Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2020 i Texas Highways Magazine

I loved the adventure issue. My kids and I spent many weekends at Hueco Tanks and the Franklin Mountains, and I have spent much time in Big Bend with my kids and along River Road and elsewhere in the park. It brings me back to where I need to return again.Steve Shelburne, Austin Pepper Steaks Used the author’s recipe at home [“In Pursuit of Pepper Steak,” April]. Turned out to be a great meal. Can’t wait to travel to the Frio River Valley and try this at a restaurant. Steve Honea, Fredericksburg That is not what I grew up calling pepper steak in Ennis. We used round steak, cut into pieces, seared, then pan braised (covered) with water, chopped bell peppers and onions, and a little cornstarch. Cooked a few…

Jetting off on vacation by plane has its advantages, like efficiency and built-in downtime. But the disadvantages can outweigh the upsides: Air travel means missing out on the freedom and sense of adventure that come with road-tripping. The open road affords unplanned discoveries and cultural oddities, taking in the view at a scenic overlook for however long you like, and the feeling of satisfaction when you stop and stretch your legs out in the fresh air. A road trip is its own reward, no matter your final destination. GPS and smartphones have made taking a road trip easier than ever before, but all you really need are miles of asphalt (which Texas has in abundance), a car packed with your favorite snacks, and activities to keep you entertained. Just ask…

Speeding through East Texas on Interstate 20 offers few traffic lights, making it the most efficient route, but it’s not very interesting. State Highway 31 between Longview and Waco is a delightful alternative that allows you to see classic, storied towns like Tyler and Corsicana up close. And since it’s a direct, as-the-crow-flies line, SH 31 is actually 10 minutes quicker than I-20 west to Interstate 35 south. It’s just impossible to drive 31 without succumbing to the temptation to stop every 30 minutes. SH 31 is four lanes in two-lane country, cradled in lush greenery on both sides. There’s also nothing mediocre about 31’s medians, which are so broad in spots that the Navarro College Cheer team of Corsicana could use it to practice routines for its Netflix show,…

Even for those who made A’s in seventh grade Texas History, the sequence of events of the Texas Revolution can get muddled. A road trip is a hands-on way to fill the knowledge gaps, particularly if author Stephen Harrigan is in the passenger seat. Not the actual Harrigan—unless you happen to know him—but his 925-page tome, Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas, published in 2019. His chapters on the revolution shine with nuance and good storytelling and, as a companion on a driving tour, can make the past feel quite present. First stop, Gonzales, the South Texas town on the Guadalupe River where, in October 1835, the first shots of the Texas Revolution were fired. With unrest stirring, the Mexican government tried to retrieve the cannon it had loaned…

The Wild West has long been romanticized in history and popular culture. While you still may encounter Longhorns, wildcatters, and cowboys, the West of today is quite different from the West of John Wayne flicks. This expedition, cutting a southwestern path from the Red River to the Permian Basin, courses through rugged country with more than its share of historical curiosities and downright oddities. One example is right in downtown Wichita Falls: The World’s Littlest Skyscraper, standing 40 feet tall, 10 feet wide, and 18 feet deep. Its creator, thought to be a con man, fooled investors with blueprints that showed misleading dimensions, and the ruse wasn’t discovered until the building’s completion in 1919. By then, the man and the money had vanished over the horizon. Cruising south on State…

West of the Traffic 1958 In summertime, Texans’ thoughts instinctively turn to wide-open spaces. Such was the case when former Gov. Coke Stevenson, along with his wife, Marguerite, and daughter, Jane, stopped for this photo in front of Sawtooth Mountain on the famed Davis Mountains Scenic Loop. Stevenson had a special connection with Texas roads: As speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, he helped pass the state’s driver’s license law, and in 1936 he was issued license No. 0000001. Ironically, Jane recalls, her father was a terrible driver. Born in 1888, Stevenson had more affinity for mules and horses, so Marguerite did most of the driving. Despite having only attended school through fourth grade, Stevenson served as governor, lieutenant governor, and speaker of the house—making him one of only…

The key to a good adventure story, according to contributing writer Pam LeBlanc, “is having things go wrong.” It’s a good thing, then, that there was no shortage of misadventures during her travels for this issue’s “Caving Texas” (Page 56) and “River’s Edge” (Page 23). The latter required “six months of training and crawling through mud and lugging a boat over log jams and getting dirty and not sleeping.” The former found her facing her fear of heights with a bat stuck in her pant leg. (She called Dell Medical Center to inquire about the health risks associated with her bat experience, and after she finished telling the story, the woman on the other end asked, “Is this Pam LeBlanc?”) LeBlanc was a columnist at the Austin American-Statesman covering the…

Nearly two decades after Davy Crockett was killed in the Battle of the Alamo, his second wife, Elizabeth Crockett, moved from Tennessee to the North Texas town of Acton to claim a land grant. When she died in 1860, her relatives interred her in the Acton Cemetery, where a statue was erected in 1911. Her grave later became the Acton State Historic Site, the smallest historic site in Texas. “I spent a few minutes there thinking about what it must have been like once she realized her husband had sacrificed himself for Texas,” says Sean Fitzgerald, a Dallas-based photographer. “I like how the wind had spread the flag out perfectly with just a bit of ripple in the fabric to suggest the turbulence of those times.” Upon news of her…

