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T R A V E LT E X A S . C O M

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 EDITOR'S
NOTE
Sunrise at McKinney Falls State Park
Here Comes the Sun
O
ver the past 11 months, I have often been
in awe of the tenacity of our staff mem-
bers and their unwavering commitment to
producing quality work despite the myriad
obstacles presented by the pandemic. But I’ve never been
quite as proud and humbled by their unflappability as I
have been over the past two weeks as they finished this
issue during the unprecedented winter storm. Like mil-
lions of Texans across the state, many of our staffers lost
power and water for days. And like millions of Texans, they
persevered and looked for ways to help their neighbors.
Managing Editor Kimya Kavehkar, who lost power for 14
hours, opened her home to another editor who was with-
out power. She also put in extra hours taking on the work
of team members who were busy keeping themselves and
their families warm and fed.
Tyson Bird, our digital strategies manager, was without
power for four days and water for five, but still somehow
managed to meet his deadline for the digital edition of the
2021 Texas State Travel Guide, which our team produces
annually. You can see the result of his efforts, including
a searchable database of more than 2,500 attractions in
Photo: Theresa DiMenno
nearly 500 cities, at texashighways.com/travelguide.
My family was without power for two days and water
for 10, but we were fortunate to rely on kind neighbors
who kept us supplied with firewood, water, and showers.
And luckily, my husband, who has backpacked the most
rugged areas of Big Bend National Park, has much more
robust survival skills than I do.
One of the few things that buoyed our spirits during
the difficult week was the handful of enthusiastic reader
emails we received as our March issue reached mail-
boxes. While we all witnessed the fearsome power of
nature this winter, this issue is devoted to its ability to
comfort and soothe. May we all experience its healing
power this month.
EMILY ROBERTS STONE
EDITOR IN CHIEF
APRIL 2021 1

APRIL
32
A Long Soak in
a Sea of Green
Through the Japanese practice
of forest bathing, Texans seek a
natural state of peace.
By Sarah Bird
Photographs by Tom McCarthy Jr.
Photo: Tom McCarthy Jr.
VOLUME 68 . NUMBER 4
40 52
The Tones of Texas Reclaiming
Join an Austin-based the Outdoors
photographer for a Organizations and
technicolor tour of the state. activists are reconnecting
Photographs by Theresa DiMenno the Black community to
the joy of the great outdoors.
By Kayla Stewart
FOREST BATHING
aims to connect
participants with
nature.
A PRI L 2021 3
Ranked number one in the
nation for cancer care by
U.S. News & World Report.
 VOLUME 68 . NUMBER 4

APRIL
Merge
9
23 61
Plates
Chef Nicola Blaque’s
10 Caribbean cuisine;
Sightseer a look at crawfish farming;
12 fire-brewed beer
My Hometown in Red Rock
Preserving and paddling 70
the San Marcos River Texana
14 Pioneering filmmaker
Open Road King Vidor
Teaching a non-Texan 74
to love his new home Daytripper
23 Adventure awaits in the
Drive/Stay Guadalupe Mountains
Seeing stars at 75
Willow House in Terlingua Speaking of Texas
28 Ben Masters’ daring
Drive/Ticket nature documentaries
One of the world’s 77
largest collections of Vintage
Japanese Hakata dolls The “chili queens”
30 of San Antonio
Drive/Atlas
The hunt for
hidden treasure

THE
TRAVEL
MAGAZINE
OF TEXAS

Visit
ZEN AND THE ART
OF FOREST BATHING
BY SARAH BIRD
THE OUTDOOR
INCLUSIVITY MOVEMENT
BY KAYLA STEWART
texashighways.com
for more.

A PRIL 2021
65
ON THE COVER
Photo by E. Dan Klepper
Shot on the Pine Canyon Trail
near Big Bend National Park

Photos: E. Dan Klepper, Eric W. Pohl A P R IL 2021 5

 TEXAS H I G H W A Y S™
Behind the Story
DIRECTOR PUBLISHER
Joan Henderson Andrea Lin
E DITORIAL ART
Editor in Chief Creative Director
Emily Roberts Stone Mark Mahorsky
Deputy Editor Art Director
Michael Hoinski Ashley Burch
Senior Managing Editor Associate Art Director
Matt Joyce Chris Linnen
Managing Editor Photo Editor
Kimya Kavehkar Brandon Jakobeit
Assistant Editor Contributing Photographers
For Sarah Bird, growing up before the internet meant Julia Jones Jessica Attie, Theresa DiMenno,
most days were spent outside on unsupervised ad- Senior Writer Larry Ditto, E. Dan Klepper,
Clayton Maxwell Tom McCarthy Jr., Eric W. Pohl,
ventures. “That was our social life, being outdoors,” Kayla Stewart
the Austin-based author says. “And not everybody has Writers-at-Large
Roberto José Andrade Franco, Production Coordinator
that now.” She wrote about the need for ample out- Joe Nick Patoski Raquel V. Sanchez
door time through the lens of the forest bathing trend MARKETING & BUSINESS
Contributing Editors
for “A Long Soak in a Sea of Green” (Page 32). “We’re Heather Brand, Melissa Gaskill, Associate Publisher
in this moment of amnesia about how much we need E. Dan Klepper, June Naylor Sabrina Ballesteros
to be outdoors,” she says. “Forest bathing is a version Contributing Writers E-Commerce Marketing Coordinator
Sarah Bird, Michael Corcoran, Allison Douglas
of a message that we keep having to be reminded of.”
Ruvani de Silva, Dina Gachman, Chet Garner, Strategic Partnerships Manager
Her experience taking in the sights and sounds of the Melissa Gaskill, Austin Kleon, Pam LeBlanc, Lois M. Rodriguez
wilderness made her appreciate the forest bathing Steven Lindsey, MM Pack, Kayla Stewart,
Ancillary Publications Manager
programs state parks have been implementing. “As a Peter Warren
Julie Stratton
publicly funded program, you can’t reproach it,” she D I G I TA L Business Manager
says. “And as a personal indulgence, it’s a heck of a Product and Engagement Manager Karen Garza
Natalie Moore
lot of fun.” Bird’s 11th novel, American Dance, will be Ancillary Publications Coordinator
Digital Strategies Manager
published next fall by St. Martin’s Press. LaKena Cooks
Tyson Bird
Accounts Receivable
Web Editor
Featured Contributors Sarah Thurmond
Ana Perez
Warehouse Manager
Dina Gachman C O N TA C T U S Oz Lopez
In her essay “Feel Right at Home” (Page 14), To be removed from mailing list sales
and for other customer service needs, ADVE RTISING
the Round Rock-based writer recounts her AJR Media Group
contact: 800-839-4997
quest to instill her husband with a love of 800-383-7677
(903-636-1123 outside the U.S.),
Texas through a trip to her brother-in-law’s customer_service@texashighways.us, texashighways@ajrmediagroup.com
Llano ranch. “I loved diving into the history of the ranch, or go to texashighways.com. texashighways.com/advertise
and learning about the plants and flowers and insects in
Subscriptions are $24.95 annually
the region,” says Gachman, who grew up in Fort Worth ($39.95 foreign).
and Houston. “It’s an essay about marriage, but the land is
For letters to the editor, write to letters
such an important part of that story, so weaving all of that @texashighways.com or Texas Highways,
together made me love the ranch even more.” Gachman P.O. Box 141009, Austin, TX 78714-1009
is the author of Brokenomics, a book of humorous essays.
She has written for The New York Times, Vox.com, InStyle,
Smithsonian, and Vogue.
Kayla Stewart
© Te x a s D e p a r t m e n t o f
Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n
All rights reserved.
Stewart spoke with Black outdoors enthu-
siasts from around the state and hiked
Published monthly by the Travel Information Division of TxDOT
with the recreation group Outdoor Afro for
“Reclaiming the Outdoors” (Page 52). The
experience helped her reconnect with nature and remind- Governor of Texas
ed her that “the relationship between Black Americans Greg Abbott
and the outdoors may have been brutally tortured during Texas Transportation Commission
slavery, but evil cannot destroy what is historically and
J. Bruce Bugg Jr., Chairman Alvin New, Commissioner
inherently pure.” Stewart is a food and travel reporter from
Houston. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Laura Ryan, Commissioner Robert C. Vaughn, Commissioner
the Southern Foodways Alliance, Travel + Leisure, and TxDOT Executive Director
Bon Appétit. James M. Bass

APRIL 2021 7
 READERS RESPOND

MERGE
Out-of-State
I was in Baltimore once, and we
counted the minutes before we saw
a pickup truck—not a small one but
an F-150 or Silverado [“Pick-Me-Up,”
February]. It was about a half hour.
Peter Arredondo, Laredo

Have a Ball
As a Corpus Christi native, I went to
Galvan Ballroom several times
[“Like a Boss,” February]. Brings back
old memories of Corpus in the ’60s.
Joe Cantu, Fort Worth

