Outdoor Adventures 
This Land is Your Land
From Caprock Canyons to Matagorda Island, from the piney forests to the Gulf Coast marshes, the state parks of Texas were made for you and me. What's the best way to enjoy them when the weather is perfect for an outdoor adventure? With a canoe. Or a bike. Or a tent. Or a good book. Presenting our favorite things to do in some of our favorite places on earth.
(Page 3 of 4)
Four-wheel it
BIG BEND RANCH STATE PARK Even though I could only just make out Redford—about ten miles away—through the haze, the view from the edge of the Tapado Canyon was spectacular. Layers of rock drop hundreds of feet into a deep valley, where a few lonely trees are growing. The park is a wild place, and sights like this canyon and the famous Madrid Falls are impossible to find without a guide, so I had signed up for one of the four-wheel-drive tours of the backcountry given by the park rangers two or three times a month. From my vantage point, I marveled at the tenacity of the ranchers who worked this land before air conditioning and trucks; the ground is dotted with rusted water pipes and broken windmills, the evidence of their struggle. My guide pointed out an old barbed-wire fence that runs down an impossibly steep slope and ends at the point where the rock plunges vertically to the canyon floor. To the south I spied a faint path winding its arduous way to the top of the mesa—the cowboys' road home after a night on the town. From Presidio, head east on FM 170 for about 6 miles, turn left on Casa Piedra Road and drive for 7 miles, then turn right at the sign and continue for 25 miles; $3, senior discount, under 13 free. Tours by appointment; 432-229-3416; $75 a person. C.L.
Surf the sand
MONAHANS SANDHILLS STATE PARK You can't snowboard in Texas, but you can sand-surf, sort of. While this sounds about as much fun as grass-skiing, it is in fact a serious sport of baggy-shorted dudes from Death Valley to Libya, where you can surf 650-foot dunes in the Sahara Desert. Sliding down the up-to-70-foot drifts at Monahans sitting on a plastic disk would bore those major-league buzz-seekers, but it provides enough thrills for the rest of us, kids and adults alike. So the next time you're making the long haul across West Texas, you might buy a few moments of silence from any cranky little people in your car by promising to stop off here. The sliding is best after a rain or early in the morning, when the dew has packed down the sand. Off Interstate 20 five miles east of Monahans, 432-943-2092; $2, senior discount, under 13 free. Sand disk rental $1 an hour, sand board rental $2 an hour. C.L.
History
Storm the battlefield
SAN JACINTO MONUMENT Foot-high letters carved into the base of the monument declare that the brief but bloody skirmish fought here on April 21, 1836—when Sam Houston's small band of Texians defeated the Mexican army under Santa Anna—was no less than "one of the decisive battles of the world." If that seems a bit overblown, consider the victory's domino effect. Once free from Mexico, Texas was soon annexed by the United States, which in turn triggered border disputes that led to the Mexican War, which resulted in the United States' acquiring nearly a million square miles of territory. While all of it is not visible from the observation deck of the 570-foot-high limestone obelisk, you can see downtown Houston, the Fred G. Hartman Bridge linking Baytown and LaPorte, the battleship Texas, and a vast petrochemical wonderland. In a few years, park planners hope you'll also see the surrounding grounds—now a recreation area with picnic tables and a reflecting pond—returned to their natural state at the time of the battle. Meanwhile, get your history fix in the museum, where you'll find such disparate artifacts as a tiny wooden heart and cross whittled by Sam Houston and a knee buckle taken from Santa Anna after his capture. About 22 miles east of Houston off Texas Highway 225, 281-479-2421. Monument, museum, and battleground open daily 9 to 6; free. Observation deck $3, under 12 $2. No camping. S.B.
