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The Romance of El Paso’s Scenic Drive
The 2-mile Scenic Drive along Rim Road is an El Paso special. Local photographer Christ Chávez snapped this shot of Murchison Rogers Park, a small overlook at the southern tip of the Franklin Mountains, in March during the golden hour. “Scenic Drive is a must for anyone visiting El Paso,” he says. From this vantage point, viewers can see the city skyline and El Paso’s sister city, Ciudad Juárez, over the horizon. It’s a romantic spot perfect for taking in the sunset. “Most locals will probably tell you they brought a date to Scenic Drive in their younger years,” Chávez says.
Duuuuude
A middle-aged woman carves out a manly wave in Galveston. Galveston is not the best place to surf (Hawaii, probably). And it’s not even the best place to surf in Texas (South Padre, probably). But its modest waves rolling to shore make it a decent place to learn. The surf spots, conveniently located off beaches along the Seawall, offer a good launching pad for a sport that lacks easy entry.
How to Talk Like a True Texan
You can't call yourself a Texan till you learn to talk like one—and we don't just mean adopting the word "y'all." There's a slew of town names across the state that aren't what they seem. From Quitaque (KITTY-kway) in the Panhandle to Refugio (reh-FYOOR-ee-oh) on the Gulf Coast, it's anyone's guess how these pronunciations came to be. Chalk it up to the state's independent spirit or the blending of its Mexican, German, and Indigenous heritage. Either way, it's important for anyone who calls this state home to know how to say these town names the right way.
A TRUE TEXAN
For Texas Highways’ 50TH ANNIVERSARY, we curated a list of adventures that’ll propel you to True Texan status. You can sign up for our accompanying newsletter series that will guide you through each item. Here are 50 ADVENTURES TO CHECK OFF before you don your cowboy hat and ride off into the sunset.
Editor’s Note: Adventure Awaits
The state park in West Texas was featured on our September 1977 cover. The cover story by Bob Parvin probed the “sand-locked myths and mysteries [of] … America’s easternmost desert playground,” according to the cover credit. In the story, Parvin described Monahans as “a sea of sand, vast miles of it and not unlike the Sahara, ever shifting, covering and uncovering, trackless and tricky. A soft barrier poised across the prickly hardpan.”
From Bad Mutha to Fly-Fishing Expert
As the audience at a sold-out show at Club Clearview in Dallas circa 1990 was demanding another encore from Austin funk band Bad Mutha Goose and the Brothers Grimm, the group’s singer had an eye on the backstage exit. Chants of “BMG! BMG!” turned into big groans when the houselights came up. That’s all, folks! A few minutes later, the dressing room filled with connected well-wishers, one of them asking, “Where’s Alvin?” But the dreadlocked singer/hype man was already in his 1966 Volvo, headed due west. “I had packed all my fishing and camping gear,” Alvin Dedeaux says, laughing. “The next morning, I was fly-fishing in a New Mexico stream.”
5 Spots to Sip on Afternoon Tea in Texas
If you’ve ever enjoyed a cup of Earl Grey tea, scones smeared with clotted cream, and cucumber and butter finger sandwiches, you can thank an English noblewoman. In 1840, as industrialization pushed the dinner hour later, Anna Maria Russell, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, asked that tea, bread and butter, and cake be served in her bedroom as her stomach grumbled in the late afternoon. And that’s it: The tradition of British teatime was born.
Experience Denton in North Texas Like a Local
A staple since 1985, the restaurant serves a variety of Asian dishes, including sushi, stir fry, and pho, as well as a number of vegetarian options. “Mr. Chopsticks moved since I was an undergrad—it’s still close to campus but at a larger location,” Barrio says. “It’s still one of my favorites and still inexpensive.”
How Texas Has Led Energy Booms for Over a Century
My muscles shake as I climb up the inside of a seemingly endless vertical tunnel, stopping at platforms along the way to catch my breath. Alongside a handful of companions from Invenergy and a photographer, I make my way up a 300-foot wind turbine near the West Texas town of Stanton. On this 2019 trip, we’re led by Jake Thompson, manager of the clean energy company’s wind farm.
Inside Temple’s New Massive Lettuce-Growing Facility
On 100 acres of land outside Temple, an agricultural revolution is underway. And it doesn’t require a tractor, a plow, or even a shovel. Last summer, Revol Greens, the largest lettuce greenhouse grower in North America, opened a sprawling 20-acre facility in the Central Texas town that can produce as much as 24,000 pounds of lettuce a day. To put that into perspective, that is almost the equivalent of how much lettuce can grow on 1 acre of traditional farmland in an entire year.
Four Texas Hotels and Resorts With Plenty of Star Power
As Texans got a front-row seat to a magnificent total solar eclipse this month, interest in astronomy has reached a record high. But stargazing in this state is fantastic all the time, not just during eclipses. You only need to travel just outside of the state’s major metropolitan areas, where pitch black night skies are punctuated with swirls of galaxies and planets, to experience some of the best stargazing around. These resorts, motels, and dude ranches are the perfect places to stay if you are a budding astronomer—or have one in the family.
