One of the random hobbies I picked up from my mom is taking road trips within El Valle in search for curious or historical or haunted or abandoned or quirky places. Whether it be a planned trip or a spur of the moment occasion, there’s something about it that makes the experience seem like an expedition in our own back yard. Discovering what’s off the beaten path.

Cemeteries have introduced us to forgotten children from ages past, wondering if time would have seen them to be grandparents. Making calculations to determine that at this moment in time there is no chance they’d be walking this world because aging would’ve made then older than a century. And how did they die? Would modern medicine have prevented their death? When was the last time anyone paid respect to their gravesite?

Often a time, we’ve jumped a the sight of remnants from rituals seemingly done to honor la Santísima Muerte. Incense and statues and broken glass littering around gravestones. Our fear was mostly because we don’t understand the practice. A heaviness following us on the road home from that dark unknown.

There is a magic in discovering what has been forgotten. Imagining the hands that built wooden homes in the outskirts of Hidalgo, Pharr, San Juan, Edinburg, Brownsville, Rio Grande City, Mission, Alamo. From one corner of South Texas to the next. Agriculture evidently being the purpose of families settling in those regions and monte growing over these isolated structural bones.

Mom taught me to be curious at the sight of Historical Markers. They tell of stories we do not learn in school. Of mi gente and the leyendas haunting our ears.

The pictures I share above were taken in the outskirts of Hidalgo. Or Alamo. Not sure what city it pertains to, lol! I had gone on a sporadic road trip with my nephews and at the sight of this home, we decided to take a walk around the monte there. We didn’t go far that time once we saw several border patrol trucks patrolling about 100 feet away. The river wasn’t too far off.

What are some of the random road trips you’ve taken in your rinconcito?