Motoring Through
Love this, and know exactly
The well-written piece concerning lucha libre was one that I enjoyed how [the writer] feels [“The Wind
Between Us,” February]. My husband
reading. My brother-in-law, Ray Villareal, has written several young and I have been riding together for
adult novels that deal with the concept of wrestling and that explore over 45 years, and I too trust no one
other than Mike to get us safely
the importance of choosing the right friends. to our destination.
D. Scott Gonzalez, Dallas Kathy Bagwell Callaway, Pharr

Noise Complaint
I just finished reading the March 2021
issue and loved it! The luchadores, the
wildflowers, the Wendish and German
history, the Guy Clark biopic that I can’t
wait to see. But I have to take excep-
tion to one little thing: the last item in
your list of “Camping Forget-Me-Nots”
[“Intro to Campology”]. People who
play radios or stereos outdoors in public
places are spoiling for others one of
the most beautiful aspects of being in
nature: the sounds.
Kirsten Miller, Austin
That Doesn’t Grow on Trees
I learned this story while living in New
Braunfels several years ago: Legend goes
that Prince Solms brought his group to
the banks of the Guadalupe and Comal
rivers to camp for the night. He walked
down to the river and saw the Spanish
moss growing on the trees. He went
back and called his group together and
told them this is where they should
settle. He said, “Any place where sauer-
kraut grows on trees should be the place
for German immigrants to live!” I was
reminded of this when I read the article
about German influence in the Hill
Country [“‘A Small Kingdom,’” March].
Jim Bates, Marshall
Snowbound
My ’92 Silverado Z71 just saved my butt
during last week’s winter storms [“Pick-
Me-Up,” February]! My Subaru, which
I also love, was mired in ice and snow
and wouldn’t budge. I fired up Old Blue,
slammed it into four-wheel drive, and
got to warmth, electricity, and water.
Brenda Thompson Askins, La Grange
Live to Ride
As a lifelong motorcyclist, I have endured
the constant barrage of “You’ll shoot
your eye out”-type comments from
family and friends who believe I too am
doing something selfish and reckless
[“The Wind Between Us,” February]. My
usual feeble retorts are something akin
to quips pulled from biker T-shirts, like
“Ride to Live–Live to Ride.” Katie Guti-
errez was able to put into words what
we motorcyclists only wish we could
explain to our non-riding loved ones. I’ve
gone on to point out the February issue
and Katie’s essay to all my unenlight-
ened family and friends and also to my
already enlightened riding friends who
don’t have the words themselves.
“Yeeha” Stephen Slisz, Bedford
(Don’t) Let It Snow
My family was traveling from Austin
to Ector [in 1929] to visit relatives at
Christmas [“I Don’t Know if There’ll
Be Snow,” December]. As we were
approaching Hillsboro, we slid off
the slick road down a little hill where
other cars were having the same fate.
One even crashed into our car. Good
Samaritans finally got us all back on the
highway. What a delight it was to read
about something I was a part of more
than 90 years ago!
Eleanor Tacquard Otto, Coppell

We want to hear from you! Send photos, feedback, and recommendations to letters@texashighways.com;
P.O. Box 11009, Austin, TX, 78714-1009. Follow @TexasHighways on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

APRIL 2021 9
SIGHTSEER | AUSTIN

10 texashighways.com
 Golden Hour
A retention pond in the Grand Oaks neighborhood of South Austin makes for an uncon-
ventional muse for Theresa DiMenno. The Houston-raised, Austin-based photographer
says she’s always enjoyed taking pictures of life in her own backyard, and the past year’s
COVID-19 lockdown has made her even more appreciative of subjects close at hand. “The
pond is just a nice little respite in the city,” DiMenno says. “I walk there to get exercise, and
since it’s got a green space next to it because of a pipeline, it’s open and I can shoot sunsets
and sunrises. I think what made this sunset even more interesting and dramatic is it was in
late June when a Saharan dust storm was blowing through.” See more of DiMenno’s
pictures in the photo essay “The Tones of Texas” starting on Page 40.

Photo: Theresa DiMenno APRIL 2021 11

MY HOMETOWN | V I R G I N I A PA R K E R C O N DI E

Martindale
Virginia Parker Condie lives, works, and plays on the San Marcos River
By Pam LeBlanc

PADDLING the
San Marcos River
is a big part of life
in Martindale for
Virginia Parker Condie.

12 texashighways.com Photo: Jessica Attie

V
irginia Parker Condie and her teammates set two records as they paddled to a
fourth-place finish in the Texas Water Safari in June 2019. Racing 260 miles in
a canoe down the San Marcos and Guadalupe rivers, the foursome became the
first all-female team to finish the race in under 40 hours and the first all-female
team to finish in the top five overall. Her love of canoeing the San Marcos spurred Condie to
move to the riverside town of Martindale in 2013 with her husband, Andrew Condie, also a TOWN
competitive paddler. Founded in 1855 by a Mississippi settler named Nancy Martindale, the
community farmed cotton and became a center of hybrid corn and cottonseed production in TRIVIA
the 1960s. Farms still blanket the area, while river sports also boost the local economy. Not
only do the Condies and their two children paddle the river year-round, Virginia has made a
career of protecting its cypress-lined waterway as executive director of the San Marcos River
Foundation. “It’s obvious Martindale is going to grow, and I really hope it happens in a way
POPULATION:
that protects the integrity of the area and protects the water quality and quantity,” she says.
“Without the river, Martindale would be a completely different place.”

Community Lifeblood overnight. The Spencers [who own the

“It’s a tiny community, an eclectic commu-
nity, and it’s very nature-oriented because the
river runs through it. The San Marcos River is
the lifeblood of Martindale. Despite everyone’s
differences, I think we all have the river in
common. You don’t realize how noisy the river
is—it’s just teeming with life. We can open
the back door and hear the river at any time
of day, along with the birds and wildlife that
depend on it.”
Cotton Days
“Martindale was a big farming community,
mainly cotton. At the Highway 80 Feed Barn,
which has great fries and great burgers, you
can see an old safe where seed was once
stored. The Martindale Dam used to power a
cotton gin. There’s an old water tower too. It’s
a very quaint town, with the river at its heart.
It looks like it did 50 years ago.”
Fourth of July Fun
“Martindale has a pretty popular Fourth of
July parade, with a ton of antique cars and
a great lineup. Hundreds of people line the
street for it. They have Model Ts, tractors,
firetrucks, and caballero horsemen and
women in costume.”
Triathlon Tradition
“They say the Martindale Triathlon, which
started in 1978, is the oldest triathlon in Texas.
The Texas Canoe and Kayak Racing Associa-
tion puts it on. It’s a dry tri—a run and then
a bike ride, but no swimming; you paddle
the last leg. It’s staged from the Shady Grove
Campground, where you can also pay to camp
1,272
campground] are very ingrained in the
paddling community. Jack Spencer makes
most of my family’s boats, and they also NUMBER OF
STOPLIGHTS:
offer kayak and canoe trips.”
New Attractions
“The biggest excitement over the last few
years is that we now have the Martindale
2
River Cafe, which serves deli sandwiches
and charcuterie trays and has live Texas YEAR FOUNDED:
music on weekends. Downtown Martin-
dale is quite small, and it’s lined with red
brick buildings. The café is in one of those
buildings. You can take your food across
1855
the street to the picnic tables overlook-
ing the river, and that’s where the live
music is. Last year our own grocery store NEAREST CITY:
opened. Good Things Grocery sells local San Marcos, 7 miles
produce, like eggs and veggies, and has southeast
bulk food and frozen food and house-
wares. It’s like heaven.”
Protecting the River MARQUEE EVENT:
“When the former executive direc- Martindale Triathlon,
tor of the San Marcos River Founda- Oct. 30
tion announced she was going to retire,
I thought to myself, ‘That would be my
dream job.’ Now I’ve got the dream job, MAP IT:
and I’m living a dream life in a magical
Martindale River Cafe,
place with my family. While the job
415 Main St.
entails things like trash cleanups and
wastewater treatment permit
monitoring to protect water quality, it
also means ensuring the proper measures
are in place to keep the Edwards Aquifer,
which feeds the San Marcos springs and
river, flowing.”

