Blue Bell, La Grange, Goliad

This morning my weight is up, so no, I didn't get that wish of two days down in a row.  I'm up six-tenths.  Not a lot, but still...

I had 1430 calories, 89 under my daily limit right now, which is 1519.  I walked about 2 miles around the various places today.  That's not a lot, so I did not add any calories for exercise.  I am suspecting that even though Lose It! thinks that I can lose two pounds a week on 1500 calories, my body actually cannot.  When eating in restaurants three meals a day, it is difficult to stay around 1200.  Although it worked for me in 2009, seven years later, I feel like it is harder to lose weight now than it was then.  Over 65 and post-cancer treatment has probably changed things.

We started the day off in Brenham at the Blue Bell Creamery.  We saw that listed as a thing to see in Brenham, so we started the day there.  Although they no longer give tours through the actual factory, there is still a wonderful exhibit center with lots of videos.  We watched two videos, one on the history and one on the manufacturing process.  Blue Bell is sold in Publix in Florida, but we almost never buy ice cream, so we had not noticed it.  Also it does not have a kosher symbol on it, so when we do buy ice cream, we look for that.  Mark read these ingredients and after seeing the manufacturing process video said that he would buy it now.  The ice cream parlor upstairs serves generous scoops in a cup for only one dollar.  The lady in the exhibit area was stunned to hear we had never tasted Blue Bell before, so she called upstairs and told them to give us the original homemade vanilla one for free.  So for a buck we also bought a strawberry. I checked the calorie counts on the labels that were displayed and counted those calories.  It was awesome ice cream!  I also finally broke down and bought my first mug of the trip.  I got all the way to day ten before I bought a mug!  Not bad.

Then off to La Grange and Monument Hill.  The men who drew the black beans at Ciudad Meir near Salado in 1843 and were executed are all buried together here along with men killed at the Dawson massacre in 1842. These battles were part of skirmishes between the Texas Republic and Mexico over a border dispute.  Mexico claimed the border at one river and Texas claimed it at the Rio Grande. Five years later, one of the white bean survivors exhumed the bodies of his fallen comrades and relocated them, along with the Dawson men, to this site for a proper burial attended by over a thousand people. There was also a beautiful overlook of the Colorado River.  No, not THAT Colorado river.

Next stop, and the end of this Fodor's Tour of the Old West, was Goliad, the site of the massacre of hundreds of Texan prisoners under Colonel Fannin's command in 1836.  They were following their orders to retreat to the nearby town of Victoria from the Presidio in Goliad.  Unfortunately, they had only gone six miles when they were surprised and attacked by the Mexican army.  They surrendered and were held in the chapel at the Presidio for a few days.  Finally, they were told the ones not wounded would be released and allowed to return home.  That was a lie.  Santa Anna had ordered them all killed.  They were marched out in three separate directions so no one saw what was coming.  All were killed.  The wounded were taken into the courtyard inside the Presidio and executed one by one, including Col. Fannin.  A few escaped and a few were smuggled out by a lady called the "Angel of Goliad."When news of this massacre traveled around Texas, the cry of Remember the Alamo was joined with a new one, Remember Goliad.  The battle of San Jacinto, which is where we started or tour, finally sealed Texas' independence and captured Santa Anna.

The bodies of these men were either burned or left to lie where they fell.  Three months later, their ashes and bones were gathered together and buried in a mound just outside the Presidio.  In 1938 a large monument was erected on the mound.  That was our last stop of the day.

Today we are going to the battle site where Fannin's men were surprised and captured, just a few miles from here in what is now the town of Fannin.  Then off to San Antonio!  Sunday we will be at the Alamo where everything started.

Before Blue Bell, we stopped at a local grocery for a few things, and I fell in love with this rocking chair.  Very comfortable, but not something I can take home today!

The men who died in the Dawson massacre.

The men who drew the black bean at Salado.

The Colorado River

The chapel on the side of Presidio La Bahia

On the grounds inside the Presidio, near this marker, the wounded, including Col. Fannin, were executed.  Fannin asked for three things that he expected his rank entitled him: not to be shot in the face, to send his belongings back to his family, to give him a proper Christian burial.  He got none of those.  They shot  him in the face, stole his belongings, and burned his body.

Outside the Presidio, the oldest and most completely restored, intact Presidio in the USA.

The monument behind the Presidio where the bodies of the hundreds of executed men were buried together a few months later.  The big monument was erected a bit over a 100 years later with all their names carved on it.