Jim and I lived in San Antonio, Texas for almost eight and a half years. Moving to Mexico didn't have anything to do with not liking South Central Texas, because we both were very happy there. This is sometimes hard for east and west coastal types to understand, and I suspect that no matter what we would show them to dispel their beliefs about Texas, in no small part colored by the fact that it's where GWB comes from, we wouldn't succeed in overcoming them. I wasn't nuts about the suburbanness of our neighborhood which was nonetheless within city limits and the endless, cancerous growth around north and west San Antonio of giant box-store strip malls and freeways and McMansion-type gated communities and ticky tacky subdivisions. This was enough to make me want to move where I didn't have to see them, but that didn't mean leaving Texas was necessary. If Mexico weren't such a draw as a perhaps last adventure for two aging former Peace Corps Volunteers and if it weren't so damned hot for so long where we lived, I think we would have happily settled in a smaller town outside of San Antonio or on the West Side of the city itself and watched the rest of our lives spin out right there.
All of which leads me to point you to an article in this current issue of The Texas Observer, one of my all-time favorite magazines. Called Habitat for Inanity it has to do with The Valley's response to the insanity of building a wall to keep out illegal immigrantsem. It does South Texans proud and will give you a glimpse of the fact that many Texans don't fit stereotypes. I'd like to add that hostility to the federal government, a former Conservative trademark, sure doesn't make you right wing here and in this case! (The Valley refers to the lower Rio Grande Valley. It isn't much of a valley if you come from places with meaningful hills, but that's what it's called.)
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And now a news update on the Broken Bridge story.
People around here are resourceful. First of all, they've developed a nice two-way system which wends its way through the Colonia above Las Puentas making the journey at the most ten minutes longer than it was the old way. They did this by filling in some holes with gravel and by changing the shape of the exit from the road into Las Puentas so it isn't so sharp. You can see the original version of it on the first post on the fallen bridge.
However, buses still can't go this way and neither can trucks larger than large pick-up types. So they are also fixing the road that bypasses bridges altogether and goes into Coátepec. This is the road Jim and I tried to come home on and found had turned into swamp and stream. Now this isn't turning into some four-lane highway. Basically, if I'm not mistaken, it means a large Cat is coming through and evening it out and widening it here and there. Here is a picture of a stretch of road the Cat's been through:
If this isn't the best photo you've ever seen, it's because it's a very gray, rainy day and because, even more important, I was being dragged around by the three dogs whom I had decided needed a walk very badly due to their um exuberant behavior, something they are very good at when they've been confined too long in the house.
ANYWAY, as you can see, the improvements to the road from Ursulo Galván to Coátepec won't have much to do with reducing mud and holes. But it'll work.
Here are some more photos from this walk, not good ones, but I hope interesting.
This is a wall next to a not-rich house, as you can see. What appeals to me here and what is very common is to turn all kinds of containers into planters and hang them on walls everywhere. If you look carefully, you can even see a horizontal soda bottle. The rain has hammered some of the flowers around pretty badly, but they will perk up when it dries up a bit.
Ursulo Galván now has its very own brand-new farmacía. I haven't been inside, but it is very pretty on the outside and seems to sell all kinds of knick-knacks as well as medicine.
This is the AA meeting just up the street from us. It is called The Path of Light. It's crooked and the sign is cut off because the dogs saw some other dogs and got excited at just the wrong moment.
The four of us got home in one piece, more or less. Then they took naps like good dogs.