APRIL 2021 13

Feel Right at Home
A sixth-generation Texan returns to a beloved landscape to endear her husband to her home state
by Dina Gachman
M
My mom always said an anthill in Houston may as well
be a mountain. She longed for majestic landscapes
found on postcards of the California coast or the French
countryside. Instead, she spent all 68 years of her life
surrounded by the comparatively flat terrain of Fort
Worth and Houston. She complained, but she never left.
She was surrounded by anthills instead of Alps, but Texas
was her home.
Unlike my mom, I did eventually leave Texas in search
of grander vistas. I followed the well-worn path to Cali-
fornia, the one so many before and since have traveled.
Once there, I was sure I would never leave. Humidity was
generally low, city streets smelled like jasmine, and bursts
of magenta bougainvillea seemed to bloom year-round. I
figured I’d be one of those Texan expats who appreciated
home more deeply from afar. The kind who lifelong resi-
dents probably want to toss off the side of a steep cliff for
our traitorous ways.
Illustration: Juan Bernabeu
OPEN ROAD | E S S AY
Funny thing is, my long-ago dream of living and dying in California—
with a brief stint in Paris, naturally—seems lonely to me now. Instead of
spending my days lounging in a French café, I’m a mom living in Round
Rock, a once sleepy suburb north of Austin that’s now luring an alarming
number of transplants from California and New York. The most Parisian
thing I’ve seen near my house is a French bistro in Pflugerville that sells
crepes, quiche, and croque-monsieur. They also sell Dr Pepper, of course.
Now I live near Brushy Creek instead of the Seine or the Pacific, and I’m
not the first to make that sharp midlife turn from the city to the suburbs.
Several years before I U-turned back to Texas, I fell in love. I got married
and had a child. Suddenly, my dreams and ideals weren’t the only ones
that mattered. I had to navigate those roads with my husband.
I met Jerett in Los Angeles, the city we’d each adopted as our own. I
moved there at 18 for college; he came out for a job after medical school
on the snowy East Coast, mainly because he realized Los Angeles had
beach days in February. He grew up in a small Massachusetts town called
Seekonk, surrounded by blueberry farms, luxuriant purple hydrangeas,
and towering pines. Because of this, he shares my mom’s love of lush
vistas. Unlike my mom, though, my husband doesn’t have Texas roots
stretching back five generations to deepen his appreciation of our rugged
terrain. He has zero nostalgia for a childhood spent eating little cups of
Blue Bell with wooden spoons or riding glass-bottom boats at the defunct
Aquarena Springs in San Marcos. His only real tie to Texas, a place he
never imagined he’d call home, is me.
In 2014, I brought Jerett to visit Texas for the first time, after we’d been
dating close to a year. We flew in from Los Angeles, and after meeting
up with my parents at their Houston home, we headed west on Inter-
state 10 about four hours to a rented house in Concan. Jerett and I rode
with my parents, followed by my sisters and their families. My uncle,
along with my cousin and her husband, completed the caravan. The
idea was to float the Frio River and see Pat Green play at the House
Pasture Cattle Company. Jerett would get to know my family and my
home state intimately over the course of a few days. Unfortunately, on
the day we arrived, a massive thunderstorm turned the clear water of
APRIL 2021 15
O P E N R OA D | E S S AY
the Frio a muddy brown. This cloaked the
region’s natural beauty, and we had a less
than picturesque weekend floating and
swimming under cloudy skies, in even
cloudier water. We made the best of it,
but I wished he’d gotten to see the area in
a different light.
I was half scared that once Jerett met
my family, he’d run for the nonexistent
hills. Compared to his reserved New
England tribe, our posse of 10 probably
seemed like one big, chaotic, multigen-
erational frat party. During the first 24
hours, my sisters skinny-dipped, my dad
played “House of the Risin’ Sun” on his
guitar, and my uncle nearly drowned in
two feet of water while tubing. (Blame
the beers.) Instead of fleeing in the night,
though, Jerett asked my dad for my hand
in marriage.
The vacation didn’t exactly endear him
to Texas, but I figured that would come
16 texashighways.com
soon enough. If he loved my family, and
he loved me, he’d surely come to appreci-
ate the place that had shaped us—muddy
water, gray skies, and all. In marriage as
in life, though, things rarely turn out the
way you think.
The loss of my mom eventually lured
me—and us—away from California’s
bougainvillea-filled streets. She had
spent nearly four years undergoing treat-
ment for cancer, and I flew back from
Los Angeles to be with her every two or
three months, sometimes alone, some-
times with Jerett, and eventually with
our newborn son. During that time, my
adopted home was slowly losing its hold
on me. My concept of where I belonged
was shifting once again.
When my mom passed away in the
fall of 2018, I felt the need to be near my
I convinced myself
Jerett would see Texas
through my eyes, and
he’d begin to understand
the allure. After all,
he loved barbecue,
good beer, and cycling.
How could he not adapt?
dad and sisters. I convinced myself Jerett
would see Texas through my eyes, and
he’d begin to understand the allure. I told
myself, and him, he’d fit right in. After
all, he loved barbecue, good beer, and
cycling. How could he not adapt? He got a
job in Round Rock, and we said goodbye
to our friends in Los Angeles.
After a year in our new home, my
husband still wasn’t settled—despite
taking day trips to swim at Jacob’s Well
and the Blue Hole in Wimberley, or driv-
ing to roadside barbecue joints and visit-
ing every kid-friendly outdoor brewery
we could find. The mesquite trees and
live oaks failed to move him. The wild-
flowers didn’t last long enough to change
his mind. The sound of the Union Pacific
whistling in the distance didn’t remind
him of his childhood like it did mine.
“This just isn’t where I imagined I’d end
up,” he’d often say. Usually, the most posi-
tive review I would get from him was: “It’s
a good place for kids, and the people are
nice.” But something was missing, some-
thing I wasn’t sure I could fix.
It felt like the more I tried to force him
to love his new home, the less he did.
I was pulled in two directions. Moving
home to help fill the space created by my
mom’s absence seemed like the best deci-
sion I’d ever made. But at the same time, I
was watching the person I loved struggle
to feel the same way. After swimming and
barbecue failed to do the trick, I decided
a trip to my brother-in-law’s family ranch
outside Llano would seduce my husband
for good. He would look past the dust and
the heat, or better yet look right at them,
and find the beauty he longed for, right
under his feet.
So, during a midsummer heat wave in
2020, we planned a trip with my dad and
my sisters and their kids—after COVID
tests and quarantining.
On the 90-minute drive from Round
Rock to Honey Creek Ranch, I noticed
the landscape get hillier and the chain
restaurants give way to antique shops and
mom and pop diners. Once in Llano, we
took a paved road that gradually turned
to crushed granite and gravel as the gas
stations and supermarkets receded. It was
just us, our wheels, and a flurry of dust.
Llano is sometimes referred to as
“the Deer Capital of Texas,” and as we
drove, we spotted our fair share grazing
or sprinting through the tall grass. There
used to be occasional black bear sight-
ings in the area 20 to 30 years ago, but
now they’re extremely rare. There are still
plenty of fanged and clawed things roam-
ing among the cacti, though, and you can
sense the bobcats, wild hogs, and snakes
lurking in the brush.
The ranch encompasses over 1,000
acres in the Riley Mountains. Half of
Dancer Peak is on the property, which
offers unobstructed views of Packsaddle
Mountain. Out in the distance, in a spot no
one can seem to find, lies the mythical San
Saba silver mine. Jim Bowie and several
Spanish explorers attempted to locate
this legendary place in the Hill Country,
according to Texas lore. The ranch was the
land of the Tonkawa, the Lipan Apache,
APRIL 2021 17
 O P E N R OA D | E S S AY

and later the Comanche. Some believe

the Jumanos traveled the land before that.
Honey Creek is spring fed, and the water
flows year-round, helping to keep the live
oaks, cedar elm, Ashe juniper, and honey
mesquite trees thriving.
Jerett’s newly acquired, midnight blue
RAM 1500—his first pickup and the first
sign he was maybe, possibly, acclimating
to Texas—recorded the outdoor temper-
ature as 109 degrees. I’d say that was a
lowball estimate. Gone were the bluebon-
nets, Indian paintbrush, and pink-cupped
evening primrose. But I’d been to the ranch
in the spring, before I’d met my husband,
and I’d seen the wildflowers in full bloom
on a trip with my sisters and brothers-in-
law. For three days, we had relaxed on
the porch, grilled venison burgers from
deer my brother-in-law had hunted, and
slipped our feet into snake boots so we
could walk along the creek. We drove
four-wheelers up a steep cliff—past prickly
pear, flowering Spanish dagger, and thick-
ets of beebush—to watch the sunset each
night. The ranch wasn’t mine, but I knew
from my first visit that it was special. For
years I’d dreamed of going back.
Jerett steered the truck from the gravel
road into the ranch’s “camp,” which
consisted of a main cabin, a hunter’s
cabin, and a row of smaller sleeping
cabins. A mud-caked Polaris and a rusty
cream-colored 1988 Jeep Wrangler that
had seen better days sat baking in the sun.
Everything was baking in the sun, includ-
ing my toddler son, whom I would follow
around with a tube of sunscreen and a
bottle of water all weekend. The heat
was relentless, as were the sticker burrs,
wasps, and biblically large grasshoppers
that swarmed the area and accosted us
every couple of steps we took. This is the
kind of place where everything will sting,
bite, or stick you, as they say. I loved it. I
needed Jerett to love it, too.
As we toured the ranch, we gripped the
sides of the Polaris to keep from flying
out every time we lurched over boulders
or 2-foot-tall cacti. A few miles in, dust-
caked and sweaty, we stopped at a large
pond so the older kids could fish for bass.
When my brother-in-law pulled a dented

