A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it. - Jean de la Fontaine
I used to have a fairly long work commute. I remember at one point, there was cause for celebration as a construction project scheduled for completion finally removed its last traffic cone, only three months late. Ahh, blessed relief! as this reduced my commute from 55 pressure-filled minutes, to 48.
I shouldn't be so stingy in my appreciation. After all, I had the luxury of choosing well-paved interstate or paved two- or four-lane thoroughfares (including shoulders!) both ways, cones or no cones. But a simple walk through the nearby wooded state game lands recalls a time when 'roads' were little more than well-trodden walking paths, which were previously well-trodden goat tracks, which previously had been muddy sluices created by rainwater seeking the path of least resistance. Only a few generations separate highway from wildlife trail, and the El Camino Real is proof.
2024 marks the 20 year anniversary designating Texas' El Camino Real as a National Historic Trail. The 'Royal Road' has been guiding travelers from Mexico through San Antonio and Nacogdoches into Louisiana for more than 300 years. Modern roads still follow its general path, including Texas Highway 21 which is about twenty miles north of where I sit typing to you today.
Looking at the map, it is easy to take the USA-centric view and assume the road sprang from Louisiana and expanded southwest. Quite the opposite! It expanded from Mexico as a means to connect with Spanish outposts bordering French-held lands in Louisiana.
El Camino Real was witness to hundreds of years of history. Thousands, if you consider its pre-Spanish origins as Native American trading path. It is also a focal point of some of my historical interests:
Spanish exploration: it was an outgrowth of the Spanish pushing north after the conquest of Mexico by Hernan Cortes in 1521. My first published book was a children's biography of Spanish explorer Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca. What a story! His expedition shipwrecked near Galveston. He spent many years wandering Texas and Mexico. He may have crossed El Camino Real in his quest to make it back to civilization.
French exploration: El Camino Real also has a tangential role in the saga of French explorer Robert La Salle, who may have been murdered near where the road passes the Trinity River at Keechi Creek. You can see this area on the colorful map at the beginning of this article, where the road crosses the Trinity River between Bryan and Crockett. To clarify: that he was murdered is not in doubt. That he was murdered by his own men is also not in doubt. We’re just not 100% sure where it happened.
This might also be a good time to mention my next book is partly inspired by the story of La Salle's doomed Texas colony, and therefore also has an El Camino Real connection. I hope to be announcing its release in my next newsletter.
Archaeologist Al McGraw's article on El Camino Real has tons more info. Now that I no longer have a commute, I can go down that rabbit hole.
A version of this post originally appeared in 2020.
I will leave you with three things.
Let’s see if you can guess what my husband and I were up to recently.
In my previous newsletter I gushed about reading Erasure by Percival Everett. By very odd coincidence, this month our book club read his latest book, James, a retelling of the Jim character from Mark Twain’s classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I say it’s odd because we rarely/never read books by the same author back to back like this. We use a Survey Monkey-type app that usually has 8-10 books to rank, so there is lots of leeway in what gets chosen. I guess Everett made an impression on us last month. And James did not disappoint. That was one of the best book club discussions we’ve had in a while, and that’s saying something. This is a link to the New York Times books podcast discussion of James. I’m super pumped to report one of our local book club members gets a mention (Earl from Texas). You go, Earl!
Last time I promised you a pic of the wildflowers in our north 40.
When an investigation of illegal match fixing by the Russian mob brings the FBI to her tennis club in the person of hunky agent Wilson DuBois, Veronica Burk vows to help him solve the case quickly before her own very successful gambling habit falls under suspicion.
Ventured is available now on Amazon.
When she takes a chance on making a new life for herself, French orphan and cutpurse extraordinaire Belle must find a way to survive in the New World—or she may not live long enough to enjoy it.
My YA trilogy is also still available if historical fiction isn’t your thing.
Brody Morgan grew up starring in commercials for his dad's mega food corporation. What will Brody do when he discovers what he's really been selling?
I loved reading about El Camino Real because my daughter lives in New Mexico, so I find all the history of this region fascinating.