Notes From the Underground
Seven Central Texas caves put on the summer’s best rock show.
Seven Central Texas caves put on the summer’s best rock show.
Yes, it’s muddy, it’s treacherous, and it smells bad enough to gag a skunk; but it’s also the only thing between us and Oklahoma.
The only way to see Big Bend’s canyons is from the river, but that doesn’t mean you have to get wet, eat trail mix, or give up Bach.
Marine scientists have struggled for ten years to establish a new colony of ridley sea turtles on South Padre Islands. All their efforts may have been in vain.
The prairie chickens in Texas’ vanishing grasslands are booming and boyish.
Experts predict the first swarms could cross the border next year. What happens then to Texas’ multimillion-dollar honey industry is anybody’s guess.
If the brand-spanking new Mexican beach resort of Huatulco is what you’ve been waiting for, then keep waiting.
A glowing beacon near Haynesville; broomweed royalties in Foard County; Archer City’s decorated dump; curative waters and a grand hotel in Mineral Wells; faux Alamo in Farmersville.
Out itinerant reporter visits with a Lubbock man determined to preserve the American Way of Life; the doughty clan that brought beer to Levelland; a windy lady fascinated with the weather and a rusticated professor gone to seed.
In the Mesquite Kingdom, where the coyotes howl, the wind blows free at the MacArthur Academy of Freedom, an honest face gets you a phone and immigration throws mariachi parties.
In search of elusive Central Texas: along the Cold Beer trail, inside Killeen’s soldier shops, through the hills of Toy Texas, deep within a nameless cave.
Turn off the AC, stop pretending you’re a reptile, welcome the whooping cranes back. It’s fall!
Across pastoral northeast Texas, where Baptists debate the niceties of immersion, truckers and hookers turn the airwaves blue, and bass have their private lives laid bare by electronic snooping.
Three shark attacks on the Texas coast this summer are making swimmers edgy and chambers of commerce ask one question: what’s going on out there?
Tales of the Piney Woods: the original kinds of the forest, the Bright way to get a chicken in every pot, the gamble of today’s Tenaha. Plus: an unusual graveyard, a haunting ruin, a chilling church name.
Passing (slowly) through Kendleton. Then on to Houston, where student murals record the march of time and Vietnam vets gather; to a meal so good it’s kept under lock and key; and finally to the (formerly) Golden Triangle.
Brownsville has everything Mexico’s leading filmmaker could want—except visas.
These tall office towers, observatories, and revolving restaurants offer inspiring vies of Texas’ cityscapes.
Back from the Gulf and along its coastal bend, picture-book towns offer scenes that have nearly vanished from urban Texas, not to mention the most confusing sign, the best noontime stop, and the most Shakespearean site.
From the harsh landscape of the Permian Basin, whose residents find their faith in free enterprise tested by hard times; to the subtropical city of San Antonio, whose Hispanic citizens have gone gaga over Goyo-Goyo; into deepest South Texas, where the old times of the Parr machine are not forgotten.
Try North America’s best travel bargain—the Copper Canyon train ride. For $9 you can see Indians who run down deer on foot, Mennonites who speak German, and the most spectacular scenery in Mexico.
Travels through the Trans-Pecos—splendor in the Big Bend, the greening of the Alpine grasslands, today’s version of profitable ranching, escape from the rat race in South Brewster County, innkeeping Indians in Van Horn—to El Paso, way out on the edge of Texas.
Not in the mood for a plush vacation resort or the rigors of backpacking? Instead, try solitude and starry nights at one of these ten park hideaways.
Come to Monterrey, where you can find all the comforts of home: Pollo Frito Kentucky, Super Sietes, and a looming economic crisis.
The Rio Grande Valley never had a valley—except in the minds of developers who invented its name.
The view from the Great Freeway: I-35 is two things, the speediest drive from Dallas to the Valley and the clearest division of Texas into West and East.
I’ve long dreamed of driving every highway in Texas. This year I’m doing it—all 32,000 miles worth.
The Chihuahuan Desert is a place of extremes, where the visitor not only observes but participates in the struggle for life and death.
Cradled on the Brazos, this central Texas town yields its pleasures ever so grudgingly.
The son’s ultimate selfishness is to see his father only as his father—not as a man. But on our first fishing trip in 25 years, I began to see my father—and myself—as the grown men we’d become.
Going to Hot Springs was once a Texas rite of passage steeped in the ways of old sin. Today this Arkansas resort is still worth the trip.
There are bass in Sam Rayburn Reservoir, and the gals were out to hook ’em. And Rhonda Wilcox hoped to hook the biggest one of all.
Alice in Wonderland never discovered a mushroom half as exotic as Texas’ own native fungi.
From luxury class to no-plumbing primitive, the Technicolor tropics of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula offer end-of-the-world delights. And it’s practically in our back yard.
Ever worry that your trip overseas could turn into a disaster? We certainly didn’t—until a speeding bakery truck collided with our Italian vacation.
What’s wrong with Mexico is exactly what’s right with it.
Follow that ribbon of highway to discover the breathtaking River Road, a beer-drinking goat, fabulous fajitas, and the ghostly cavalry of Fort Davis—all in the vast vacation resource known as West Texas.
Looking for a sport that offers plenty of cheap thrills and wacky challenges but requires no training, no equipment, and no big bucks? Try miniature golf.
An early castaway described Padre Island as “a wretched, barren sandbank.” It’s better known today as the Gold Coast of Texas, but its identity is still rooted in wildness and age-old solitude.
A photographic study on beating the heat.
My quest for this magnificent silver fish drew me to a lonely stretch of the Texas coast night and day, summer and fall, over and over again.
When the summer heat starts to get to you, cool your heels by plunging into an icy green swimming hole.
My pack trip in Mexico’s Sierra del Carmen wasn't exactly the Gray Line Tour.
Okay, so photos of cute kids in fields of bluebonnets aren’t great art. That’s not the point at all.
In darkest South Texas roam two of the world’s most endangered species—the black rhino and the Great White Hunter.
In 1541 Coronado and his troops stumbled upon a huge canyon in the midst of grassy plains and gazed upon it with awe. Journeying down into Palo Duro Canyon on mules 443 years later, I began to understand why.
They told me alligators don’t eat people. But when I found myself face to face with one in a dark East Texas swamp, I hoped they’d told him too.
At a slightly wacky hotel in southern Mexico, you can lose your inhibitions and find a little romance.
Dallas, Scotland: the city that’s everything Big D isn’t.
Hondo Crouch went from being a champion athlete to being the sad clown of Texas’s fun-and-games capital.