Second half of March and the first half of April are typically very nice in Houston. The weather is already warm but still not too hot, ideal time for walks, gardening and other outdoor activities. It is also a good time for road trips. This year, the summer heat has been slow in coming and all of April was very pleasant. We took full advantage of it and went out on trips three weekends out of four.

(Click on the picture to see it full size, use a back button to return to this spot.) The trips were not just simple sightseeing affairs, one could say we had a higher mission. Over the last few months Monica has been looking at different options for next year (i.e. university) and we narrowed the field to two pragmatic choices. Both good schools, both state supported and both reasonably close. But we did not want to decide sight unseen and so we headed out on two Saturdays to tour the schools during their Open Day.

As it turned out, the choices happened to cover the two extremes of the spectrum. Sam Houston University is located in Huntsville, only one hour north of Houston. That was (to me at least, a big plus). Huntsville is a small town where the two main employers are the university and state prison (if you follow Texas executions, you know which one I am talking about). Since it is a small town, most students come from outside and over 70 percent live on campus. The campus has an atmosphere of an old fashioned, small southern east coast liberal arts college. There is really no need for a car, you can walk everywhere. The classrooms are small and you get a feeling that the professors know their students by name.

University of Texas at San Antonio is a different kettle of fish. It is a little bit farther (3 to 3.5 hours from Houston). It is a new, modern school, the dormitories have an indoor pool and all students have access to a state of the art sports complex. The university has a significant research effort and a rising international profile. But San Antonio is not a small city and consequently more than 90 percent of the students are local. Only 4 percent live on campus. It is a big school, auditoriums rather than small classrooms are likely to be where freshmen will be cutting their teeth. I doubt a prof would recognize a freshman if he tripped over him. In other words a setting where one has to have his wits about him to do well.

And there is San Antonio itself, one of a literally handful of North American cities with character. Located in the Hill Country of Texas, pleasant rolling hills eroded into white Cretaceous limestones it still shows a strong Spanish/Mexican influence in its architecture, food and population. After San Francisco and New Orleans it may be the third most popular convention city and one only needs to take a stroll along the River Walk to understand why. My first visit to San Antonio was 20 years ago on a Mobil field trip. We flew in from Calgary in the middle of April, there was still snow on the ground. I checked into the Hilton, went up to my room and walked out on the balcony overlooking the River Walk with its palm trees, bananas and bougainvillea and I never wanted to leave.

It seems that Monica made up her mind on UTSA before seeing either of the campuses, the trips were probably more for our benefit than hers. We will be making longer trips but at least the destination is attractive.

Well, the weather continued to be nice, wild flowers were in full bloom and with no more university campuses to check out I decided to go on a little trip the following weekend as well. About 100 miles west of Houston is a little village called Dubina, nearby is another one called Praha and two other tiny settlements which do not have Czech names but have old Czech churches. In fact the area is known for its four painted churches. Dubina is the oldest settlement, established in 1856, that is only 20 years after Texas declared independence. The area at that time still must have been pretty wild, with Indian raids and all. A quick tour of the nearby cemetery hinted at interesting lives, I wonder if anybody did the research and wrote them up. Surely there must be material for more than one novel here.

The churches vary in construction in style, some are wooden and have simple painted ceilings, others are stone and brick and more elaborate inside. It would seem that the whole area got hit by a series of bad storms and fires in the beginning of the 20 century and the population never really recovered. As a result this region pleasant rolling hills is very quiet now, ideal place to visit when wild flowers are in bloom. Traces of Czech influence can be picked up for 50 miles around this little spot.

Names of towns, names of people running for mayor or advertising their services as a Realtor and kolaches. Now kolaches are a common thing in Texas ("kolache" is the correct Texan spelling), there is even a chain of stores called "Kolache Factory". However, what distinguishes this part of the Texas is that not only do they sell them at every gasoline stand but also that they have genuine fillings: apricot jam, cottage cheese and raisins and even poppy seed filling. It does not get any more authentic than that.

Of course the area was not settled only by Czech and Moravians but also by Germans and a much rarer ethnic group the Wends. Wends are the only surviving trace of west Slavic tribes that inhabited the lower reaches of the river Elbe and somehow did not turn into Germans. They maintained their ethnic identity for centuries in a German sea. Then, in the middle of the 18th century a group of about 600 immigrated to central Texas, apparently for religious reasons (Lutherans who did not want to become Calvinist - whatever that means). There is a wonderfull little museum near the place they settled first. Interestingly, the Lutheran faith proved to be more significant to them than the ethnic origin and over few generations they intermarried and dissolved into the Texas German sea.









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