35 Things We Love About Texas - Jill Lawless

35 Things Managing Editor Jill Lawless Loves About Texas

1.    Granite boulders in the Llano River and the way they mirror the pink and orange hues of sunset
2.    The old stone cottages at Big Bend’s Chisos Basin— spring evenings spent watching the javelinas and other wildlife that approach
3.    The way small-town drivers wave to everyone they pass
4.    Quiet fall mornings on Galveston’s Stewart Beach; afternoons by the pool at Hotel Galvez
5.    Taking in the holiday lights along San Antonio’s River Walk from a balcony at La Mansión del Rio hotel
6.    Zebra slobber on my dashboard at Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, near Glen Rose
7.    Piña coladas on the harbor-side deck at Fins in Port Aransas
8.    Camping/hiking at Enchanted Rock
9.    The plants and Mexican imports at Sam’s Dam Ranch in Buchanan Dam
10.    Beachcombing the shores of Sea Rim State Park [temporarily closed] at sunrise; airboat tours of the marshlands
11.    The solitude of A Woman’s Garden, along White Rock Lake at the Dallas Arboretum
12.    Austin’s annual Frisbee-dog competition at Zilker Park 
13.    Tubing the Guadalupe and Frio rivers 
14.    Texas brag. Everything’s bigger and better here!
15.    Riding the minitrain in San Antonio’s Brackenridge Park 
16.    A full moon so bright you can read a newspaper at the head of Santa Elena Canyon on the Rio Grande 
17.    For the holidays: Fort Hood’s Nature in Lights and the Trail of Lights in Austin’s Zilker Park (set to be back on track in 2012)
18.    Shopping Los Dos Laredos; margaritas-to-go in the Mexican market; Laredo’s La Posada Hotel 
19.    Looking back at the city lights of Corpus Christi as you drive across the Harbor Bridge at night
20.    The bald-eagle nest on Texas 29 east of Llano
21.    Tex-Mex, especially in far South Texas
22.    Small-town shopping trips to Wimberley, Granbury, and Fredericksburg
23.    Big trucks. Big hair. Big belt buckles.
24.    JUMBO shrimp from Pelican’s Landing in Port Aransas
25.    Saltwater taffy at Dutchman’s Hidden Valley Country Store, north of Hamilton
26.    A spring-time motorcycle trip through the seas of wildflowers along Texas 71, Texas 29, and FM 1431
27.    The San Antonio Museum of Art’s impressive Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art; the museum’s frenzied annual Bazar Sabado
28.    Checking out the license plates from northern states on the RVs of Winter Texans 
29.    Watching the dolphins play from the ferries at Port Aransas, and Dolphin Encounters tours of Aransas Bay
30.    Boot-scootin’ at Gruene Hall
31.    Any performance at San Antonio’s Majestic Theatre
32.    Marble Falls’ Bluebonnet Music and Fine Arts Festival
33.    The screened shelters and summertime dances at Garner State Park
34.    Bottomless glasses of iced tea
35.    Just about everything else

For more on Jill Lawless, read her blog.

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