catch largemouth bass, and with any luck, your adventure will start your children’s lifelong appreciation for the place Don Henley calls his church. While you’re casting, you might have the chance to spy a rare heron or an osprey. But be careful if your expedition takes you into the sloughs and back bayous, because your offspring just might meet the lake’s reputed 901st species—the Texas Bigfoot, who some people swear roams the swampy forests between Uncertain and Gethsemane to this day. Charlie Llewellin

21. Learn to Ride a Horse

I took horse-back riding lessons every Saturday of my childhood from a woman named Lona Collins, and I can still hear her voice, telling me I was on the “wrong diagonal,” meaning I wasn’t lifting my body up at the same time my horse’s leg—the one next to the rail—went forward. Yes, I learned to ride English, which was noodley for a Texas kid, and I think in seven years I won two blue ribbons. But Lona’s lessons didn’t really have to do with winning. Jumping on a horse at five years of age is an act of faith and an act of love, and a triumph over fear and common sense. I fell off too many times to count, but got back on just as many. It’s the best lesson a kid can learn—and it’s not a bad one for parents either. Mimi Swartz

22. Eat Calf Fries at Riscky’s Steakhouse, in Fort Worth

The swinging anatomy that separates the bulls from the steers also separates gastronomically bold Texans from their weak-stomached compadres. Sampling a plate of calf fries—a.k.a. Rocky Mountain oysters or calf testicles—is a seminal challenge for any Texan, a way to honor the “waste not, want not, fry everything” machismo of our cowboy heritage. Today the chewy morsels are standard menu items at meat meccas across the state, including Riscky’s Steakhouse, a down-home joint in the historic Fort Worth Stockyards. It’s not far from where Theo Yordanoff, an enterprising Yugoslav cafe owner, started selling his 15-cent calf-fry sandwiches in the twenties. At Riscky’s, you can get seven ever-so-slightly-sweet nuggets, served with the requisite homemade cream gravy, for just shy of six bucks. Proving that you have the guts to eat nuts is, of course, priceless. 120 E. Exchange Ave., 817-624-4800. Jordan Breal

23. Witness the annual coral spawning in The Gulf Of Mexico

It will be the last August of my life, just after the full moon. I’ll head for the coast, gorge on fried shrimp, and board a dive boat for the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, almost a hundred miles out into the open Gulf. In the stillness of the night, while flying fish are gliding above the waves and whale sharks are stirring up eddies of phosphorescent light, I’ll put on my gear and sink down sixty feet to the reef. And there I’ll finally see it, the event that takes place once a year at this precise moment like some secret alien rite: the annual coral spawning. I’ll find a good observation spot, a little sand channel, perhaps, and watch millions of tiny coral polyps releasing their gametes, their snowflake bundles of eggs and sperm. As my last year comes to a close, as the days of glory in the flower, splendor in the grass, and all-you-can-eat fried shrimp dwindle, it will be a fine and fitting thing to witness this frenetic upward rain of new life. 409-621-5151. Stephen Harrigan

24. Nap Beneath an Ancient Oak in Austin

What could be better on a hot summer afternoon than a dip in Barton Springs? How about a dip followed by a nap under the great canopy of oaks in Zilker Park? Some of those trees have been there for more than a century. The grass is firm and cushy, its smell sweet, earthy, and intoxicating. There will be some kite fliers across the way, but no one will disturb you. You’ll see buzzards riding the wind currents across a blinding blue sky and, if you’re lucky, hear the distant whistle of a Union Pacific train, bound for who-cares-where. Take a book, if you will. My guess is, you’ll be catching z’s before you get past chapter one. 2100 Barton Springs Rd. GC

25. Learn the Two-step

You very well know—come on, admit it, you know—that a honky-tonk is somewhere close by your house. And you very well know you’re supposed to go there, to a place like Billy Bob’s, say, in Fort Worth, because that’s what Texans do. Still, you’re nervous. You’ve stared in bewilderment at the cowboy-hatted couples flying around the perimeter of the dance floor, making two quick steps, then two slightly slower steps, all the while twirling and wheeling like birds in flight. You’re convinced that if you try dancing like that, you’ll step on your partner’s feet and break a toe or trip into some good ol’ boy and his wife who will both beat you to a pulp, and you’ll end up being escorted out of the club by a bouncer who will call you a pansy suburban loser. My advice? Suck it up and take one of the dance lessons that all these clubs offer early in the evenings. Find out how easy it is to do the exact opposite of what your partner does, moving your right foot back, for instance, when your partner moves her left foot forward. Soon you’ll start turning. And then, like magic, you’ll be off, moving counterclockwise, going faster and faster—so thrilled to be a part of the great sweeping Texas herd that you’ll never want to stop. Skip Hollandsworth

26. Visit Donald Judd’s 100 Mill Aluminum Boxes, in Marfa

The greatest piece of art in Texas is also the easiest to make fun of (“Boxes?!? All it is is boxes?”), but if you’ve never walked through the two former artillery sheds in Marfa where Judd’s masterpieces are housed, you’re missing out. Go in the early morning or the late afternoon,