18 texashighways.com
metal rowboat toward the water, a boat
the kids had been playing on a minute
before, a large cottonmouth shifted in
the dirt. Out came the shotgun, and my
brother-in-law killed the snake as we
watched. I looked at Jerett, who was
holding his hands over our son’s ears to
protect him from the noise. Jerett hated to
see any living creature harmed—he would
probably try and rescue a wild hyena if he
could. I couldn’t gauge his reaction.
On many occasions, Jerett had told me
about his childhood days spent riding
an ATV through the woods behind his
parents’ house, exploring the swamps,
and building makeshift dams along the
stream. As we rode around the ranch, he
pointed out different plants and insects
to our son, and showed him the rabbits,
cows, and deer we spotted along the
way. I knew this prickly terrain wasn’t
as easy to love as a Southern California
Our love of a place
comes in large part
from the memories
we make there.
beach or a New England forest, and that
it could take time to see the beauty in it.
Still, Jerett’s curiosity about the landscape,
and his obvious joy in explaining it to our
son, gave me hope. As my brother-in-law
drove, he talked about the history of the
area. Jerett, always on the lookout for a
wide-open space to call his own, casually
mentioned he would love to own land like
this. The ranch was working its magic.
After a long day of fishing and cruis-
ing the land, we settled in on the porch.
Sunsets at Honey Creek are an event.
From the main house, you can see miles
of rolling hills and meandering valleys.
The sky slowly shifts through hues of
dusty coral and buttery yellow as every-
thing settles into dusk. I wanted Jerett to
feel as content in the moment as I did. Our
love of a place comes in large part from
the memories we make there—something
unexpected that happened earlier in the
day, an unforgettable meal, or an inside
joke. A pretty sunset can do the trick, too.
“Isn’t this beautiful?” I asked.
“It’s nice,” said Jerett, looking out into
the dark. What I think he meant was, “It’s
not as nice as where we were before. It’s
not a landscape I can get lost in. But it’s
not half bad.”
Quietly, we watched the land grow still.
Early the next morning, Jerett went on
a 50-mile bike ride. Leave it to a diehard
cyclist to brave not just scorching temper-
atures, but the rocky, unpaved roads
and cattle guards that weren’t meant for
APRIL 2021 19
 O P E N R OA D | E S S AY

skinny bike tires. When he rolled back to

camp, he was covered in dirt but looked
content. He’d found some rolling hills and
seen some wildlife, including a fox and
plenty of deer. I asked him how the ride
was and he answered, “It was nice.” This
time, I believed him. He’d made a connec-
tion to the land, at last. How deeply that
connection would be felt, and for how
long, I couldn’t know.
Once he was back, I set off for a jog
with my sister Kathryn. It was already 90
degrees at 10 a.m., so our pace was slow
and steady. I was a little leery of crit-
ters and wildcats along the quiet road.
Kathryn, who knew the ranch intimately,
assured me there was no reason to be
scared. While we ran, she asked me what
Jerett thought of Round Rock.
“He’s getting used to it,” I said, not really
believing my words.
Suddenly, Kathryn stopped dead in her
tracks and picked up a large stick. “What
was that?” she said.
Not five minutes earlier, she’d told me
there was nothing to fear, and now she
was gripping a makeshift weapon to fend
off large beasts. I immediately conjured up
scenes of the two of us being mauled by
a pack of wild hogs. As much as I love the
ranch, it’s still an unforgiving landscape.
Like the state as a whole, you have to hang
in there for the long haul, and embrace
the good and the bad—the wildflowers
and the sticker burrs—to really know it.
You have to seek out the beauty amid the
rough parts and accept them both.
“Should we turn back?” I asked.
“No, it’s fine,” she replied, as she took
off sprinting down the road. I followed
her, trying to keep pace, looking over
my shoulder, curious about what she’d
seen. Once we slowed down and my
heart stopped racing, our fear gave way
to laughter. My sister would never win an
Oscar for attempting to appear calm in the
face of imaginary predators. We agreed
to keep running, gripping our sticks and
staying watchful, just in case.
We eventually arrived back at camp
and tossed our sticks aside. Jerett was
driving the Polaris, with our son in his
lap. I watched them for a while from a

20 texashighways.com
distance, laughing at who knows what as
they circled around. I felt lucky to have
them, whether it was here in this spot,
or some other place. I hoped it would
be here, though, and that the beauty of
the ranch would help him see Texas in a
different light.
Before our trip to Honey Creek, I some-
times questioned whether life would have
been easier if I’d married someone from
my home state. What would it be like not
to feel the push and pull of trying to make
the person you love also love your home,
to eliminate any conflict about where
you’re living, and why you’re living there?
As popular as Texas has become, it’s not
for everyone. It’s sometimes hard for me
to admit that. It’s hellfire hot in summer,
it’s rough around the edges, and there’s a
headstrong wildness in the people and the
land that I think not everyone can under-
stand. But marriage isn’t about agreeing
We’re overdue for
a relaxing getaway.
WE HEAR THAT A LOT.
Make plans to relax amid the
natural beauty and urban luxury
of The Woodlands. Book a
private massage or float the
day away in a secluded pool.
We’re open and ready to relax
whenever you are.
The ranch is an
unforgiving landscape.
Like the state as a whole,
you have to hang in there
for the long haul, and
embrace the good and
the bad—the wildflowers
and the sticker burrs—
to really know it.
on everything, and you can’t predict what
unexpected struggles will turn up. As I
watched Jerett drive our son around that
morning, making a memory all his own,
I realized I couldn’t force him to love a
place, or even to see it through my eyes.
He had to get there on his own.
A few months later, Jerett and I sat
watching a show about a famous chef
visitthewoodlands.com/relaxinggetaway
who was living on a remote island in
Patagonia. The chef said the island was
his “deepest-rooted feeling for home.” The
words struck me, and I glanced at Jerett,
sitting next to me on the couch.
“It’s a land that you learn to love very
slowly,” said the chef of his far-flung,
windswept home, a place many would
find too rugged, too tough. “Once you
understand how she is,” he explained,
“you start to love her.”
I hoped our weekend at Honey Creek
might help Jerett understand this place a
little better. I wondered if its coral sunsets
and wild terrain lingered in his mind.
Could he one day feel, like I did, that this
place, and not California or Paris, was
home? As we sat together on the couch, I
still didn’t have the answers. Neither of us
did. All I knew for sure was that here he
was, right by my side. For the moment, it
was all I needed to know.
Plan your getaway at
APRIL 2021 21
 DRIVE

WILLOW HOUSE
in Terlingua
attracts free-
spirited guests.

Photo: E. Dan Klepper APRIL 2021 23

DRIVE | S TAY

I
f the desert is a play, then Willow
House owner Lauren Werner is its

Little Boxes WILLOW HOUSE

23112 FM 170,
Terlingua.
set designer. Every detail of her
singular Terlingua hotel, comprised
of small concrete boxes located 6 miles

on the
Rates begin at $630 from Big Bend National Park, has been
per two-night stay.
432-213-2270; arranged for visitors to bear witness to
willowhouse.co the wild pageant of nature. The porch
of each casita is a front-row seat to the

Hillside Chisos Mountains and their ever-shifting

drama of color, shadows, and light.
Werner designed the hotel with the goal
The casitas at Willow House in Terlingua of making sure no one misses the show.
offer out-of-this-world sights Take what I call the “star bed.” Near
the ravine that edges the arid 287-acre
By Clayton Maxwell property of rocks and creosote brush,
Werner has installed a padded plat-
form that dangles from a steel frame,

