50 Things Every Texan Should Do
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10. Visit El Paso’s Concordia Cemetery on the Day of the Dead. Most of the year, this vast site (off Interstate 10, Copia exit, at Yandell and Stevens) is merely the coolest cemetery in Texas; for a week before and after November 1, however, it may be the coolest place en todo el mundo. That’s when it offers a quick immersion in the color and charm of Hispanic culture, as multigeneration familias turn out in droves to decorate the graves of their loved ones. Many of the markers are already appealing enough—adorned with broken-tile mosaics, hand-painted Virgins of Guadalupe, and homemade crucifixes—but on and around this day of remembrance, relatives further bedeck the graves with altars bearing candles, flowers, fruit,pan de muerto (skull-shaped bread), even cigarettes, playing cards, and other mementos. a.d.
11. Hike to the South Rim in Big Bend National Park for the biggest view in Texas. It’s a strenuous 14.5-mile round-trip on treacherous mountain trails from the Chisos Basin to the top, but the effort is well worth it. On a really clear day, you can see the Chihuahuan Desert spread below and as far as two hundred miles into Mexico. j.n.p.
12. Meander around Marshall on a December evening admiring one thousand miles of Christmas lights. Few holiday extravaganzas anywhere can hold a candle to the Wonderland of Lights in the Harrison County seat, where nearly ten million bulbs adorn houses, stores, trees, telephone poles, yard art, and the dome of the Renaissance Revival-style courthouse, which warrants 200,000 lights all by its own self. Every year some three-quarters of a million visitors take a shine to this town of 25,000, whose goodwill toward them is as ample as its electric bill. a.d.
13. Get lost in the Big Thicket. To experience one of the most biologically diverse places on earth, walk at least part of the 17.5-mile Turkey Creek Trail. It begins at the Big Thicket National Preserve Visitor Center, on FM 420 north of Kountze, and cuts through the heart of what’s left of the old bear hunters’ haunt—the thick of the thicket, as it were—a dense-canopy forest harboring orchids, cactus, four carnivorous plants, and more species of birds than anywhere else in the state. j.n.p.
14. Take your copy of Lonesome Dove to Booked Up, Larry McMurtry’s book compound in Archer City, and ask him to sign it. His trail-drive epic is the ultimate Texas novel, and McMurtry is Mr. Texas Writer. Lord knows he tires of celebrity now and again, but if he happens to be at work riding herd on his employees and you show up with a copy of his Pulitzer-prize winner, perhaps he’ll scribble a quick autograph. Best of all, you’ll have a reason to meet—or reacquaint yourself with—Joshua Deets, Pea Eye, Blue Duck, et al. a.d.
15. Visit the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin to hear the audiotape of the late president complaining about his ill-fitting pants. No one gave orders like LBJ, and this short conversation showcases the specificity and thoroughness that marked his executive decisions. Talking to not just any tailor but to Joseph Haggar, the chairman of the board of Dallas’ venerable Haggar Company, Johnson requests pants the color of “powder on a lady’s face,” with plenty of extra crotch room. His famous homespun humor comes through in his complaint about his old trousers: “They’re just like riding a wire fence.” The audiotape is available for listening on weekdays; ask for citation number 4851. a.d.
16. Feast on eggs, sausage, sourdough biscuits, and a million-dollar view at the Figure 3 Ranch’s Cowboy Morning breakfast on the edge of Palo Duro Canyon. The chuck wagon, a staple of cowboy ranch life, was invented by Charles Goodnight, the pioneer Panhandle rancher whose 1.3 million-acre JA Ranch sprawled across the rugged red cliffs and valleys. The breakfast is held from April through October at eight-thirty ($19; reservations required; call 800-658-2613; the ranch entrance is 27 miles southeast of Amarillo on FM 1258). There isn’t a prettier view of the nation’s second-largest canyon. j.n.p.
