when the light brings the aluminum alive, and take your time as you walk back and forth through the buildings, watching as the hard industrial forms become fluid and the reflections carry your eye out the giant plate glass windows, over the dry yellow grasses, up into the hard rock hills, and back down again. Before long you’ll understand why, after touring the installation, a Jesuit priest once turned to Judd, who died in 1994, and said, “You and I are in the same business.” 1 Cavalry Row, 432-729-4362. Jake Silverstein

27. Discover Santa Rita No. 1, in Texon

We take oil for granted, but for earlier generations it was a miracle, something to behold with awe. Nothing captures the sentiments of the oil boom better than an obscure monument in the ghost town of Texon, a collection of decaying frame shacks and ancient wells in the wastes of the Permian Basin. This is the site of Santa Rita No. 1, the discovery well for one of the greatest oil fields on earth. This desolate land and its bounty belong to the University of Texas, and long ago a board of regents erected a monument to express its gratitude. Ignore the bland state historical marker nearby; this one captures the spirit of an age: “The events which have followed [the discovery of oil] stretch the imagination. . . . What took place here compels one to be amazed at the great goodness of providence, the wisdom of early Texans in setting aside land for the development of the educational system of the state.” It is a testament to the transforming power of oil. Paul Burka

28. Order a Brown Derby at Your Favorite Dairy Queen

In Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, Larry McMurtry neatly summarizes the vital necessity of this fast-food chain to rural Texas: “Before the Dairy Queens appeared the people of the small towns had no place to meet and talk.” These days, you’d be hard-pressed to find a county without a DQ or two (Texas has nearly six hundred, more than any other state). To fit in with the locals, order a Brown Derby—vanilla soft-serve dipped in chocolate—slide into one of the red vinyl booths, and soak up the gossip. You’ll learn about the last school board meeting, the farmers’ bumper crop (or the drought), or the latest scandal to rock city hall. Now, that’s what I like about Texas. Andrea Valdez

29. Watch the Swiftettes, in Nazareth

Talk all you want about the high school football dynasties in Texas. Then try to compare any of them with the Nazareth High School Swiftettes. That’s right, a high school girls’ basketball team located in a tiny town outside Amarillo with a population of 358 people. On freezing winter nights, the prairie-hardened residents pack into the high school gym to cheer on a group of mostly undersized girls who have won eighteen Class A state girls’ basketball championships since 1977. ESPN has called the Swiftettes “the most dominant girls’ high school dynasty in the nation.” If you want to experience what small-town pride is all about, travel to Nazareth to watch the town celebrate its girls. The sound of that crowd roaring after another Swiftettes’ victory will never leave you. S. Hollandsworth

30. See the Marfa Lights (Or at Least Say You’ve Seen the Marfa Lights)

The truth is out there, though as any sage will tell you, the truth is relative. Do the Marfa lights exist? Locals say yes. Skeptics might note that the lights you see from the round adobe bathroom on U.S. 90—also known as the Marfa Mystery Lights Viewing Center—are actually cars on U.S. 67. But believers will tell you to go elsewhere to see the real lights, the ones that come shooting out from the horizon, the ones that hover over you like motherships, the ones that dance around you like fireflies. For those you have to drive on Nopal Road, which is west of the viewing center. Go slow, make it all the way to the long-out-of-use railroad tracks, then, if you dare, stop the car, turn off your headlights, and wait. You’ll see something, all right. MH

31. Have a Drink at the Mansion on Turtle Creek, in Dallas

It’s only 1,800 square feet. It’s so dark that you have to squint to see who’s across the room. But for the past thirty years, the Mansion bar has been the place where Dallas bigwigs, society dames, up-and-comers on the prowl, and the latest “it” girls in miniskirts have gathered to see and be seen. When it first opened, members from the cast of Dallas could be found there just about every night. Today you can still spot a visiting celebrity throwing down one of the bar’s famous $15 Blazing Turtle drinks (a mixture of ginger-mint simple syrup, fresh peach purée, a splash of Lillet Blanc liqueur, and four ounces of champagne). But the real fun is watching the Dallas crowd getting its buzz on. Lots of marriages have begun and ended at that bar during a Saturday night of what a certain regular describes as “active drinking.” The last time I was there, I watched one of the city’s best-known titans shuttle back and forth from his table at the restaurant, where he was dining with his hoity-toity wife and their rich friends, to a cozy table in a corner of the bar, where his young girlfriend was drinking a little too much and flirting with a bartender. Sadly, there were no theatrics. “Oh, well,” someone said. “There’s always next Saturday night.” 2821 Turtle Creek Blvd., 214-559-2100. S. Hollandsworth

32. Swing Your Partner at the Conjunto Festival, in San Antonio

Marquee names, such as Esteban “Steve” Jordan, Ruben Vela, and Mingo Saldivar, are the festival’s big draw, pulling in the crowds nightly from Thursday to Saturday (this year’s event will be held from May 13 to 15). But my favorite time to stop by is Saturday afternoon, when a mellow family