24 texashighways.com

CASITA WINDOWS
reflect the
Chisos Mountains
at dusk.
suspended in midair. It’s the place to be
at night, when the cosmos reveals itself.
As stars overtook the Dark Sky territory, I
settled in and would not leave until I saw
a shooting star. The golden blaze finally
came, and when it did, I whooped from
the thrill of it.
Willow House, which opened in Sep-
tember 2019, is Werner’s first hotel. The
29-year-old began planning it when she
was in her early 20s. Although she has no
formal education in architecture—Werner
studied pre-law at Southern Methodist
University in Dallas—she designed and
served as the main contractor for the
project. Her parents are developers, so she
grew up with blueprints and knows her
way around a construction site.
Photo: E. Dan Klepper
Many have assumed Willow House was
inspired by Donald Judd, the artist whose
installation piece of concrete boxes in
a field in Marfa could be the cousin of
Willow House. “That’s not a bad thing at
all,” Werner says about the comparison
to Judd. But Werner’s muse was painter
Georgia O’Keeffe’s home in Abiquiu, New
Mexico. “I love how her windows frame
the land,” Werner says. “Every window
and every patio at Willow House are a
perfect frame of either the Chisos or Santa
Elena Canyon without any sort of obstruc-
tion in between.”
The layout of Willow House is mod-
eled after a Texas ranch property with a
balance of private and communal spaces.
Guests stay in one of 12 private casitas,
which vary in size from roughly 300 to
700 square feet and are decked out with
decadent touches: alpaca throw blankets,
Aesop bath products, fluffy robes. The
spacious main house is the hub of com-
munal action, as are the many outdoor
dining areas, fire pits, and patios. Guests
can cook their own meals using the out-
door grill or gourmet kitchen. No guests
under the age of 12 are allowed, unless
you rent the entire property.
The main house is streamlined
luxury, with smooth concrete walls and
a built-in, sunken lounge pit. Even the
kitchen shelving feels like art, with
rows of pottery and silver wine glasses.
I find myself lifting up the earth-toned
coffee mugs and soft Turkish towels—
available to take on your trip to Boquillas
Hot Springs—to see who makes them.
It takes time to find so many gorgeous
things, and to gather it all here out on the
edge of nowhere seems like a feat worth
bowing down to.
When I walked into the main house
for an early morning coffee, no one was
there, but music from an iPad made the
space welcoming in the darkness just
before sunrise. I took note of the music,
and Dan Auerbach and Khruangbin are
now also on my playlists. I’d planned to
sit by the big glass doors overlooking the
Chisos to watch the sunrise alone, but it
was so startling—a fiery swatch of pink
and orange—that I had to run back to
APRIL 2021 25
DRIVE | S TAY

Superlative
Stargazing
Big Bend National Park and
Big Bend Ranch State Park, on
either side of Willow House, are
International Dark Sky
Parks, marking this area as
ideal for stellar observations.

Highly rated phone apps like

Stellarium and Google Star
Walk let you know what you’re
seeing, and they have red-light
night mode to preserve your
eyes’ adaptation to darkness.

Easy-to-spot constellations
include Pleiades, for about
four months in autumn and
winter, and Orion in late spring.
Many other constellations are GUESTS ENJOY
also viewable. the fire pit, one
of many outdoor
lounging spaces.
Bring binoculars. When the
moon is full, you can get a good
look at its surface.

the casita to make sure my husband was
awake to see it, too.
Guests are encouraged to mingle
with one another even in the relative
solitude of the environs. The people we
met, mostly couples, were excited by the
beauty around us. “I grew up in Africa, so
I saw the Milky Way every time we went
on safari,” a dental hygienist who had just
moved to Texas from Washington, D.C.,
told my husband by the fire pit. “This is
my first time to see it in the U.S.” Another
guest chimed in: “I’m from Boston, where
I guess we only have about two stars. So,
this is nuts.”
Not until we were tucked away on our
casita’s front porch did we realize just how
much voices carry in the desert. Eaves-
dropping was inevitable, part of the desert
play. A guy in his early 30s walked nearby,
talking on his cell phone. “Dude. I’m in
Terlingua. It’s near Marfa. You should see
the sunset.” Or the newly engaged couple
by the fire pit: “What’s that bright one? A
planet? I don’t know. Well, don’t you have
your star app thingy?”
The setting is so spectacular, it’s hard
not to constantly snap photos. We were
a small band of sky watchers, phones
in hand, stumbling over desert rocks
because our eyes were turned upward,
smiling as we passed each other.
Harmony between space and nature
underscores every detail of Willow House.
Werner lived on-site for much of the year
it took to build the hotel, so her relation-
ship with the land informed the design.
The hues of rocks around the property
inspired all of her choices, from furniture
to art to dishware. Werner decided to
leave the casitas in their natural brown
concrete color because the brown blended
into the topography. She and three friends
handpicked red rocks from the volcanic
fault line that runs through a remote sec-
tion of the property to build the gabions
(wire cages filled with rocks) that edge the
main house. “We hauled up 45 truckloads
of these rocks, and you still can’t notice a
dent in the land,” Werner says.
Ocotillo, a long and spindly succulent
whose tips bloom red in the spring, also
plays a role in the aesthetic. Werner trans-
planted a few dozen of them to line the
drive to the main house, and the roof over
the outdoor dining area is built from dried
ocotillo branches. If you’re lucky enough
to be there when it rains, you’ll see their
lanky grey limbs burst with green leaves.
“People are mesmerized by these oco-
tillos,” Werner says. “I think it’s because
they just stand out so much in comparison
to this stark landscape.”

26 texashighways.com
We were a small band
of sky watchers, phones
in hand, stumbling over
desert rocks because
our eyes were turned
upward, smiling as we
passed each other.

Listening to Werner talk about rocks,

ocotillo, and the way the light at dusk hits
the craggy face of Willow Mountain, it’s
hard to imagine her in law school. That
had been the plan, but then a family friend
encouraged her otherwise. “He said,
‘You’re creative and also extremely impa-
tient,’” Werner explains. “‘I know you’re
going to want to start your own thing, so
you shouldn’t spend five years of your life
figuring that out.’”
Werner took his advice. After a yearlong
stint working in commercial real estate
development, she bought this patch of
rough land in Terlingua. She drew con-
struction plans using basic architectural
design software. Once a roof was on, she
slept on a mattress in whatever room
wasn’t being worked on so she could be
on-site. There wasn’t electricity, but sleep-
ing there was the only way she could keep
the project moving. “I was here morning
until night for the framers.”
After a day in Big Bend, my husband
and I are on our casita porch looking back
at the Chisos, where we had just hiked.
The furry tarantula that darted across our
trail, the red-headed woodpeckers that
made the piney woods sound like a car-
penter’s studio, the mama bear and two
cubs that some fellow hikers spotted but
we missed—they are all there in those dis-
tant purple mountains we’d just explored.
The golden light across the landscape
crests, plateaus, and descends, highlight-
ing first one mesa and then another, as if
it’s saying, “Look at this! Now, look at this!”
And we look because we don’t want to
miss the best show in town.

Photo: E. Dan Klepper APRIL 2021 27

DRIVE | TICKET

28 texashighways.com
 Gallery of
the Dolls
A world-renowned collection of Japanese
figurines resides at the Texas State
Museum of Asian Cultures
By Austin Kleon

A
1955 magazine ad calling for teachers in
Okinawa, Japan, changed the course of
Billie Trimble Chandler’s life forever—and
paid dividends to her hometown of Corpus
Christi. At the time, Chandler was recently
divorced with four grown children and had just earned
her master’s degree. An adventure in Japan sounded
pretty good. The Corpus Christi Caller-Times announced
her departure with the headline “Late Education Pays
Off for Mother of 4.” When Chandler returned to Texas
16 years later, she brought a massive collection of art to
share her passion for Japanese culture. Chandler had
a vision that if Texas children got to know the people
of Japan, it would be “like planting a mustard seed” of
peace and understanding, she explained on Focus 16, a
local television show, in 1975.
The Texas State Museum of Asian Cultures and Educa-
tional Center near Corpus’ bayfront is the manifestation
of that dream. Originally opened as the Japanese Art
Museum in 1973, the institution now houses artifacts from
Japan, India, China, Korea, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
On display are scale models of Shinto shrines, a 5-foot
bronze Buddha statue, Haniwa terra cotta burial sculp-
tures, clothing, paintings, tools, weapons, and a rickshaw.
A newly renovated hall houses displays from the heart
of the collection: more than 900 Hakata clay dolls (left).
The unglazed clay figurines gained popularity in America
when returning service members brought them back as
souvenirs from World War II and the Korean War. The
museum is petitioning Guinness World Records to regard
its collection of Hakata dolls as the largest.
In the old days, Chandler herself was a presence at the
museum. She taught children to use chopsticks by prac-
ticing on corn kernels and beer caps. She’d don a mask
and dance around the gallery, singing in a falsetto. She
also gave each child a sticker reading, “Building a Better
World begins … with ME!” Chandler died in 1994, but the
little world she began lives on. For more information,
visit texasasianculturesmuseum.org.

Photo: Larry Ditto APRIL 2021 29

DRIVE | AT L A S

TeXas Marks the Spot

Tales of treasures both real and mythical draw hunters to the state
By Peter Warren

Eureka!
In addition to the standard boots-on-
the-ground searches for treasure,
these three methods can help you
maximize your finds when you’re out
in the field.

Metal Detecting: All you need is a

metal detector. One member of the
Texas Association of Metal Detect-
ing Clubs says he has found over
400,000 coins over 42 years, just
through metal detecting.

