Visiting Graveyards

This morning I visited a grave of an infamous Texas gunslinger and outlaw, Sam Bass.The Round Rock cemetery is not more than 6 or 7 miles or so from where I live. He’s buried next to one of his gang in a section of the graveyard reserved for the lowest rungs of 1800’s Texas society.

It was drizzly and overcast this morning… appropriate for visiting gravesites I had no connection to.

I felt goulish as I was holding my GPS and printouts, looking for the coordinates of the site as if I was getting ready to plunder a hidden treasure. I was stepping gingerly over and around graves that had no rhyme or reason to their placement. While most sites seemed reasonably tended to, there were some that were placed sadly too close to the road or the one with “Mother” in bold right in front of the parking area…

Today, besides Sam Bass, I saw the final resting place of another Texas Native… the Leanderthal Lady. She is the oldest human remains found in the US (and I think North America), and she died no more than 4 miles from my new home.

When I think of American history and places I would go to see historical sites, I would tend to think of places up in New England. It’s amazing how accessible and abundant remnants of the past are in our area… IF you are looking for them.

Suggestion for a wholesome hobby: Basic GPS units are not too expensive… then visit geocaching.com to find hundreds of locations near you. People use the guise of a game to share little hidden treasures, neighborhood parks, or sites that we never new existed.

Here is a link about [url=http://www.rootsweb.com/~txstc/cemeteries/]Texas graveyards[/url], [url=http://www.ci.round-rock.tx.us/planning/rrcollection/mainstreet/sambass/]Sam Bass[/url], and [url=http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/expltx/eft/time/leanderthal.htm]Leanderthal Lady[/url].