Posts Tagged With: Brownsville

Holy Moly! Brownsville Texas is waaaaay down south. It is farther south than Miami Florida. It is at the southeastern edge of Texas where the Rio Grande RIver dumps into the Gulf of Mexico. It took us six hours of driving today to get here from Del Rio Texas.

What did we see? More scrub brush. Some hills. A few sheep and goats. Lots of wind turbines. Some oil pump jacks. Very few cars on the first eastward, back roads leg of the journey but lots on the second southward, Interstate highway leg of the journey. And around Uvalde Texas-the winter garden of Texas-fields of cabbage, spinach, carrots, onions, etc.

We are here in Brownsville to visit the Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park. When Texas was annexed by the United States in February 1846, disputes over its boundaries and ownership pushed the U.S. and Mexico toward war. US President James Polk claimed all of Texas, including its Rio Grande River. Mexican President Mariano Paredes insisted Mexico still owned Texas, and its border was the Nueces River. The Nueces is about 150 miles north of the Rio Grande.

The battlefield terrain is not much different today than it was in 1846.

Palo Alto Battlefield is the site of the first skirmishes and battles of this two year war. When the war was over, Mexico had lost one half of its pre-war land, including what is now Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, California, Utah, Arizona, and parts of Colorado. What an impact this war had on the futures of Mexico and the USA!

For the next two nights we are staying at South Padre Island. It reminds us of so many Atlantic Ocean beach towns with hotels, bars, restaurants, T-shirt stores, miniature golf, etc. except it is in Texas.

Ed and Chris, South Padre Island, Texas, Dec. 29