Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2022 i Texas Highways Magazine

This month’s cover image marks the seventh taken by photographer and artist E. Dan Klepper, who’s been trekking across the state shooting and writing for us since 2010. Titled Blue Moon, the art piece is a photo mosaic of the moon during a lunar eclipse as it set over the Santiago Mountains south of Marathon, where he’s lived for the past 22 years. While West Texas may be his most influential muse, Klepper counts the Gulf Coast as his second favorite part of the state to photograph. “My earliest memories were salt, sand, and the Gulf wind coming off the water,” he says. “Mustang Island is my go-to spot to chill, make pictures, and explore new images and ideas.” One of his more memorable shoots involved three days of camping…

Your article on our small towns with big hearts was great! Some we knew about; others were a nice surprise. Carol Davanay and Connie Boswell, New Braunfels Treehuggers The mesquite is the only green thing up here right now [“The Tree of Life,” July]. I have a really old one that’s laying almost on the ground, split at the base, roots showing, and it’s never slowed or turned brown. Cheryl Grayson My grandmother was born in 1913. She said if you want a shade tree anywhere in Texas, just pick a spot and start to water it. Won’t be long until a mesquite tree will sprout up. Sharp Reb Robert Earl Keen My wife and I don’t always agree on music, but when we do, this guy is top of…

There’s only one post office in the nation where you’re likely to step across a state border in the course of dropping off mail or buying stamps. The State Line Post Office and Federal Courthouse symbolizes Texarkana’s distinctive position straddling the border of northeast Texas and southwest Arkansas. Texarkana—whose name also pays tribute to Louisiana, which is about 30 miles south—was established in 1873 at the junction of two expanding railroads. There’s plenty to see on both sides of State Line Avenue, the historic strip that traces the border through downtown. The 1933 post office is a popular photo op; The Historic 1894 building—formerly a grocery store—features 12,000 square feet of art gallery space; and this fall brings the restoration of the 1925 Grim Hotel, now an eight-story apartment building.…

To receive free travel information from the following destinations, simply circle the number on the attached reply card that corresponds to your selection, fill in your name and address, and drop it in the mail. To find our advertiser information online, go to texashighways.ai-dsg.com. Free TRAVEL INFO 1 Abilene Convention & Visitors Bureau 2 Addison, Texas 3 Admiral Nimitz Foundation 4 Bandera County Convention & Visitors Bureau 5 Big Spring Convention & Visitors Bureau 6 Blanco Chamber of Commerce 7 Boerne Convention & Visitors Bureau 8 Brady/McCulloch County Visitors Center 9 Brazosport Convention & Visitors Council 10 Bullock Texas State History Museum 11 Burnet County Tourism 12 Cedar Park Tourism 13 City of Buda Department of Tourism 14 City of Gonzales 15 City of Harlingen Convention & Visitors Bureau 16…

The Texas Highways Mercantile celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Since its launch in 1992, the shop has evolved from a modest two-page catalog to a prominent e-commerce site servicing customers throughout Texas and beyond. From handmade pottery and designer bandanas to massive “Don’t Mess with Texas” barrels, the Mercantile features Texas creators expressing what it means to be Texan. “The anniversary is so important because it signifies our longevity in the marketplace by celebrating the place we love and call home,” e-commerce marketing manager Allison Douglas says. “From the store’s inception to this very day, Texas is the core of who we are.” View the product line and store updates at shop.texashighways.com.…

Árbol de la Vida: Memorias y Voces de la Tierra (Tree of Life: Memories and Voices of the Land) looms over the San Antonio River Walk near Mission San Francisco de la Espada. Created by San Antonio artist Margarita Cabrera, the 40-foot-tall arboreal sculpture is adorned with 700 clay-fired ornaments that locals crafted in celebration of their South Texas heritage. Photographer Tom McCarthy Jr. sought to portray the sculpture’s grand size by including people for scale, but triple-digit July temperatures were not in his favor. “Luckily, some bikers passed right under the sculpture on their way down to the River Walk,” McCarthy said. “What you can’t see from this angle is the additional stenciled details on the trunk of the sculpture or the intricacy of some of the clay sculptures…

Dave’s: A Pawn Shop in downtown El Paso is more like an emporium of sideshow gaffs than a typical pawn shop. Inside, visitors are immersed in an almost otherworldly reality full of spine-tingling and historical rarities that challenge the wildest of imaginations. A stuffed “chupacabra,” mermaid heads, a $14,995 mummy, and even the purported trigger finger of Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa are a few of the items that tread a fine line between myth and fact. “Everything in here is sort of a mix of what we see and like,” fourth-generation owner Clay Baron says. “The beauty of it is that there is no real formula to it, and we create an experience unlike anywhere else.” Dave’s hasn’t always been a gloriously cluttered, one-of-a-kind gallery. Baron’s great-grandparents first opened the…

