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The Battle of Boca Chica
Not far from the windswept Texas dunes that adjoin Boca Chica Beach, several plaques commemorate the Battle of Palmito Ranch. Without these markers, the 1865 battleground would probably go unnoticed by...
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Remember the Tejanos!
On a recent Sunday afternoon, a preacher in a flak jacket tried to fire up the crowd of milling tourists and locals in Alamo Plaza. A troop of eager Boy Scouts in khaki gear briefly paused to listen,...
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Assuming No One Else Volunteers
Recounting a controversial episode from his five years as head of the UT System, outgoing chancellor Francisco Cigarroa said, “I always give my honest recommendation, because at the end of the day, I...
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Will Johnny Go Marching Home?
Like many Houston Texans fans, the rapper Slim Thug spent much of the 2013 NFL season frustrated by the team’s offensive struggles. During a particularly uninspiring October game against the St. Louis...
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First Class All the Way
When the incomparable Washington power broker Robert Strauss died in March at the age of 95, the major obituaries trotted out the same stories about his sharp tongue and high self-regard that people...
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Answering the Call
In 2007, when Robert Jeffress became pastor of Dallas’s First Baptist Church, few people noticed. First Baptist, which was once regarded as the country’s most influential Southern Baptist church, was...
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Art“Trenton Doyle Hancock: Skin & Bones, 20 Years of Drawing” (Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, April 26–August 3)Houston resident Hancock has spent years creating art, inspired by comic books and...
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Meanwhile, in Texas . . .
• A 165-year-old map of Texas sold at a Dallas auction for $149,000.• After being pulled over on suspicion of DWI, the principal of Brackenridge High School in San Antonio (“Home of the Mighty Eagles”)...
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A Summer Weekend in Wimberley
For as long as I can remember, I’ve yearned to traverse the Serengeti, gawking at lions and zebras from the back of a Land Rover and eating gourmet meals in my well-appointed Abercrombie & Kent...
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A Summer Weekend in El Paso
Heed these words, traveler: eating four meals of red cheese enchiladas over a weekend is for those with a stout constitution, an adventurous spirit, and written permission from one’s cardiologist. It’s...
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A Summer Weekend at Palo Duro Canyon
I’ll admit that Palo Duro Canyon State Park doesn’t get nearly the love that its cousin, Big Bend National Park, receives. That doesn’t mean I think it’s right. Palo Duro is rich in history: Quanah...
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A Summer Weekend in Rockport
On a summer day, there’s nothing better than the ocean. Unless you’re sharing it with a teeming throng of thonged humanity. So this hot season, skip the South Padre scene (unless you’re into that kind...
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A Summer Weekend in Santa Fe
If Mirabeau B. Lamar had had his way, we’d be able to travel the four hours from Amarillo to Santa Fe without crossing a state line. But when the Republic’s second president dispatched an expedition in...
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A Summer Weekend: San Antonio to New Orleans
There is something wonderfully anachronistic about traveling by train in this modern age. And I’m not talking about workaday back-and-forth commuting on some dreary regional transit full of pallid...
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A Summer Weekend in the Angelina National Forest
Our destination a rustic, isolated but decidedly unthreatening cabin in the woods, a friend and I headed east from Austin for a weekend at La Paz, an aptly named bed-and-breakfast perched on the banks...
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A Summer Weekend in Dallas
Just a half mile from Dealey Plaza, in downtown Dallas, a weekend of extravagant relaxation can be had within the confines of several city blocks. That sentence could never have been written in 1995,...
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A Summer Weekend in Houston
Austin gets the credit for being the state’s music capital, but no city in Texas has a more notable musical history than Houston. It’s the place where Beyoncé learned to sing, where both George Jones...
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A Summer Weekend at Baffin Bay
Pulling a big trout out of the vaunted waters of Baffin Bay requires the dogged determination and patience of a true fisherman. First there’s the drive from the nearest town of Riviera—population 700...
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A Summer Weekend in Oaxaca
A mere two-and-a-half-hour flight from Houston delivers you to the fertile crescent of the New World, a valley isolated in the Sierra Madre mountains of southern Mexico. Oaxaca, the vibrant capital...
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A Summer Weekend in Galveston
Few places in Texas capture a child’s imagination quite like Galveston. Maybe it’s because of the Island’s rich history. For many years, the heavily tattooed native Karankawa tribe fished there,...
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A Summer Weekend in Austin
What drew me and my husband to Travaasa was not its spectacular setting on the edge of the Hill Country or its top-notch spa or the exhaustive list of activities, from origami lessons to a fitness...
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13 Summer Weekend Getaways
Pull out the suitcases and load the car: coolers, maps, and those hiking boots overdue for another layer of dirt. Throw ’em all in. The three-day-weekend season is upon us. Given the abundance of...
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The Rough Guide to Frackistan
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, should rank alongside the smartphone as this young century’s most transformative technology. Over the past decade, so much oil and gas has been unlocked from...
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Old News: An Illustrated Look at Curious Headlines From a Bygone Era
“Six-shooters have superseded bells at Dallas as fire alarms. Over 200 shots were fired on the occasion of a recent blaze.”—San Marcos Free Press, June 19, 1884 The post Old News: An Illustrated Look...
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Damn This Traffic Jam
Infographic illustration by Luke Shuman. Click to enlarge.When the INRIX company released its annual list of America’s most congested cities, the big news for Texans was that for the second year in a...
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