From a boutique hotel in hip South Austin to a bed-and-breakfast across the Mexican border, from fly fishing on the Llano River to bathing in the Chinati Hot Springs, 33 getaways the guidebooks don’t tell you about, courtesy of our intrepid staff of weekend warriors.
So says Don Baylor, the Austin native now managing baseball’s lowly Chicago Cubs. His players hear him loud and clear, but history has a way of repeating itself.
What do you do when you win a $295,000 MacArthur “genius” grant? If you’re biologist David Hillis, you keep teaching at the University of Texas as if nothing happened, and you keep chasing frogs.
After spending the night in the Quarters at Presidio La Bahia in Goliad, I’m sitting on the northwest bastion of the presidio, sipping coffee and staring down the muzzle of one of Colonel James Fannin’s cannons. Across the courtyard, the sun rises behind the eighteenth-century Our Lady of Loreto
Dust and cobwebs are standard furnishings in old log cabins, but good luck finding any speck of grime at Fredericksburg’s Austin Street Retreat. The five tightly grouped structures are all more than a century old, but our cabin, called simply Maria’s, was immaculate—even the cracks in the ceiling had
For a restful weekend retreat, it would be hard to top the Red Corral Ranch. The rambling 1,100-acre spread—which lies halfway between Wimberley and Blanco in one of the prettiest and most solitary stretches of the Hill Country—boasts an organic farm, nature trails, and an abundance of wildlife. Only
For those of you who thought you had to travel to the mountain rivers of Colorado or Wyoming to enjoy the lovely, archaic sport of fly-fishing, we take you now to, of all places, the Llano River in the Hill Country, where a stunning blond angler named Raye Carrington
With its limestone bluffs and juniper-covered slopes, Somervell County is a diminutive slice of Hill Country that somehow migrated to the rolling prairies southwest of Fort Worth. The state’s last undammed river, the Paluxy, winds its way through the hills, as does the Brazos, and they converge a mile
If you want something really different, I’d suggest that you stay in one of the inns just across the border in Mexico. Let’s start with a place that could generously be described as, well, primitive. Across the river from Rio Grande Village, at the southeast edge of the park,
At least one morning of your stay at the Inn Above Onion Creek, get up early and walk a few hundred yards to the overlook. The air will be cool and the grass spangled with tiny wildflowers; foraging cottontails will freeze as you pass. Your reward will be a
There is no better way to experience the hipper side of Austin than by staying at the recently renovated San José Hotel, located about half a mile south of downtown on thriving South Congress Avenue. The San José is nestled among the city’s better vintage-clothing and kitschy antiques shops,
On the delightfully isolated north shore of Lake Buchanan, the biggest and least populated of the Highland Lakes upstream of Austin, you’ll find Canyon of the Eagles Lodge and Nature Park. Texas’ first large, publicly developed eco-resort, it opened last fall as a partnership between the Presidian Corporation of
Alamo Village, 7 miles north of Brackettville on FM 674 (830-563-2580; www.alamovillage.com)Alibates National Monument, 419 E. Broadway, Fritch (806-857-3151; www.nps.gov/alfl)Alley Oop Fantasyland Park, 1000 Parkside (on the west side of town), IraanBarnard’s Mill Art Museum, 307 SW Barnard Street, Glen Rose (254-897-7494)Big Rocks Park, 1020 NE
Austin Street Retreat, 408 W. Austin Street (one block north of Main), Fredericksburg (830-997-5612, fax 830-997-8282; www.fbglodging.com). Double occupancy $125 (breakfast not included). No telephones in some rooms; no televisions; hot tubs with handheld showers only. Children allowed in Maria’s only. No smoking indoors, no pets. AE, DS,
If it pleases the court, the question before you is whether the attorney general of Texas has served his constituents or, as his critics charge, only his own political interests. What is your verdict?
“When a corporation does something that results in the death of people, what prison do you put them in?” asks the plantiffs lawyer Texas business loves to hate, and he’s just getting warmed up.
Evan Smith is the cofounder of the Texas Tribune, a senior adviser at Emerson Collective, and the former editor in chief and president of Texas Monthly.
In recent years Elliott Smith has owned up to his fear of playing the kind of music he wanted. A bit of a mope, Smith avoids discussing his Dallas boyhood and has veiled much of his earlier work in an obtuse cloud of hipness, resulting in pop Chinese food. Yet
It’s the beginning of a new decade, so like clockwork, it must be time for a new Joe Ely live album. Live Shots (1980) chronicled his tour with the Clash; Live At Liberty Lunch (1990) was a career snapshot that captured the power of his performances. Live At Antone’s, a
Visualize Sheryl Crow in overalls, or maybe Ani Difranco with a down-home Texas perspective: that’s Terri Hendrix, the singer-songwriter-entrepreneur-czarina, in a nutshell. Born and raised in San Antonio and now living in San Marcos, Hendrix is a walking advertisement for sunny confidence and boundless enthusiasm, qualities that she’s been polishing
If not for this CD, which was recorded last year, most Texans would never have been aware of Beaumont’s Ervin Charles, who died on April 1 at age 68 with little more than two credits on 1999’s Lone Star Shootout CD to show for a storied, fifty-year career. The ferocious
If you haven’t heard of Centro-matic, it’s certainly not for lack of effort on the group’s part. All the Falsest Hearts Can Try is the Denton band’s third CD in little more than a year; it dates back to a 1998 recording session that produced more than sixty songs, completing
As a novelist, Austin’s R. J. Pineiro is a great computer engineer—but that’s not necessarily bad since his thriller Shutdown (Forge) relies on his knowledge of chip manufacturing. You wonder, though, if Texas Instruments expected its chip to be blamed for a fictional train crash that tosses 164
“It doesn’t get any better than this” is the motto that graces the entrance to Stewart Beach Amusement Park in Lubbock native Sean Stewart’s phantasmagorical Galveston (Ace Fantasy). But during Mardi Gras 2004, those words acquire droll irony after a tidal wave of magic inundates the Island and wreaks insidious
Some authors dream up bizarre murders and other aberrations to thicken their plots. World of Pies proves that even the simplest of stories can leave readers fully satisfied. The first novel by Austinite Karen Stolz, World of Pies is about coming of age in a small Texas town—specifically
Evan Smith is the cofounder of the Texas Tribune, a senior adviser at Emerson Collective, and the former editor in chief and president of Texas Monthly.
I didn’t really get academia. I liked teaching, but I wasn’t a good scholar. I like to connect a lot of different things and drive a strategy, and that’s not what most scholarship is about. Most scholarship is about having absolute depth in one or two areas and pushing
UT regents want their next chancellor to be an academic? Whatever. At Texas Tech, a politician is the one in charge, and he's more than making the grade.
As surgeon general—the nation’s top doctor— C. Everett Koop was much beloved and undeniably respected. So why is the Web site that bears his name in such disarray?
Whether coaching the Chicago Bulls to six NBA titles or leading the Lakers to their best record in years, Phil Jackson has had one constant: Wellington native Tex Winter at his side.
Those jeans! That hat! George Strait returns to Dallas and Houston. Plus: Wichita Falls heats up the gridiron; San Antonio discovers Lebanese kibbe; Round Top sings James Dick's praises; and the Houston Comets tip off.
Filo-Wrapped Sea Bass on Mustard-Braised LeeksTomato Jam1 tablespoon brown sugar 1 tablespoon cider vinegar 1 pinch each of cinnamon, cloves, and cumin 1 twelve-ounce can tomatoes, drained, seeded, and chopped 1 tablespoon honeyCook sugar, vinegar and spices for about a minute. Add tomatoes, cook for about 30 minutes, then add