Piano player and composer Scott Joplin (1868-1917) is often associated with St. Louis and New York, but the “King of Ragtime” got his start in Texarkana. Self-guided driving tour maps—available at the Texarkana Chamber of Commerce (819 N. State Line Ave.)—follow a route back and forth across State Line Avenue to sites such as the former music store where Joplin played his popular “Maple Leaf Rag” from a display window in 1907 and the Orr School building he attended in the 1880s. The Texarkana Museum of Regional History features a Joplin exhibit that includes a 19th-century Mathushek piano on which he is believed to have learned to play. Joplin experienced a posthumous revival when his piece “The Entertainer” was featured in the 1973 movie The Sting. Three years later, he…

The Spirit of Transportation, Elgin/Third Ward METRORail Station This sculpture made from stainless steel and mixed metals—renamed Hands Up, Don’t Shoot! by the community—depicts a colossal figure with its arms in the air. Untitled, Hermann Park Lake Plaza On the southern end of the Houston Museum District, there’s an installation that looks like a Black face emerging from—or maybe sinking into—a mound of cement and stone. Celebration, Houston Hobby Airport This 12-inch, red-haired, faceless character, made from steel, copper, and brass, is standing askew, arms extended, on a block of weathered, repurposed wood.…

A warm breeze rustled the fronds of sabal palm trees as Tiffany Kersten pulled into the parking lot of Estero Llano Grande State Park in Weslaco. A spirited symphony of birdsong filled the tropical summer air as the rising sun brightened a vibrant yellow Couch’s kingbird perched on a utility wire. From the hatchback of her Chevy Spark, Kersten retrieved a telescope, daypack, and binoculars. Setting off on the park’s trail, I joined Kersten for an excursion among the park’s wetlands and prairies. In just two hours, we spotted 36 species, including South Texas natives like the Altamira oriole and the plain chachalaca. “I came to the [Rio Grande] Valley because of the birds,” notes Kersten, who grew up in Wisconsin. After studying wildlife ecology in college, Kersten worked a…

In the backroom of the new Texas Vintage Motorcycle Museum stands a 1967 Bultaco Metralla, a sleek minimalist machine of silver and black curves. Once the fastest two-stroke production street bike in the world, this Spanish beauty has an almost mythic reputation among biking cognoscenti—only 5,000 of them were thought to have been made. Riders say that when they’re perched behind the Bultaco’s handlebars, they’re one with the road—light, fast, and free. “This Bultaco has the right kind of curves, the right kind of lines,” museum owner and bike collector Gordon Massie said. “I love the way this pipe swoops down. You see the curve of the taillight matches the curve of the tank matches the curve of the front fender matches the curve of the bikini fairing matches the…

Sometimes while crafting a pine needle basket, Elliott Abbey is transported to the past: He recalls his aunts sending him into the forests of East Texas to collect pinecones and longleaf needles for their projects. They taught him how to tightly wrap raffia around bunches of needles to form sturdy containers. He often thinks back to the generations before them who did the same. Abbey, who grew up in Livingston and is a member of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana and the Kawaknasi (Wildcat) clan, now utilizes the same techniques. “It’s really important for me to preserve those methods,” says Abbey, who works as the real estate director for the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas. “We still try to get out and use plants and flowers to dye the material. Nothing has…

JUST BEYOND THE BIG BEND community of Marathon, where I’ve lived and maintained an art studio and gallery for the past 22 years, the surrounding desert grasslands give way to weathered hillocks and low-rise mountains. Standing out among them lies a distinct knoll shaped like a pyramid. Each fall, the full moon rises directly over this hilltop as the setting sun infuses the landscape with an ember-like glow. The moon, golden as it peaks over the summit, grows brighter while the sunlight fades, intensifying until it dominates the entire vista. Determined to capture this dramatic transition one evening, I set up my camera and took a series of photographs. The result, a composition called One Hundred Moons (right), exemplifies how I explore the real and the abstract characteristics of the…

Held in May and September, Anglers on Wheels fishing trips give people with disabilities the opportunity to enjoy the open water with their friends and family. A charter boat takes participants to the bays and flats around Port Aransas to fish for black drum, redfish, skipjacks, speckled trout, and sharks. Door in the Wall, a nonprofit in Port Aransas focused on improving the lives of disabled people through making recreation experiences accessible, has hosted the event for 27 years. The trips are free for participants. Fishing licenses are provided by Texas Parks and Wildlife, and the nonprofit provides a fishing pole, bait, tackle, and deck hands. Participants range from small children to those in their 80s. “Everyone’s welcome, which is important because the young children on board who are just…