A Weekend Getaway in the Central Texas Hamlet of La Grange
Ask a Texan if they know where La Grange is and they’ll probably tell you one of two things: “I’ve driven past there,” or “Like the ZZ Top song?” Yes, La Grange’s claim to fame is the Chicken Ranch, the famed brothel with “a lotta nice girls,” as ZZ Top mumbles in the song that shares the town’s name—the same brothel that the movie The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is based on. But the town has a rich history beyond the Chicken Ranch. Its growth was fueled by an influx of Czech and German immigrants in the mid-1800s, many of whose descendants still reside in the area. The Fayette County Courthouse looms over the town square, which is lined with restaurants and boutiques perfect for picking up tchotchkes. Over the past decade, La Grange’s new businesses have proven the small town is more than just a place to pass through on a drive between Austin and Houston. It’s well worth stopping a night or two to experience what the community has to offer.
The Daytripper Finds Comfort Food and Natural Wonders in McGregor
Just 18 miles west of Waco lies McGregor, a slow-paced suburb with a charming downtown area. This town of 5,300 people has hosted some of the region’s favorite personalities, such as former president George W. Bush, who has a ranch in nearby Crawford, and Chip and Joanna Gaines of Fixer Upper fame. The McGregor House, a Victorian home transformed into a vacation rental, was once featured on the TV show. (At the time it was a bed-and-breakfast called the Magnolia House.) It’s been a quiet town for most of its history, except for when it was home to a munitions factory during World War II. Then, in 2003, SpaceX began testing rocket engines at a facility just to the southwest, occasionally disturbing the peace in this sleepy town.
The Cadillac of Barbecue Smokers Can Be Found in Lockhart
Like finely tuned hot rods, the models gleam in the brightly lit showroom. While their designs and styles are all different—some feature shiny chrome that sparkles under the recessed lighting and others bear sturdy black paint and brass accents—they’re all here to inspire and catch fire. But...
How Muslim Texans Celebrate Ramadan Across the State
Nordean Nouiouat moved from Algeria to Texas 25 years ago hoping to give his family a better life. A father of five, Nouiouat has achieved what he set out to do, and is helping a new generation embrace their American, Texan, and Muslim identities. “This country—this state—has offered us so many possibilities. We must do our best for America and for Texas,” he says, standing at the entrance of the Islamic Center of Irving in March 2023.
The New North Texas Distillery Resurrecting a Vietnamese Spirit
The sweet, malty aroma of steamed rice greets you as soon as you hit the parking lot at SuTi Craft Distillery in Kennedale, about 10 miles southeast of Fort Worth. Following that buttery bouquet inside, you’ll find vintage memorabilia that evokes a bygone era: a rotary phone, a hand-crank phonograph, and an Akai reel-to-reel tape recorder warbling doleful Vietnamese blues from the 1960s. Beyond the public tasting room, in the 2,500-square-foot warehouse, co-owner and brewer Suy Dinh stands atop a ladder perched over a fermentation tank where he monitors the conversion of rice into the niche liquor of his homeland. In addition to those tanks, his tools include a still and a mash tun, the equivalent of a humongous rice cooker capable of steaming 650 pounds of rice at a time.
Hunting for Vinyl at the Largest Record Convention in the U.S.
I swore I wasn’t going to buy anything at the Austin Record Convention, the biggest record sale and swap meet in North America. But while flipping through a bin of albums marked Willie Nelson in September, I saw a rarer-than-rare album that’s one of Willie’s most unusual: Danny Davis & Willie Nelson with The Nashville Brass. I ponied up 10 bucks. It wasn’t for me, it was for my friend John Spong, host of the One By Willie podcast.
Green
Framed by the vastness of the Chihuahuan Desert, a lone man faces the camera. All around him, rough hills roll off into the distance. Clouds trail across an enormous sky, and mountain peaks decorate the horizon. “My name is Shaun Overton,” he says. He grins, then points to the barren ground at his feet. “And I’m turning this into a desert forest.”
Legendary Wrestler Kevin Von Erich On ‘The Iron Claw’ and His Family’s Legacy
A vacant lot just south of downtown Dallas is all that’s left of one of the most influential regional professional wrestling companies in America—the arguable birthplace of mainstream wrestling as we know it today. That lot once housed the iconic Sportatorium arena, long-since demolished. There, starting in the 1960s, wrestler and promoter Fritz Von Erich led what would become World Class Championship Wrestling and launched one of the sport’s most memorable dynasties, with five of his sons serving as the stars. The eldest of the group, Kevin Adkisson, aka World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Famer Kevin Von Erich, spent week after week tossing people around the ring alongside his brothers. Kevin is the only Von Erich to outlive his father.
From Magnolia to Broadway: Jamestown Revival Shares the Road to ‘The Outsiders’
This interview was edited for brevity and clarity. In 2015, Zach Chance and Jonathan Clay, aka Americana-folk duo Jamestown Revival, were seeing their hard work pay off. They released their debut LP, Utah, and were performing at music festivals all over the country, including Coachella, Bumbershoot, Lollapalooza, and ACL Fest in Austin, their homebase. Then their manager threw them a curveball: Some people he knew were making a musical adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s coming-of-age novel The Outsiders, and they were looking for songwriters outside the usual Broadway-composer realm to pen the songs for it.
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Texas Highways is the Official Travel Magazine of Texas, and your ultimate guide for exploring the Lone Star State's people, places, & wide-open spaces.
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