Gold Prospecting: People across

the country search for rock out-
Stories of buried treasure and hidden riches abound in Texas, from gold in the Guada-
crops that contain veins of ore
lupe Mountains to pirate caches at the bottom of the boat-filled waters of Galveston Bay.
But most casual hunters aren’t after gold ingots and undiscovered mines; they are focused and pan for gold in places like the
on finding coins and other small artifacts. As vice president of the Texas Association of Llano River.
Metal Detecting Clubs, Byron Whitaker knows that finding something little can mean a lot.
“For every [major] treasure, there are 100,000 small ones,” Whitaker says. “It may just Underwater Hunting: This
be $10 worth of stuff, but there’s a lot of that stuff out there.” method runs the gamut from don-
West Texas author and journalist Patrick Dearen, who has written multiple books
ning a scuba suit to find a lost
about treasure, including Castle Gap and the Pecos Frontier, Revisited, says hope is
key to a treasure hunt. Dearen points to the life of Cliff Newland, a treasure hunter who wedding ring to scanning for a
searched for the Castle Gap fortune—a reported collection of valuables from 19th- sunken ship on the bottom of the
century Mexican emperor Maximilian hidden in West Texas. Newland spent 40 years Gulf of Mexico.
seeking the treasure before dying empty-handed at the age of 94.
“I’ve had people who knew him tell me that he probably wouldn’t have lived nearly as
long had he ever found the treasure,” Dearen says. “It’s kind of a metaphor for life. Our
journey can be more important than ever getting to a certain dream we try to obtain.”

The Texas Association of Metal Detecting Clubs’ annual Trea-

sure Show, which features a treasure hunt, a banquet, and trea-
sure displays, is scheduled for April 16-18 in Canton. tamdc.org

30 texashighways.com
 22
Number of groups in the
Depth in feet of Hendricks
Texas Association of Lake, rumored to contain six
Metal Detecting Clubs
Treasure
Tracker
W.C. Jameson, based in Llano, is one of the most
famous treasure hunters in recent history. He got
his start as a chore boy on a successful hunt for gold
ingots in the Guadalupe Mountains almost 70 years
ago, and he has since been a consultant for shows on
the History and Discovery channels.
In addition to his career searching for treasure,
Jameson has written over 100 books, more than 40 of
which are about treasure hunting. These include Bur-
ied Treasures of Texas and a memoir called Treasure
Hunter: Caches, Curses, and Confrontations.
Photo: Courtesy W.C. Jameson (above)
12-40
wagonloads of silver
What was your favorite
Texas treasure hunt?
When I was 11 years old
and I got to participate in
recovering those 100 gold
ingots. This was back in
1953. At the time, it was
actually illegal to own gold.
Of course, I didn’t get any of
it. I was just a kid.
What do you remember
about finding the gold?
I was standing outside the
cave when they were inside
and started to bring it out.
They wouldn’t let me come
in, but my job was to stack
them up, and I got to hold
each one of them. I felt some
sort of weird sense of ac-
complishment. This seemed
like great fun to me and
something I wanted to be a
part of for as long as I could.
What do people
misunderstand about
treasure hunting?
A lot of people, they watch
too much television or film.
They don’t realize that in
many cases, it takes days. It
takes traveling by foot over
some rugged country and
can be demanding. We have
had to overcome obstacles
like rattlesnakes, cave-ins,
landslides, and flash floods.
.
1781
Year the still-undiscovered
Chisos Mountains mine was
sealed, according to legend
Fabled Finds
These four legendary Texas treasures
are yet to be found.
Castle Gap Treasure: The riches of
soon-to-be-executed Mexican em-
peror Maximilian were on their way
to Galveston in the 1860s, but guards
protecting the treasure stole it. The
guards hid the gold and jewels near
Castle Mountain south of Midland.
The Lost San Saba Mine: After hear-
ing rumors of an abandoned silver
mine, Stephen F. Austin sent sol-
diers to search the San Saba River for
caches of silver, but they came back
empty-handed. Jim Bowie also struck
out in his search, and the mine re-
mains undiscovered.
Hendricks Lake: Pirate Jean Lafitte
stole six wagonloads of silver from a
Spanish ship. Spanish forces closed in
on the wagons, which were pushed into
the East Texas lake to avoid capture.
The Lost Chisos Mine: What Dearen
calls the chief legend of Big Bend in-
volves a mine full of gold and silver
hidden in the Chisos Mountains.
APRIL 2021 31
 FROM LEFT: Sarah Bird
in her backyard in Austin;
a rock wall along Panther
Canyon Nature Trail
at Landa Park in
New Braunfels.

32 texashighways.com
A L ong
Soak
in a
Sea of
Green
HOW THE JAPANESE PR ACTICE OF FOREST BATHING IS CONNECTING
UNDERSERVED TEX ANS WITH THE BENEFITS OF COMMUNING WITH NATURE

BY SARAH BIRD | PHOTOGRAPHS BY TOM MCCARTHY JR.

APRIL 2021 33
 “SO, FOREST BATHING?” my husband inquires dubiously
on a sublime fall day as we drive south on Our Highway of
Perpetual Construction, Interstate 35. We’re heading from
Austin to New Braunfels, where I’m going to investigate this
exact practice.
“Yes?” I counter.
“Are you sure this isn’t going to be a repeat of that Jemez
Mountains deal?” he asks.
That “Jemez Mountains deal” was a cross-country ski trip
we’d taken in New Mexico. Our destination was a “secret”
hot spring where we’d envisioned taking a blissful, private
soak. When we approached the rising mist at the end of a
long, snowy trail, however, we spotted three burly German
tourists, completely nude except for surprising amounts of
body hair. Friendly types, they all stood to greet us. Hard pass
on tubbing with the Teutons.
El Hubbo’s confusion and skepticism are understandable.
“Forest bathing” is an unfortunate translation of shinrin- hundreds of studies. Scientists measured everything from how much
yoku, the name coined in 1982 by the Japanese government more stress levels dropped when strolling in nature instead of along a
when it began promoting immersion in nature to combat city street, to how much faster sick patients recovered when they had
skyrocketing suicide rates. Dr. Qing Li, a member of Tokyo’s a view of trees rather than a hospital wall. The research confirmed
Nippon Medical School, later used science to back up the what we know intuitively: Spending more time outside is good for our
intuition that nature is good for humans with his 2018 inter- bodies and minds. Unhurried strolls in forests, parks, and leafy neigh-
national bestseller, Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You borhoods—even along golf courses—can be effective for helping to
Find Health and Happiness. lower heart rate, blood pressure, and anxiety.
The results of the Japanese government’s experiment Hello anxiety, my old friend. Like most sentient Americans, the cas-
were so promising that scientists around the globe put the cade of jarring events loosed upon us in recent years has left me as
simple practice of spending mindful time outdoors to the jangled as any Japanese commuter being stuffed onto a Tokyo subway.
test. In the four decades since, a whopping 290 million Could forest bathing, I wonder, be a way to help me ditch my blood
participants from 20 different countries were tracked in pressure pills and achieve serenity?

34 texashighways.com
 Since I spent a fair chunk of my childhood as an Air Force
kid on bases in Japan, I understand how immersion in their
serene pine forests and artfully manicured gardens could be
a Zen experience. Texas on the other hand? A state where,
historically, nature has been a hostile place always trying
to attack us with a cactus spine, a rattler fang, or scorching
heat? Would this practice even work in Texas?
“Forest bathing most certainly does work in Texas,” John
Warner, a recently retired Urban District Forester with the
Texas A&M Forest Service, assures me with infectious enthu-
siasm. The 32-year veteran of the state agency became an
ardent advocate of forest bathing because it connects per-
fectly with his mission to teach citizens that public lands are
essential. For him, the practice is “a no-brainer.”
“People won’t protect or advocate for something unless
they have an attachment to it,” Warner says. “We have 29
million people in Texas; we want to get every one of those
lives touched by nature. We want to get them attached to
forests. That’s the reason I got involved.”
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: In 2019, Warner set up the state’s first forest bathing pro-
Comal Springs; John gram at W.G. Jones State Park in Conroe with the help of
Warner of the Texas A&M volunteer guides. I asked if I could sign up. But sadly, those
Forest Service; Kortnee large, public sessions have been temporarily discontinued
Whitehawk examines for exactly the reason my anxiety levels have spiked and I
a mountain laurel. need this treatment more than ever. Read: the pandemic.
Luckily, Warner suggests another option: Kortnee White-
hawk, one of only a couple Certified Forest Therapy Guides in
the state accredited by the Association of Nature and Forest
Therapy. A few days later, my husband and I are on our way
to Landa Park in New Braunfels to meet with Whitehawk.
When we reach the little Central Texas town, a van from a
kayak rental business pulls in front of us. A sign on the back
of the van orders us to “Let the RADventure Begin!!!”
Why yes, I believe I will.
I start relaxing the instant we pass beneath Landa Park’s
towering oaks. I am suffused by happy memories of family
picnics in the shade of these ancient trees. A couple more
recent memories return when I spot Wursthalle, where I
might have over-celebrated a few Wurstfests.
We park and I pull out the blood pressure monitor I’d
brought along to chart the wondrous effects forest bathing
is sure to have on my system. I pump it up and note my typi-
cal, borderline terrifying reading.

