wow, how pretty! (also lol at the angel’s extra toe)

Thanks! it was a nice day, if slightly hot and too many mosquitoes (and y’all know what I consider hot is several degrees higher than many). The presidio chapel (Our Lady of Laredo /La Bahía or something I can’t remember) is still in regular use, but the mission chapel is a reconstruction built during the Great Depression. Fresco was painted I don’t ‘member when, much later than the original construction I know. The altar statute is the original though, and supposedly originally recovered/taken from La Salle’s doomed fort. Still, both are run as museums about the Native American tribes that lived in this region and the mission life, the Spanish colonization, Mexican and Texas Revolutions, quite a bit about ranching – this region around Victoria, TX is where the whole vaquero ranching system that you see in all those Westerns started, as the converted natives tended the huge cattle and horse herds, and thus there’s this where the re-enactor talks about it and shows off the various tools and weapons – kids tend to like this part the best 😉 

And ya’know. Battle of Coleto Creek and Goliad Massacre. 

pic under the cut, i know you can barely see the guy, sorry…