San Jacinto Monument

Since we had a holiday off from school last Monday for MLK day, we decided to visit somewhere we hadn't taken the kids before. The weather was cold and rainy, so parks and bike rides were out of the question. We decided to visit the San Jacinto Monument. Brady's taking Texas History this year, and I hadn't been since I was in 7th grade. So we headed off to Pasadena!




We found out that the San Jacinto monument is 570' tall. It was built between 1936 and 1939 to celebrate the centennial of Texas' Independence (April 21, 1836). There is a museum on the ground floor with lots of items significant to Texas' history including an actual musket ball taken from one of only 9 Texas soldiers who died that day (in contrast, 600 Mexican soldiers were killed). The entire battle took 20 minutes.



Here we are hanging out by Stephen F. Austin, known as the "Father of Texas," and the man for whom the high school at which Bill and I work was named (it's difficult not to end a sentence with a preposition - LOL).



We bought 5 tickets and rode the elevator up to the observation deck which is 489' off the ground. When I was in 7th grade, we had to take the stairs all the way up. The stairs are only used for emergencies these days. Good thing, too - it takes 840 stairs to get to the deck.

The view out the windows is really amazing. Here is the Battleship Texas across the street:


After we'd had enough of the view (and I'd had enough of the height) we rode back to the lobby and headed off to the nature trail through the marshes that helped Sam Houston trap Santa Anna and his troops to secure the victory for Texas.



That's me in the Aggie maroon. It was very cold out!

Anyway, we didn't see any troops in need of assistance, but we did see an armadillo:



We headed across the street to have a picnic (a tailgate party, really, since we stayed in the car) and to get a closer look at the Battleship Texas.


Since we were really cold and it was starting to rain, and the Texas did not look heated, we decided to save the tour for another day.

We did have a good time, and the we all learned a lot. We apologized to the kids for setting them up to accidental learn something on a day off from school . . . LOL