Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2022 i Texas Highways Magazine

I’ve lived in the Hill Country for five years now, yet I’m still finding new reasons to admire its grandeur on a regular basis. I love that my kids get to grow up in such a beautiful, wild landscape, and I hope their kids will have the same opportunity. As Central Texas faces rapid population growth and development, measures to conserve the beloved region are increasingly vital to its preservation. The Texas Hill Country Conservation Network (THCCN)—a partnership comprising dozens of public and private entities—released a “State of the Hill Country” report in February that outlines eight key conservation and growth metrics to mitigate the threats facing the 18-county area. (The full report can be viewed at ourtxhillcountry.org.) “The Hill Country is a sensitive area,” THCCN manager John Rooney says.…

I loved going on volksmarches when I was stationed in Germany. After 45 years, I still have some of the medals. @KatherineNobles Thrill-Seekers I spent much of my childhood at Six Flags and AstroWorld [“Upside-Down Smile,” April]. It broke my heart when they bulldozed AstroWorld. Loved the Texas Cyclone, even in the rain. Bill West, Dallas Seeing Stars I love those Davis Mountains and the star parties [“An Elevated Outlook,” April]. I’ve been there several times; just awesome! Randy Terrell, Kerrville Plane on the Plains I had the pleasure of meeting John Valentine Pliska’s grandson while working for Boeing back in 1991 [“Take Off,” April]. The grandson is an aerospace engineer who has been to Midland and told me there is still family there. @rojoraider58 Coastal Coaster In your April…

Upon entering Morgan’s Wonderland theme park in San Antonio, visitors are welcomed by a 25-foot-tall bronze sculpture of hands reaching skyward, releasing a butterfly. It is an apt metaphor for this one-of-a-kind park that is so inclusive its owner trademarked the term “ultra-accessible” to describe it. Former homebuilder Gordon Hartman’s magnum opus, Morgan’s Wonderland was created to enable children and adults of all abilities to ride every ride—the ultimate in equal-opportunity fun. Hartman envisioned the park, which opened in 2010, after witnessing how other children in a hotel pool would not play with his daughter, Morgan, because of her physical and cognitive differences. Designed by a local team of engineers, medical experts, parents, and therapists, the facility is a 25-acre spread with 25 attractions, including a Ferris wheel, a deluxe…

HIDDEN SPOT: WEST PEAK OVERLOOK TRAIL HILL COUNTRY STATE NATURAL AREA Just 10 miles southwest of Bandera, aka the Cowboy Capital of the World, a network of trails at Hill Country State Natural Area crisscrosses the rugged terrain of a former cattle ranch. Eat your Wheaties if you decide to tackle the West Peak Overlook Trail, a 1.2-mile scramble through prickly cactus and cedar-studded terrain. The trail climbs up a stretch of limestone blocks to a broad knob that’s one of the park’s Twin Peaks. Benches tucked in the trees provide a place to rest your quads and contemplate the park’s rugged Hill Country beauty, which spills off in all directions. The trail loops like a lasso at the top, so you can make a lap and head back down the…

Classic Spot: KERRVILLE The Guadalupe River first attracted Western settlers to the Kerrville area in the mid-19th century, and the Guadalupe still anchors Kerrville’s downtown of lovingly restored vintage buildings. “There’s such a sense of community and serenity that comes with living in a small town like Kerrville,” says Sue Schulse, a Houston transplant who opened Turtle Creek Olives and Vines with her husband, Dan Schulse, in 2019. “It’s wonderful to witness the sincerity in everyday interactions with folks here.” Visitors will discover art, home décor, primo wine lists, and good food concentrated at the intersection of Water and Earl Garrett streets. Find paintings and sculptures at Rivers Edge Gallery; and exquisite china and crystal, plus antique jewelry and books, at Fitch Estate Sales. Ring the gold Champagne bell for…

Free TRAVEL INFO 1 Abilene Convention & Visitors Bureau 2 Addison, Texas  3 Admiral Nimitz Foundation 4 Andrews Chamber of Commerce & Convention and Visitors Bureau 5 Bandera County Convention & Visitors Bureau 6 Beaumont Convention & Visitors Bureau  7 Big Spring Convention & Visitors Bureau 8 Blanco Chamber of Commerce 9 Brazosport Convention & Visitors Council 10 Briscoe Western Art Museum 11 Bullock Texas State History Museum  12 Burnet County Tourism 13 Cedar Park Tourism  14 City of Bee Cave  15 City of Harlingen Convention & Visitors Bureau  16 City of Manor  17 City of Port Isabel 18 City of Portland 19 Cleburne Chamber of Commerce 20 Corsicana Convention & Visitors Center 21 Cuero Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture 22 Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden  23 Destination Bryan  24 Dumas…

He’s the bard of the Hill Country—a satirist, author, singer-songwriter, raconteur, and equal-opportunity offender. He’s run for Texas governor, not to mention state agricultural commissioner and Kerr County justice of the peace. Kinky Friedman is a larger-than-life figure, a wise-cracking product of the land that he’s lived on and loved most of his life. Friedman grew up on Echo Hill Ranch—the summer camp between Kerrville and Medina that his parents opened in 1953—and attended the University of Texas at Austin. He then joined the Peace Corps and served in the Pacific island of Borneo, where he introduced the locals to Frisbee. Back in Austin in 1973, Friedman took part in the great progressive-country music explosion with the debut of his satirical band, Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys. Friedman’s classics,…

