Travel &amp; Outdoors

March 1, 1987

The National Tour of Texas

The Rio Grande Valley never had a valley—except in the minds of developers who invented its name.

February 1, 1987

The National Tour of Texas

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.

January 1, 1987

The National Tour of Texas

I’ve long dreamed of driving every highway in Texas. This year I’m doing it—all 32,000 miles worth.

September 1, 1986

Wide Open Spaces

The Chihuahuan Desert is a place of extremes, where the visitor not only observes but participates in the struggle for life and death.

By Stephen Harrigan

July 31, 1986

Waco’s Secrets Revealed

Cradled on the Brazos, this central Texas town yields its pleasures ever so grudgingly.

July 1, 1986

Man to Man

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.

By William Broyles

June 1, 1986

Grasslands

In the early journals of pioneers who described the prairie surrounding their new homesteads, the ocean was the most common metaphor—swells of grass set rippling by the wind.

By Jim Bones

April 1, 1986

Hot Springs Eternal

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.

March 1, 1986

Bass’n Gal

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.

By Skip Hollandsworth

March 1, 1986

The Tree-Ear, The Comb Tooth, & The Destroying Angel

Alice in Wonderland never discovered a mushroom half as exotic as Texas’ own native fungi.

By Barbara Rodriguez

February 1, 1986

A Caribbean Escape

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.

By Barbara Rodriguez

December 1, 1985

Every Traveler’s Nightmare

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.

By Patricia Sharpe

October 1, 1985

Deep in the Heart of Mexico

What’s wrong with Mexico is exactly what’s right with it.

September 1, 1985

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.

By Barbara Rodriguez

Sports|

August 1, 1985

The Wee World of Golf

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.

Texas History|

August 1, 1985

Isle Without End

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.

By Stephen Harrigan

Art|

July 1, 1985

105°

A photographic study on beating the heat.

By M. K. Simqu

June 1, 1985

The Last Tarpon

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.

By Peter Barthelme

June 1, 1985

Last One In . . .

When the summer heat starts to get to you, cool your heels by plunging into an icy green swimming hole.

May 1, 1985

I Was a Dude on Tumbling Mare Mountain

My pack trip in Mexico’s Sierra del Carmen wasn't exactly the Gray Line Tour.

By Gary Cartwright

Border & Immigration|

April 1, 1985

Ambient Color

As these photographs show, in Mexico the strange is commonplace, and the commonplace, strange.

By Robert A. Widdicombe and Texas Monthly

April 1, 1985

The Bluebonnet Snapshot

Okay, so photos of cute kids in fields of bluebonnets aren’t great art. That’s not the point at all.

March 1, 1985

Bring ’Em Back Alive

In darkest South Texas roam two of the world’s most endangered species—the black rhino and the Great White Hunter.

By Jan Reid

Parks & Recs|

January 1, 1985

A Grand Canyon

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.

By Jan Reid

December 1, 1984

The Great Texas Alligator Hunt

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.

By Gary Cartwright

December 1, 1984

Fishing With Dad

I took my son fishing because I wanted him to love the sport—and me.

By Lawrence Wright

September 1, 1984

Blissed Out on the Beach of Love

At a slightly wacky hotel in southern Mexico, you can lose your inhibitions and find a little romance.

By Lucius Lomax

August 1, 1984

Little D

Dallas, Scotland: the city that’s everything Big D isn’t.

By Peter Applebome

June 30, 1984

The Man Who Dreamed Up Luckenbach

Hondo Crouch went from being a champion athlete to being the sad clown of Texas’s fun-and-games capital.

By John Davidson

June 1, 1984

The Wild Side of Town

You don’t have to go to the country or the zoo to see wild animals; there are lizards in downtown buildings, gators in the creeks, and deer in the parking lots.

March 1, 1984

The Deluxe Down-and-Dirty Goose Hunt

In which a group of society ladies samples the thrills and chills of an essentially masculine pastime.

By Alison Cook

Parks & Recs|

August 31, 1983

Texas Primer: Caprock

Across the Panhandle stretches a thin red line that divides doughty plains dwellers from Texas’ lesser changed.

August 1, 1983

Secret Places

In the hidden corners of Texas’ outback—in foresty swamp and shimmering desert—there are a few places that are still primeval.

By Griffin Smith Jr.

June 1, 1983

Phantom Cat of the Valley

Meet the ocelot, not as pet, not as fur coat, but in its best role—an elusive remnant of Texas’ wild past.

June 1, 1983

Funky Riviera

Discover another side of the Texas coast—its peerless beachcombing, legendary beer joints, odd birds (feathered and otherwise), and lovable year-round scruffiness.

By Alison Cook

May 1, 1983

The Cow’s in the Corn

Or, my life as a Texas gardener.

By Jan Reid

April 1, 1983

The New Rustlers

Today’s desperadoes are in the bays of the Texas coast, roping redfish and cursing the Parks and Wildlife Department.

October 1, 1982

On the Wing

Roy Kendall, self-taught lepidopterist, would want you to add this to the list of reasons for living in Texas: nowhere else in the U.S. are there so many beautiful and unusual butterflies.

By Samuel A. Johnson

August 1, 1982

Underneath Texas

The real lowdown on the Lone Star State.

By Anne Dingus

May 31, 1982

Texas Primer: The Horny Toad

It’s everybody’s favorite reptile, and it’s disappearing from Texas.

By Anne Dingus

May 31, 1982

Big River

A photographic tour of the timeless Rio Grande, from its origins in the mountains of Colorado to the Padre Island dunes at the tip of Texas.

By John Graves

November 1, 1981

The Hog Chronicles

The city boy moved to the country and life was good. And then he bought four pigs.

By David R. White

October 1, 1981

Bats!

They’re ugly little things, but you’ve got to respect them.

August 31, 1981

Lord of the Flies

Fly-fishing is a particularly fastidious way of trying to fool a fish, but it’s also a particularly pleasant one.

By John Graves