches and the Camino Real.  This is a re-creation, although some original stones were used in the rebuild.