APRIL 2021 35
 T here is a lot of
nice research
showing that exposure
to nature can help
a patient manage
ADHD, asthma,
hypertension, and
mental health issues.

Since he’s not coming along, I use El Hubbo as my personal

control group. He’s engrossed in a conference call, but he
grudgingly sticks out his arm. As usual, he has the blood pres-
sure of a lizard sunning on a rock. Not that it’s a competition.

I meet my guide at the source of Comal Springs, where

the Edwards Aquifer pumps its crystalline waters into Texas’
largest springs. What more can I tell you about the radiantly
exuberant Whitehawk, except that she is the rare middle-
aged women who can pull off a newsboy cap and pigtails?
Not to mention her great-great-great-grandmother was a
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: medicine woman with the Abenaki tribe in Vermont and
Whitehawk relaxes along the last name she uses professionally was inspired by her
Panther Canyon Nature spirit animal. If anyone can turn me into a forest bathing
Trail; Comal Springs; tree
aficionado, it is this wood nymph.
bark and lichen.
“The whole idea of forest bathing is a series of invitations
to get you out of the cerebral brain,” Whitehawk explains as
we enter Panther Canyon Nature Trail, a popular 1.7-mile
hushed green corridor of oak, juniper, and cedar elms. She

36 texashighways.com

invites me to scratch a rock and smell, to listen for the hoot of an owl, to
imagine the dry bed of Panther Creek flowing with rushing water, to notice
the countless shades of green.
A couple wearing flip-flops zips past, and I realize my Rocky Mountain-
battered hiking boots are overkill on this tranquil amble. Forest bathing
doesn’t require Gore-Tex and cardiovascular endurance. All you need is
an open mind.
For a quarter of a mile, we stroke bark and sniff lichen, and imagine a
life story for one of Whitehawk’s favorite trees, a live oak she calls Flying
Tree. Then we stop, and she invites me to find a “sit-spot” off the trail and
simply “observe and see what comes up.”
Tucked away behind a boulder, I face the majestic limestone canyon
wall and watch tree shadows play across its face. A ginormous black beetle
trundles under the python crawl of fallen branches. Jays squabble.
I lie down and surrender entirely as I watch a soft breeze rustle the high
branches that paint swaying patterns across the bluer-than-blue sky. In
all my communing with nature, some scratchy oak leaves have managed
to work their way into my underwear, but I don’t care. I can feel my blood
pressure plummeting.
Without much effort, I find that I am doing what 70% of
us fail to do while meditating: I am present in the moment.
My hamster wheel of a brain briefly disengages, and I sigh
with contentment as the stress drains away. This, I reflect, is
almost as relaxing as sitting in my backyard.
That would be my exceptionally bucolic backyard, where I
can see just as many trees and a lot more wildlife, and where
fewer oak leaves will work their way into my underwear. In
that instant, the hamster wheel starts squeaking again and I
wonder if forest bathing might not be just a leafier version of
the hippies’ “Be Here Now” or Oprah’s infatuation with “The
Power of Now.” How, I ask myself, is this really any different
from any stroll in the woods?
I am close to deciding that it’s not when a gaggle of utterly
silent preteens passes on the trail behind me. With eyes
freshened by my forest bath, I notice what has become so
normal that none of us even sees it anymore. They are—yes,
all of them—on their phones. Not a single one of the five is
interacting with the trees. Or, even, each other.
I’m struck by a vivid memory of the first time I encoun-
tered screen bewitchment in the young. This was 20 years
ago. Our son, Gabriel, was 10, and we’d arranged for a couple
of his pals to come home from school with us. I sprang what
I thought would be a surprise treat and took the trio to one of
Gabriel’s favorite spots: Mayfield Park, a warren of lakeside
trails in Austin.
As soon as I stopped the car in the Mayfield parking lot,
Gabriel bounded out. His bewildered buddies, however,
didn’t budge. They simply gazed out the car window while
Gabriel disappeared down a trail, then pulled out their Game
Boys and were consumed.
We were still a couple of decades away from 2019, when
ABC News told us teens spent an average of nine hours and
49 minutes on their phones a day, but even then, the boys’
inertia was alarming. Clearly, this was a teachable moment.
“Out,” I ordered. “Now.”
After finally dislodging them, the two boys hovered
around the car like a pair of rehabilitated orangutans yearn-
ing to return to the safety of the cage, but eventually they
wandered off.
This memory triggered my first forest bathing epiphany:
The ones who need to return to the wild are today’s digi-
tally distracted youth. I thought urgently about the increasing
number of kids growing up in neighborhoods paved and
perhaps perilous rather than lovely and leafy—who don’t
have a pleasant, safe park to drive to, or a parent available
to do the driving.
This led to my second epiphany: Those who need forest
bathing most aren’t fortunate people like me. People who
grew up roaming woody neighborhoods from the second we
finished our cornflakes until we chased the mosquito spray
trucks home at dusk. People who own far too much fleece
APRIL 2021 37
and have cross-country ski memories. People with parents CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT:
who shoo them into nearby parks. Dr. Daniel Porter of Lone
I am now enthusiastic about the importance of forest Star Family Health Center
bathing for greenery-starved youths as I slug down some in Conroe; W.G. Jones State
of the dandelion tea Whitehawk has thoughtfully brewed. I Park; the nature area at Lone
thank her effusively for an experience that enlightened me Star Family Health Center.
in a completely unexpected way, and head home.
I don’t even bother taking my blood pressure. I have other
questions about forest bathing, and they no longer concern
me and my own tiny, personal anxiety hive.

“I literally write prescriptions for my patients to go

outside.”
I’m speaking with Dr. Daniel Porter, director of the Lone
Star Family Health Center in Conroe, about why he became
one of the state’s most ardent advocates of forest bathing.
“I have seen a 90-pound 3-year-old who almost couldn’t
walk, and it broke my heart,” Porter says. “But when I have
conversations with parents about what they do with their
kids, I see the anxiety. They know their children should be
getting out, but both parents are working. And maybe they
live in a dangerous neighborhood. So, the kids come home,
get locked in, and jump on their phones or on TV.
“I deal with an underserved population,” he adds. “Some
of them stress over immigration, economics, opiate issues,
methamphetamines, and the perennial No. 1 issue: drinking.
And this is all pre-COVID. Before schools had to close. Screen
use now is insane.”
Porter estimates 30%-40% of what primary caregivers
struggle with are mental health problems. But many caregiv-
ers simply don’t have time for in-depth therapy. Sometimes,
prescribing medication is the best doctors can do. Mental
health counseling is another option, but many patients are
reluctant to go or have financial barriers to care. “It got to
me that I didn’t have anything else to offer,” Porter says. “And
then John Warner came along.”
Warner agrees unequivocally when I share both of Porter’s
comments and my forest bathing revelation. “Yes, absolutely,
we need to talk about social justice.”
How, though, does that commitment jibe with Warner’s Specialist with the U.S. Forest Service in Washington, D.C. Now based in
role at the state agency? Lubbock, she is spreading the gospel of outdoor inclusion. In partnership
“I’m the land manager,” Warner says. “I’m inviting every- with conservation and health-related organizations, Conway has supported
one to get out there and enjoy their public lands. But there is a the development of programs for veterans, many of whom have experienced
huge difference between the groups that might use that land. trauma; people suffering from depression and chronic diseases; and bilin-
One group just wants to get a little exercise while another gual groups like Corazón Latino, a national nonprofit focusing on social and
group is worrying about ‘How am I going to pay the rent? environmental projects.
Where is my next meal coming from?’ One group under- In 2008, Warner was searching for programs to reach Latino audiences
stands that getting out will make them feel better. Another and invited Conway to meet with him and Porter. Conway’s multicultural
group doesn’t have time to feel good. Dr. Porter helps me approach helped them understand that nature does not automatically mean
connect with that group.” happy frolics to everyone. For some, “outside” has negative connotations.
Everything came together in 2008 when Warner and Porter recalls how that pivotal meeting with Conway opened new doors
Porter met Tamberly Conway, the first U.S. Forest Service for him. “She helped us get a grant to build a small nature area where kids 2
employee to receive financial support from the agency to to 8 can explore and parents can relax. It’s right outside the [clinic],” he adds
become a Certified Forest Therapy Guide. proudly. “That’s when I started getting into the idea of prescribing nature:
“Reaching out to diverse groups is my personal passion,” ‘Two times a week, spend an hour outside.’”
says Conway, who worked for years as a Partnerships, Diver- Until COVID shut it down, many of those prescriptions were for the pro-
sity, and Inclusion Specialist, and Conservation Education gram at W.G. Jones State Park. Alexus Sham, an immigration attorney in The

38 texashighways.com
 Self-Care
Anywhere
Want to get in on some nature
therapy magic, but don’t live
near any inviting patches of
green? Kortnee Whitehawk
has you covered with the
following tips:

Get yourself near nature.

