Seminole Canyon State Historic Park
December 2, 2006
We had another lazy morning and didn’t really get on the road until noon. We drove down into the Amistad Recreation Area and got a little closer to the mouth of the Pecos River where it runs into the Rio Grande River. We stopped in Seminole Canyon State Historic Park. We bought the Texas State Park pass for $60 and can now enter fee free into any. Then we walked around the exhibits here telling about early people from 10,000 years ago. We made lunch in the picnic area then returned for the 3:00 tour of the rock shelters of these early peoples. On the walls are paintings, rock art. It is thought they made their paints from bone marrow and ground rock. The characters mostly had long bodies, short legs and little heads. There was one tall figure with the head of a deer whose antlers have black circles over the points. The illustrations, done in the 50’s and replicated on exhibit signs, of the paintings were better than the ones themselves on the stone walls as they have been left to the elements and have deteriorated. If they, archeologists, really want to do something with this stuff, after they measure it and dna test the colors and do all that they want, it is our opinion that they hire someone to come in and retouch the paintings so that they look like they did when they were new. Some Australian aborigines retouch their ancient paintings; keeping them alive is an important ritual.
The Windmill Trail labeled different flora, went past the old wooden windmill at a small spring and out to the road where a new metal windmill turns pulling water into a stone storage tank.
We departed and drove towards Del Rio. As the day grew dark, we pulled off on a four digit road and parked along the side for the night. We watched As Good As It Gets. The moon was bright and lit up the landscape of creosote bush and tan sandy soil.
We had another lazy morning and didn’t really get on the road until noon. We drove down into the Amistad Recreation Area and got a little closer to the mouth of the Pecos River where it runs into the Rio Grande River. We stopped in Seminole Canyon State Historic Park. We bought the Texas State Park pass for $60 and can now enter fee free into any. Then we walked around the exhibits here telling about early people from 10,000 years ago. We made lunch in the picnic area then returned for the 3:00 tour of the rock shelters of these early peoples. On the walls are paintings, rock art. It is thought they made their paints from bone marrow and ground rock. The characters mostly had long bodies, short legs and little heads. There was one tall figure with the head of a deer whose antlers have black circles over the points. The illustrations, done in the 50’s and replicated on exhibit signs, of the paintings were better than the ones themselves on the stone walls as they have been left to the elements and have deteriorated. If they, archeologists, really want to do something with this stuff, after they measure it and dna test the colors and do all that they want, it is our opinion that they hire someone to come in and retouch the paintings so that they look like they did when they were new. Some Australian aborigines retouch their ancient paintings; keeping them alive is an important ritual.
The Windmill Trail labeled different flora, went past the old wooden windmill at a small spring and out to the road where a new metal windmill turns pulling water into a stone storage tank.
We departed and drove towards Del Rio. As the day grew dark, we pulled off on a four digit road and parked along the side for the night. We watched As Good As It Gets. The moon was bright and lit up the landscape of creosote bush and tan sandy soil.
Comments