17. Order a Brown Derby “with legs and loafers” from any Dairy Queen. For tens of thousands of small-town Texans, this chain supplies a vital social link. Dallas’ Bob Phillips (below), of Texas Country Reporter fame, may have visited more Dairy Queens than any other living Texan. “It’s the social center of any small town,” he says. “Go to a Dairy Queen in the morning, and you’ll always find the spit-and-whittle club drinking coffee and holding up a bench. Some Dairy Queens are open for breakfast, but they don’t serve food—just coffee and conversation.” Besides the usual burgers and such, some rural DQ’s serve homey regional dishes, like Denver City’s $1.99 all-you-can-eat cornbread-and-beans supper. After you lunch and listen, treat yourself to some edible nostalgia: Order a Brown Derby—the old-fashioned name for a dipped cone—“with legs and loafers.” If your server looks bewildered, explain that the “loafers” are a dollop of dipping chocolate squirted into the bottom of the cone; ordering it with “legs” just means “to go.” a.d.
18. Take a picture of your kids in Washington County’s famous bluebonnets. It’s not illegal to pick a state flower or two, but it ought to be against the law not to snap at least one vista of flowers and family in your lifetime. Thanks to a wet winter, the upcoming crop promises to be a knockout. Any of the county’s fetchingly rural roads offers vast fields of bluebonnets, evening primroses, black-eyed Susans, and more; so does Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historical Park, which hosts a Texas Independence Day celebration on March 2. At the intersection of U.S. 290 and Texas Highway 36, even citified Brenham is awash in blue. a.d.
19. Follow President Kennedy’s route in Dallas on the day he was assassinated. Start downtown on Elm Street and head west, driving through Dealey Plaza in the shadow of the former Texas School Book Depository (now home to the Sixth Floor Museum), where Lee Harvey Oswald lay in wait, past the grassy knoll, and under the triple overpass. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963, forever ended the age of innocence in American politics and, rightly or wrongly, marked Dallas as the City of Hate, a label that took decades to erase. The Elm Street portion of Kennedy’s parade route is a much-traveled exit from downtown, but even if you’ve driven it a thousand times, knowing that you’re on the same path as the man whose death changed Texas and the world gives you pause. j.n.p.
20. Join the Los Vaqueros-Rio Grande Trail Ride. Starting in Hidalgo, in the Rio Grande Valley, and ending at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the ride is just one of the horseback caravans to this big winter rodeo (for Los Vaqueros information, visit rodeohouston.com). Fifteen groups sponsor rides of varying lengths (the 386-mile Los Vaqueros takes three weeks) that converge on the city in the days preceding the event, recreating the great trail drives. j.n.p.
21. Eat chicken salad, orange soufflé, and popovers with strawberry butter at the Zodiac Room in the original Neiman Marcus in downtown Dallas. Texas’ ladies who lunch are also ladies who shop, and this is their restaurant and their store, both reflecting NM’s inimitable mix of beau mondewith accents of bubba and buckaroo. After wandering the wondrous floors (couture mecca: level two), rest your tootsies and pamper your palate at the classy restaurant where Texas’ Brillat-Savarin, Helen Corbitt, performed her culinary alchemy in the fifties and sixties. a.d.
22. Crack a cascarón over the head of someone you like while watching the Battle of Flowers Parade during San Antonio’s Fiesta. The spring bash (this year, April 27) is the biggest party in Texas’ biggest party town, and the elaborate procession winding through downtown is its heart and soul. First staged in 1891, it’s the only major parade in the United States that is produced entirely by women—all volunteers. The shattering of cascarones, the confetti-filled eggshells sold Fiesta-wide by the jillion, is practically required. j.n.p.
23. Wedge yourself into the standing-room-only crowd at the Brown Bar in Austin and listen to lawmakers and lobbyists doing that political thang. This small but swanky joint at 201 W. Eighth—which feels like a classy dining car from the heyday of passenger trains—is the current in spot for legislative schmoozing and boozing. So intimate is the Brown Bar’s space that eavesdropping is not only easy but unavoidable: You can listen with a clear conscience as senators and representatives, Republicans and Democrats, discuss redistricting, prisons, and other topics that will shape millennial Texas. a.d.