For all its acclaim and marketability, the Texas Hill Country is difficult to define. Writer-at-large John Nova Lomax attempted to draw the upper limit of the popular travel destination in “Pushing the Boundaries” (Page 21). “I got to looking on Google Maps, and I was scanning for places that call themselves Hill Country businesses,” the Brazoria-based writer says. “I got to the Oklahoma border.” Some people Lomax spoke with define the “Hill Country” by the people who settled it. “That’s what we think of as the Hill Country: Where Germans settled, that’s the Hill Country,” he says. “Where Germans didn’t settle, that’s hilly country.” Though Lomax found no easy answer, he did come to a realization. “If all you really want is scenery and a campfire by the side of…

More than 300,000 people visit Enchanted Rock State Natural Area each year, and a majority of them test their legs on the Summit Trail. The nearly mile-long trail climbs to the 1,823-foot peak of the park’s namesake granite dome, an ancient geologic formation known as a batholith. Austin-based photographer Kenny Braun took this photo in July 2014 while hiking the Summit Trail with his daughter. Though Braun has been taking photographs at Enchanted Rock since the mid-1990s, he says each visit introduces new perspectives. “To me it looks different every time I go out there because the light is different, the weather is different,” Braun says. “You could never get bored photographing all the angles out there, but in the summer-time you’ve got to be careful because it gets hot.”…

“Just because it has hills, and it’s next to the Hill Country, does not make it the Hill Country,” declares George Cofran, founder and editor-in-chief of hillcountryportal.com, a resource for the ever-widening swath of divine Texas landscape. A resident of Johnson City, a town whose Hill Country status nobody questions, Cofran grows frustrated when I point out that isolated spots to the north like Glen Rose and Meridian look every bit as Hill Country as the Hill Country. “Well, so do some places in Europe,” Cofran fires back. “That doesn’t mean they’re in the Hill Country.” To Cofran, it’s worse than inaccuracy; these people want something without earning it, by simply moving the lines. He’s referring to the steady, ongoing creep of the Hill Country northward from its traditional boundaries.…

HILL COUNTRY STATE NATURAL AREA PEOPLE FROM ACROSS THE WORLD travel to Central Texas to explore the Hill Country—a surprising landscape of granite uplifts and limestone plateaus bisected by spring-fed creeks and rivers. The same forces that made the Hill Country such a beautiful place also made it relatively tough on early inhabitants, who encountered thin, rocky soils and an extreme climate prone to drought one year and flood the next. Coming from places like Appalachia and Germany, the settlers made their way in the mid-1800s by forming tightknit farming and ranching communities scattered among the hills, each with its own distinctive Texan character. As Texas has modernized, the Hill Country’s topography doesn’t pose the challenges it once did. Nowadays, anyone can venture to the magnificent granite batholith of Enchanted…

Classic Spot: THE MIGHTY GUADALUPE From March through October, hundreds of thousands of Texans flock to the chilly waters of the lower Guadalupe River to tube. This method of heat relief involves plopping down in a large tire-size inner tube or other flotation device to float a portion of a 20-mile stretch of “the Guad” below Canyon Lake Dam. Two popular areas are the Horseshoe—a bend in the river near Sattler—and the run from Third Crossing to Second Crossing downriver from Sattler, which includes a long chute. Another favorite, the 3.5-mile stretch from First Crossing through Hueco Falls—one of the biggest rapids on a Hill Country river—concludes in Gruene, where restaurants and other attractions, including Gruene Hall, offer sweet repasts to end a day on the water. Tube rentals and shuttles…

Contentment comes in the right environment. For families, that ideal setting is often far from home and its many obligations. Flashes of joy might strike, for example, when your 12-year-old builds a fort in the middle of your vacation rental, and he’s so enamored by his creation that he asks you to crawl inside with him. Or, when at a Hill Country cabin, your animal-loving 5-year-old daughter’s eyes widen with awe as she feeds a goat for the first time. Or, when the teenagers laugh with their dads by the firepit, s’mores in hand instead of cell phones. Or, when your 10-year-old, after a weekend by the Frio River, says, “Mom, can we stay longer?” That’s the beauty of a family weekend away, when schedules and to-do lists fade so…

Since 1972, the Kerrville Folk Festival has drawn crowds to celebrate the art of songwriting. This year, the 18 days and nights of the festival feature daytime activities and nightly concerts. More than 1,500 singer-songwriters have taken the stage since the festival’s inception, and this year’s acts include Jackie Venson, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and Shinyribs. Around 20,000 “Kerrverts” are expected to attend the 50th anniversary festival taking place May 26-June 12 at Quiet Valley Ranch. While the event originally focused on folk music, it’s evolved to encompass all songwriting, and today’s performers highlight genres from blues to bluegrass, international sounds, rock, and soul. Evening shows may be the biggest draw, but dedicated festival-goers say the heart and soul of the festival is the campground scene. Campers form micro-communities throughout the…