Wade in dinosaur tracks
DINOSAUR VALLEY STATE PARK Considering the swarms of Homo metroplexus who inundate this park on summer weekends, you may wish that a troop of snaggletoothed Acrocanthosaurus would once again swagger down the Paluxy River and clear the crowds. Until that DNA cloning thing is perfected, however, you'll have to content yourself with wading in the paw prints these enormous carnivorous reptiles and their even larger prey, the Pleurocoelus, left behind 113 million years ago in mud that later hardened into the limestone river bottom. Three of the four major sites are not only well marked on the park map but heralded with pointers, info-packed kiosks, and "Track" signs poking up out of the shallow water. Sighting tubes allow lazy trackers to spy the prints without even leaving the parking lots. Take the trouble to find the fourth site, just east of the campsites, and you'll be rewarded with a flurry of tracks that'll make you think those rowdy reptiles threw a brink-of-extinction dance party. From U.S. 67 five miles west of Glen Rose, take FM 205 north for four miles; 254-897-4588; $5, under 13 free. S.B.
Pack a picnic
MONUMENT HILL AND KREISCHE BREWERY STATE HISTORIC SITES Even the most mundane family picnic takes on epic significance at this history-rich spot. Here among the moss-draped oaks and manicured lawns, on a two-hundred-foot cliff overlooking the Colorado River, sits a granite tomb marked by a limestone monolith and guarded by a very stern, sword-wielding angel. It holds the remains of Texans killed in border disputes with Mexico: the members of the Dawson Expedition, who died while fighting in San Antonio in 1842, and sixteen unlucky members of the Mier Expedition, who were executed the following year at Rancho Salado, Mexico, after drawing the infamous black beans. If their fate begins to cast a pall over your gathering, a short walk down a gravel trail will lead you to a relic from a more fun-loving past: the ruins of the brewery built during the 1860's by stone-mason-turned-brewmaster Heinrich Kreische. He engineered the three-story sandstone structure so that the water from the spring it straddled could be used for cooling and cleaning as well as in his popular Bluff Beer. One mile south of downtown La Grange off Texas Highway 77, 979-968-5658; $3, senior discount, under 13 free. Access to brewery limited to one-hour tours on Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.; $2, students $1, under 6 free. No camping. S.B.
Relive the past
LANDMARK INN STATE HISTORIC SITE The ebb and flow of history has left its mark on the Landmark Inn, set where the road west crosses the Medina River just outside San Antonio. The pecan bottoms bordering the Medina would be familiar to the Comanches and Apaches who threatened the early settlers—among them César Monod, from Switzerland, who built the first store on this site in 1849. Mexican and Anglo armies halted here before marching off to fight Indians and each other; immigrants heading for the California gold fields rested here; and at times the store served as a post office and a hotel. A gristmill on the grounds later housed a cotton gin and, in the twenties, a hydroelectric plant supplying electricity to Castroville, the French-German agricultural community that had grown up around this crossroads. Now the store is a museum and bed-and-breakfast, spotless and brimming with Old World charm. Ride one of the complimentary bicycles across U.S. 90 into Castroville's sleepy streets, where 150-year-old cottages doze under shady oaks and restaurants serve artery-clogging Alsatian cuisine that will send you wobbling back to the inn for a nap. 402 E. Florence, Castroville; 830-931-2133; $1, under 13 free; museum free. Rooms $60 to $75 a night. No camping. C.L.
Admire ancient art
HUECO TANKS STATE HISTORIC SITE When I first visited Hueco Tanks, in the early nineties, I scrambled freely over these huge boulder piles. I tried not to damage the rock paintings that I came across, but others had not been so conscientious; the few pictographs I saw were almost obliterated. As climbers flocked to this "world-class bouldering destination," the problem escalated, and Texas Parks and Wildlife eventually restricted access to the site and began trying to raise awareness of the paintings' cultural value. Now the only way to see the best pictographs is to take a tour, as I did in May. The knowledge and enthusiasm of our volunteer guide, Diana Rosch, made for an entertaining and educational morning. We saw hunting scenes, otherworldly-looking gods drawn in vivid oranges and dark reds more than a thousand years ago by early Native Americans, and a great battle panorama featuring Europeans on horseback, most likely painted by Apaches at the end of the nineteenth century. From El Paso, take U.S. 62/180 east for about thirty miles, turn left on Hueco Tanks Road (RR 2775), and continue for about eight miles; 915-857-1135. Two-hour pictograph tours Wednesday through Sunday at 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. September through April, 9 and 2 May through August; $4, senior discount, under 13 free; reservations recommended. C.L.
My Library
