San Saba Peak
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
In the near distance, San Saba Peak dominates the landscape. The far distance fades away in rolling plains until it disappears into the lowering grey clouds. I slept like a log last night breathing the fresh smell of Texas. We are far enough from the miasma of Austin that the air still retains the same freshness that it must have possessed in 1732 when Don Juan Antonio Bustillo Y Cevallos gave the peak its name.
It was a bit after 4 pm when we pulled off the road yesterday and decided that we would spend the night here. This place is one of those fast-disappearing roadside spots that the Texas Highway Department used to place along the highways so that travelers could stop and rest before resuming their journey. Evidently, someone in the department had an eye for beauty!
When we arrived there was an older man sitting and reading from a very well used book. Soon we struck up a conversation. He was the type of man that you meet now and again in rural Texas. His family came to Texas in 1850. He was born and had spent most of his life in this part of Texas. The book that he was reading was one that he had read many times before. It was so well-read that pages were loose in the binding. It was a history of the area and it had been written by his granduncle.
We talked for a while and discovered that we had in common a love and appreciation for the history of this place. We shared a reverence for the men and women who had lived, traveled, and worked here. The native Indians, the Spanish, and later the settlers who came to Texas for the promise and freedom that it gave.
Yes, I slept well, breathing in the smell of Texas; the smell of Freedom that Washington and Austin politicians will seldom understand!
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