The tiny town of Concan, tucked in the rolling hills of Uvalde County, has been a summertime recreational haven since 1926, when Tom and Vida Neal built a restaurant and cottages along the banks of the Frio River. Nearly a century later, their great-grandson Chase Roosa carries on the family tradition as general manager of Neal’s Dining Room. Every year, from March through Thanksgiving, Roosa greets vacationers who come for a meal after swimming and floating in the Frio’s chilly spring-fed waters or hiking at Garner State Park, located 8 miles north. Long before it was a Hill Country tourist attraction, the Frio provided water for the Lipan Apache and other Texas tribes who frequented the southwestern edge of the Edwards Plateau. In the mid-19th century, Anglo settlers established ranches…

The German immigrants who settled in the Boerne area in 1850 knew a pristine townsite when they saw one. The colonists built farms near the bank of Cibolo Creek, the spring-fed stream that anchors the town of Boerne to this day. Named for German political writer Karl Ludwig Börne, the town evolved into a health resort in the late 19th century after multiple sanitariums opened. The town’s relatively high and dry Hill Country environs were thought to be beneficial to people with chronic illnesses. The railroad and agriculture also bolstered Boerne’s economy, and the town’s proximity to San Antonio has contributed to both a growing population and a steady stream of tourists. Boerne’s German heritage is alive and well in the town’s annual festivals, restaurants, and restored historic buildings lining…

HIDDEN SPOT: ANHALT HALL, SPRING BRANCH Anhalt Hall used to draw about 2,000 boot-scooters and polkaholics for its Maifest and Oktoberfest dances in the 1940s and ’50s. But that number is down to about 300 for dances on the third Saturday of most months as the old regulars have aged out, and the younger crowd flocks to hipper locales in Gruene or Luckenbach. Songs have been written about those dance halls, while Anhalt is an overlooked treasure. If anybody penned a tune about this place, a good title would be “Hardwood Heaven.” Still owned by the Germania Farmer Verein—the agricultural association that built the hall in 1879—Anhalt is as authentic as a Texas landmark can be. Museum-quality artifacts, such as a wooden icebox, a cistern pump, and an early 1900s soda…

Classic Spot: DEVIL’S BACKBONE For motorists who’ve never been to the Texas Hill Country, the 35-mile drive from San Marcos’ western edge to downtown Blanco—via Ranch Road 12, Ranch Road 32, and US 281—is a fitting introduction. The road quickly lifts off the coastal flats onto the Balcones Fault, a 500-foot jump in elevation. Four miles past the Wimberley junction, two storied roadhouses, Riley’s and the Devil’s Backbone Tavern, both popular with cruisers, mark the beginning of the Devil’s Backbone—a high limestone ridge that straddles the Blanco and Guadalupe river valleys. About a mile past the roadhouses, a picnic area on the right is worth a stop for sweeping views of the Wimberley Valley. The historic community of Fischer, about 8 miles farther on the north side of the highway,…

THE PROMISE OF AN OASIS led us here beneath Interstate 35, where the Old San Antonio Greenbelt borders the edge of Onion Creek. It was Easter weekend in 2020, but we weren’t gathering. A month into the pandemic, still unsure how to interact safely, we sought spaces mostly absent of humans. I guided our old minivan under the freeway overpass, and we rumbled down toward the creekbed. My two kids—my son, August, and daughter, Lyla, then 6 and 3—looked bewildered in the backseats. Where’s dad taking us this time? The concrete stanchions supporting the tall interstate bridge make an apt canvas for graffiti artists. But I’d done my due diligence researching Onion Creek, among the longest in the state and one of the most environmentally sensitive waterways in the Hill…

NICE N EASY 106 N. Nugent Ave., Johnson City. Open Fri 4 p.m.-midnight, Sat noon-midnight, Sun noon-10 p.m., Mon 4-10 p.m. Closed Tue-Thu niceneasytx.com Gunslingers weren’t uncommon in the saloons of Johnson City in the early 1900s. “The realtors told us there were bullet holes, but we didn’t believe them,” says Garrett Crowell of Nice N Easy, a new taproom housed in one of the oldest buildings in Johnson City. “Then we took the mortar off and found that they were aiming high!” Situated just off Johnson City’s main square, the building is steeped in local legend. The current structure was built in 1917, and although tax records date the earliest liquor license on the site to 1908, there are rumors alcohol was served here as far back as the…

Plans were already in the works for a new Texas Capitol when a fire burned its predecessor in 1881. To construct the replacement—the building we know today—state officials settled on sunset red granite found in the Hill Country of Burnet County. Contractors used unpaid prison laborers, primarily African Americans, to work the quarries. This caused a major dust-up with the International Association of Granite Cutters, which directed members to boycott the project. Contractor Gustave Wilke responded by importing stoneworkers from Scotland. Federal officials found this to be a violation of the Alien Contract Labor Act and fined Wilke $65,000, according to a 1992 article in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly by Scottish historian Marjory Harper. Meanwhile, conditions for the convicts were harsh: long days in the sun; a diet of cornbread,…