Dallas 1 hour Austin 3 hours Houston 3 hours San Antonio 4 hours Corsicana has gotten a lot of attention in recent months due to the hit Netflix docuseries Cheer, which follows the top-tier Navarro College cheerleading squad. Cheer portrays the town as quaint and sleepy, but for those who know Corsicana outside of the small screen, the biggest draw is the town’s burgeoning art scene. It’s not the first boom Corsicana’s experienced. Around the turn of the 20th century, drillers excavating a water well in the area inadvertently struck oil, instantly changing the modest agricultural hub’s fortunes. Corsicana quickly became one of the wealthiest and most cosmopolitan small cities in the state. Over the decades, the town experienced ebbs and flows. But in the late 1980s the once-vibrant downtown…

Standing on Mundy’s Gap—the namesake of Mundy’s Gap Trail in Franklin Mountains State Park—feels like catching a ride on a runaway train. From a perch high above El Paso with a bird’s-eye panorama of the surrounding Chihuahuan Desert, the vantage creates the sensation of vertigo, as if the body is moving forward and everything seems to hurtle into the horizon. The perch also reveals where you’re headed next—Hueco Tanks State Park and Historic Site, visible from about 42 miles away. Along the drive on State Highway 62 from El Paso to Hueco Tanks, urban sprawl recedes into a rural hodgepodge of independent businesses, body shops, and taquerias. Eventually, all of it falls away as the foothills of the Hueco Mountains rise and nature takes over. On this route, you won’t…

The highway connecting Canada and Mexico, US 281 serves as one of Texas’ most scenic routes. This section of the road wanders through the Palo Pinto Mountains, where juniper and mesquite keep company with oak and sumac trees, to the heart of the Hill Country, crossing famous rivers like the Brazos and Colorado. Before committing to spending three days in the car, I like to start with a good workout. At Rochelle’s Canoe Rental in Graford, 19 miles west of Mineral Wells, you can rent canoes and kayaks for a 10-mile journey down the gentle Brazos River. It’s a lazy trip, as I pull over to picnic under massive spreads of ancient oak trees on the river banks. Later on, I inspect the historic Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, which…

Don’t be fooled by the name. State Highway 35 is the antithesis to the behemoth with which it shares a number. Interstate 35 is a white-knuckle fight for highway survival, while its country cousin is an easy cruise through green marshes and across bays, with intermittent glimpses of the Gulf of Mexico. Otherwise known as the “Hug-the-Coast” Highway, this 35 predates I-35 by more than 40 years. With only one lane on each side most of the way, it’s a quaint retreat—a throwback to Sunday drives where the journey was the destination. This slow ride begins south of Houston in West Columbia, the tiny town with the distinction of having been the capital of the Republic of Texas for about three months in 1836. Stop by the state historical marker…

The 107-mile stretch of Interstate 35 between Georgetown and San Antonio will never be confused for a scenic highway. But if you time it right and know where to stop along the way, I-35 can be the blue water highway leading to the sweet relief of some of the coolest spring-fed swimming holes in the southwest United States. Clear, cold, and chlorine-free water awaits only a couple of miles from the highway. Think of it as swimming-hole hopping. Intrepid swimmers can splash from Georgetown to San Antonio in a single day, or make it more of a mosey, overnighting in San Marcos or New Braunfels. In Georgetown, just five blocks north of the downtown square, you’ll find Blue Hole. This spring-water lagoon on the South Fork of the San Gabriel…

Slowpoke Farm Market in Cisco draws regulars from Abilene and Fort Worth, who drive 45 and 90 minutes, respectively, for lunch. It might sound odd that folks from bigger cities would travel to the small town, with a population of around 4,000, just to eat. But owners Kerry and Joy Hedges grow their own vegetables and raise their own cattle and pigs for dishes like chicken pot pie and meat loaf with creamed potatoes. Home cooking isn’t a marketing term here. “I go just for lunch, making it a once-a-week stop when possible,” says Rob Bullock, a customer from Abilene. “I’ve even driven there just for pie and the amazing coffee.” The Hedgeses never intended to create a café when they opened their market in 2018. It happened organically, decades…

For nearly a decade, Shea Serrano spent his days teaching science to unruly middle schoolers in Houston. Whenever he found a spare moment, the San Antonio native wrote for the Houston Press, The Village Voice, Complex—anyone who’d cut him a check for his take on topics such as coaching middle school football or Texas hip-hop. His wife, Larami Serrano, a former teacher, wasn’t working because daycare costs for their twins were about as much as her salary. So Serrano wrote for extra money to help feed his growing family. Then in 2015, Serrano took a leap of faith: He quit teaching and began writing full time. Grantland, the pop culture and sports blog, hired him as a staff writer, and just months later, it shuttered. Since then, his irreverent prose…