In Texas, where and how you eat barbecue matters as much as your football team and where you go to church.
Moreover, Texans will wait longer in line for good barbecue than they will just about anything else. In Austin, everybody demanded that I go to Franklin Barbecue but warned that I’d need to show up by nine in the morning if I hoped to get a bite of lunch. Read More…
The morning after the first night I stood on my balcony, nineteen floors above the city, bleary-eyed and bare but for boxer shorts, warming my skin in the Texas sun and listening to the electric guitars far below. Neither the chainsaw ring of six strings nor the drummer’s ankle thump of beating drums had ceased…
Ever since I touched down in this great state, I’ve been scoping the wide Texas horizon and every boot store and western-wear depot to replace that which was taken away from me so long ago. And while I failed in my mission to find cowboy boots (from Amarillo to El Paso) I finally struck gold…
Willie Nelson’s tour bus is taller than the Alamo. At least I’m fairly certain it is. I walked past Willie Nelson’s tour bus at 8:56 a.m. and at 9:03 I walked past the Alamo. From my point of view, the latter definitely seemed higher than the former. I drove all the way from Big Bend…
There is a point in every journey—never at the beginning, but somewhere in the middle—when, and only then, do you feel that you’ve actually arrived at your destination. Standing alone on the shattered ground of the Chihuahuan desert, where the sun bakes my neck and the wind breathes hot air onto my face, I truly…
Listen to my interview with Marfa Public Radio in Marfa, Texas! ——————————————————————————— Yes, I saw the Marfa lights. It was about 11 o’clock at night, and I was alone at the Marfa Lights View Park when I spotted two pale greenish-white balls of light, hovering over the barren fields. Yes, it was kind of cool—but…
After days and days of driving across some of the flattest terrain in America, I was keen to see the parts of Texas that are not flat, namely the highest point in the state. I should know by now never to plan a hiking excursion without leaving some extra days for weather contingencies, especially in…
God is worried about the Texans, I reckon. By the looks of it, He spends all of His advertising dollars here—mostly on massive billboards in the Panhandle, the likes of which I’ve never seen before. When He talks to Texans, God speaks in black and white and in all caps. Some of His messaging is…
Texas is the land of many superlatives—the biggest state in America (Alaska goes unacknowledged down here) and biggest steaks (72 oz!). I’ve also noticed that Texans speak in superlatives. Everything is best in Texas, and frankly, that’s not a bad attitude to have, as long as you’re Texan. Still, I grew dubious and critical when…
If you want to know a place, run a mile across the landscape. Too often the Texas Panhandle gets panned for being a flat, brown, and uneventful landscape where the very forces of inertia and gravity turn irrelevant. But anyone who thinks that needs to step out of their car and go for a run.…
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