Wineries

What the Heck Is Sotol? Visit This Hill Country Distillery and Tasting Room and Find Out

What the Heck Is Sotol? Visit This Hill Country Distillery and Tasting Room and Find Out

Desert Door’s sandstorm margarita combines its signature sotol with lime, peaches, rosemary, and jalapeño.In 2016, graduate students Judson Kauffman, Brent Looby, and Ryan Campbell stood around in a college parking garage drinking Mexican sotol from the bottle before class. Read More »

Has Brenham Become the Hamptons of Texas?

Has Brenham Become the Hamptons of Texas?

There aren’t enough synonyms for “quaint” in describing Brenham, that rare landlocked town that feels like it should have a lighthouse. Arranged around an Art Deco courthouse which, built in 1939, is one of the newer buildings downtown, Brenham keeps history in its place. Read More »

Find History and Romance on the Bridges of McLennan County

Find History and Romance on the Bridges of McLennan County

Despite its title, this story is not a parody of a famous novel with a similar name. It is about a love affair, however, one that endures between the people of Waco and their bridges. And this love story begins with a tortilla. Read More »

The Daytripper Explores Nocona’s Leatherworking Roots

The Daytripper Explores Nocona’s Leatherworking Roots

I don’t go trippin’ to North Texas as much as I’d like to, so in the hopes of finding a new adventure I hopped on the highway and drove as far north as it would take me (without landing in Oklahoma). And what I found was Nocona, a fascinating town with a storied leatherworking tradition. Read More »

After Tackling Topics like Al Qaeda and Scientology, Texas Writer Lawrence Wright Is Now onto Examining the Lone Star State

After Tackling Topics like Al Qaeda and Scientology, Texas Writer Lawrence Wright Is Now onto Examining the Lone Star State

Wright, 71, welcomed 2018 with the Hulu miniseries The Looming Tower, based on his 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning book about Al-Qaeda and 9/11. Then came the world premiere of his play Cleo, about the love affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton during filming of the 1963 epic Cleopatra. Most recently, Wright played a key role in the acclaimed documentary Three Identical Strangers, which is informed by a study he unearthed in his 1997 book, Twins. Read More »

Frank X. Tolbert 2 Interprets ‘Incredible Creations of Nature’ in the Texas Bird Project

Frank X. Tolbert 2 Interprets ‘Incredible Creations of Nature’ in the Texas Bird Project

The art aficionados at the opening of Frank X. Tolbert 2’s Texas Bird Project exhibition in Austin were clearly enamored with the artist’s prints, paintings, and drawings of the state’s winged and feathered beings. But the birdwatchers who came to meet the Houston artist were absolutely rapt. Read More »

7 Ways to Inspire a Love of Art in Your Kids

7 Ways to Inspire a Love of Art in Your Kids

Sometimes it’s all in the packaging: Telling my 8- and 10-year-old children we’re going to spend an entire day ... Read More »

What’s Better Than a Hotel with a Bar? A Hotel with Two Bars and a Bookstore

What’s Better Than a Hotel with a Bar? A Hotel with Two Bars and a Bookstore

With two bars, a restaurant, and a bookstore, the Hotel Saint George has become a cultural and community hub of Marfa. He likes to sit and drink and think.” That’s what one of Donald Judd’s interns told me about the New York artist, pioneer, and patron saint of Marfa’s contemporary art scene. We were standing by the bonfire, bagpipe song rolling over the Chihuahuan Desert. It was late winter in ’93, the year before Judd passed away, and I was a guest at one of the bonfires Judd regularly hosted at his Marfa art compound, The Chinati Foundation. He’d flown bagpipers in from Scotland; the burly, jolly Scotsmen in full kilt made a surreal contrast against the wide skies and pale grasses of this West Texas landscape. Even more surreal for me is the memory of Judd telling me why he likes bagpipes: They are, he said, the music that least reminds him of human voices. Read More »

Get a Concentrated Dose of Marfa’s Bohemian Counterculture at El Cosmico’s Trans-Pecos Festival of Music + Love

Get a Concentrated Dose of Marfa’s Bohemian Counterculture at El Cosmico’s Trans-Pecos Festival of Music + Love

Arriving in Marfa, the high-desert ranching town with a lofty reputation as a mecca for modern art, first-time ... Read More »

Mission Tejas State Park

Mission Tejas State Park

Mission Tejas, a sleepy spot tucked away deep in the Piney Woods, honors a nearby site where Spain attempted to maintain its territorial claims in East Texas. In 1690, in an effort to limit French incursions and to convert native tribes to Christianity, Captain Alonso de León led an expedition to establish the first mission in the province of Texas near the Neches River. Smallpox, drought, and cultural clashes led to the mission’s abandonment only four years later. The mission was re-established and abandoned two more times in the following years. By 1730, the Spanish had abandoned the mission for good. Read More »

A Scenic Detour off Interstate 10 Reveals Spectacular Views of the Pecos River Valley

A Scenic Detour off Interstate 10 Reveals Spectacular Views of the Pecos River Valley

The best road trips allow time for detours off the beaten path. Though it can be tempting to choose the most expedient route, it’s often the “long-cuts” that make a trip memorable. One of our family’s perennial favorites is the Sheffield Loop, a 20-mile scenic drive on State Highway 290, just off Interstate 10 west of Ozona. Read More »

Opa’s Smokehouse in Fredericksburg Has Kept Generations of Customers Coming Back for More

Opa’s Smokehouse in Fredericksburg Has Kept Generations of Customers Coming Back for More

The Opa’s story began in 1947 when Arno Schwethelm, a merchant and rancher from Comfort, gave a small meat market to his daughter Ruby and son-in-law Milton Edwards as a wedding present. The young couple renovated the building and established their meat market as Fredericksburg Lockers’ Inc. Read More »

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