Sit down next to a houseplant
or an open window. Find a spot
on a fire escape or your patio,
or in your backyard or a nearby
park. It does not have to be a
wilderness expedition.

Leave your phone at home.

The idea is to slow everything
down. Find a sit-spot and be still
for a minimum of 30 minutes.
Pay attention. Notice.

Create a scent blend of dirt,

leaves, and flowers.
Rub it. Smell it.

Dig in the dirt with a stick.

Put your feet and hands in water.

Feel the breeze on your

face and hair.

Put your forehead against a tree

Woodlands with 4- and 5-year-old adopted daughters who struggle with and hug it.
weight issues and other challenges, says his kids have benefited from this
program. “It gives them a sense of wonder,” Sham says. “They get so excited Reconnect with joy, and
seeing deer and collecting pine cones. They love the bridges. It helps them remember that we are human
not only physically but mentally as well. They’re always asking, ‘When are beings, not human doings.
we going on an adventure?’”
To find a guide near you, visit
Even with the program now shut down, Porter remains undaunted. “It
natureandforesttherapy.org.
really feels like we’re on the cusp of something big,” he concludes. “As a
scientist, you want the data, not just the feel-good stuff. And there is a lot of
nice research showing that exposure to nature can help a patient manage
ADHD, asthma, hypertension, and mental health issues. It’s not expensive.
There are no side effects. It’s a game-changer.”
At this point, I am sold on everything about forest bathing except the unfor-
tunate name. A title that conjures up images of hot-tubbing Teutons and
wood nymphs is too goofy for a practice with the potential to change lives
and reaffirm every Texan’s essential right to access verdant spaces. Whatever
the name, I was certain the kayak rental van was right, and forest bathing is
indeed one RADventure all Texans should embark on.

APRIL 2021 39
 THE
TO N E S
OF
T EXAS

40 texashighways.com
A V I S UA L
E S SAY BY
T H E R E SA
DiMENNO

APRIL 2021 41
 FROM HER
EARLIEST
YEARS
TAKING
PICTURES
as a kid in Houston, Theresa DiMenno was fascinated by the
everyday sights around her. She trained her Kodak Insta-
matic on subjects that caught her attention—her fifth-grade
teacher on the last day of school, cloud formations over the
ocean on family trips to Galveston, and the sun setting over
the Katy Prairie. After high school, DiMenno worked an office
job before heading west for a three-month trip to California.
The experience was transformative. She returned home with
a newfound interest in photography, awakened by a fresh
perspective on her home state and the way the light danced
over open spaces and horizons.
“Light informs color and mood,” says DiMenno, who now
lives in Austin. “It’s the heart of my passion and chosen career
path of photography. Subtle shifts of light can create dramatic
differences in angles or contrast, evoking different responses.”
DiMenno has explored these themes for over 40 years as
a freelance photographer, shooting subjects ranging from
Johnny Cash and Johnny Depp for People magazine to
monarch butterflies and their migration to Mexico for her
2015 exhibition at the Houston Museum of Natural Science,
Delicate Balance: Metamorphosis of the Monarch Butterfly.
Since 2009, her wildflower photos have adorned the walls
of patient rooms and hallway corridors throughout Houston
Methodist Hospital.
Recently, while organizing her work, DiMenno leaned into
her interest in light and the depth it conveys, a mixture she
describes as tone. It’s a concept that comes up repeatedly
as she travels around Texas in pursuit of fleeting conditions.
She points to her picture of the Guadalupe River on Page 49
as an example.
“I was driving along the river road in Hunt, and it was get-
ting close to sunset,” she recalls. “I was frustrated because
private property kept me from accessing the river. Then, just
up ahead, I could see a golden light emanating from a stand
of trees. When I reached the light, there was a bridge where I
could pull over. In one serendipitous moment, the most beau-
tiful scene unfolded. I went from frustration to sheer joy and
gratitude. It’s the light that inspires me, that conveys the story
living in every image.”

F R O M T O P : Red poppies at Wildseed

Farms in Fredericksburg; last light over
April wildflowers in Johnson City.

42 texashighways.com Photos:
 PA N T O N E
C:17 M:55 Y:100 K:6 PA N T O N E
PA N T O N E C:2 8 M:1 00 Y:10 0 K:4 6
C:0 M:93 Y:83 K:0

R E D TO N E S
“IN DAWN’S SWEET RISE, THE COLORS GLOW, SHINING
BRILLIANT ON THE FIELDS BELOW. INSPIRED BY A CALL TO
ACTION, RED SPRINGS ALERT WITH BOLD REACTION.”
—THERESA DIMENNO

APRIL 2021 43
 PA N T O N E
PA N T O N E PA N T O N E
C:30 M:67 Y:100 K:38
C:37 M:0 Y:10 0 K:0 C:3 1 M:2 1 Y:77 K:5

G R E E N TO N E S
“SAPPED OF ENERGY FROM A PHASE OF MY CAREER
GONE GRAY, I SHOT ABSTRACTS OF PLANTS IN MY HOME
GARDEN. THEIR TONES OF GREEN WERE MY SALVATION,
SERVING AS A CREATIVE OUTLET THAT LED ME HERE.”

44 texashighways.com
CLOCKWISE FROM
L E F T : A monarch
caterpillar munching
on milkweed in
DiMenno’s backyard
when she lived in
Houston; sunrise at
Terry Hershey Park in
Houston; a close-up
of a schefflera plant.

APRIL 2021 45
 CO O L TO N E S
PA N T O N E
C:16 M:13 Y:11 K:0
“BLUE PROTECTS, CALMS, SUPPORTS. IT MAKES ME THINK OF
TIMES SPENT ALONG THE GULF COAST. BLUE IS THE COLOR OF
A CLEAR SKY. THE BLUES ARE ALSO WHAT WE FEEL WHEN
WE’RE MELANCHOLY. THAT’S THE PARADOX OF BLUE.”
PA N T O N E
C:49 M:26 Y:4 K:0

PA N T O N E
C:4 3 M:3 1 Y:18 K:2

46 texashighways.com :
CLOCKWISE FROM
L E F T : A cyna blue
butterfly in Austin;
a summer rainstorm
near Snyder; a
morning walk at
Galveston Island
State Park.

APRIL 2021 47
 PA N T O N E PA N T O N E PA N T O N E
C:12 M:23 Y:69 K:1 C:22 M:22 Y:78 K:3 C:3 4 M:2 1 Y:10 0 K:5

WA R M TO N E S
“WARM TONES DWELL IN THE GOLDEN HOURS OF DAYBREAK AND NIGHTFALL.
THEY AWAKEN AND INSPIRE; THEY SETTLE AND SOOTHE. WARM TONES ARE
AUTUMN TONES. DURING AUTUMN, I LOVE TO PHOTOGRAPH THE
RIVERS OF THE HILL COUNTRY.”

FROM LEFT: Monarch butterflies rest in Eldorado on their October migration southward;
a November golden hour shot of the Guadalupe River in Hunt.

48 texashighways.com
APRIL 2021 49
 CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT:
A winecup opens its flowers
on a May morning in Austin;
March phlox blossoms in
New Berlin; a bee rests on a
passion flower in Houston.

50 texashighways.com :
PA N T O N E PA N T O N E PA N T O N E
C:49 M:95 Y:0 K:0 C:0 M:40 Y:0 K:0 C:2 2 M:3 5 Y:0 K:0

PURPLE
TO N E S
“GOLDEN LIGHT BATHES THE DELICATE
PHLOX, ILLUMINATING ITS EDGES, HIGHLIGHTING
THE MAGIC AND MYSTERY IT INSPIRES. PURPLE’S
GREATNESS LIES IN ITS COMPLEXITY, ITS SENSE
OF ENLIGHTENING WITH COMPASSION.”

APRIL 2021 51
 Outdoor Afro hikers at
Violet Crown Trail in
Austin. Bottom row from
left: Jaynell Nicholson,
Kimberly Fields, and
Micah Salter. Top row from
left: Norris Atkins, Movetia
Salter, and Kimuli Nteza.

52 texashighways.com Photo: Kayla Stewart

 Organizations
and activists
are working
to reconnect
the Black
community
with the
serenity and
joy of nature

Reclaiming
the Outdoors
By Kayla Stewart
APRIL 2021 53
The FROM LEFT: Movetia
Salter, leader of

Violet
Outdoor Afro Austin;
an Outdoor Afro
chapter hikes in
southwest Austin.

Crown
Trail
weaves
through 13 miles of Austin’s landscape, extending from Zilker
Park into the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. The pedes-
trian and cycling trail hosts a range of visitors: families and
students, bikers and runners, and an exhausted yet hopeful me.
Though I was born and raised in Houston, Austin was my
weekend home, my oasis of freedom and discovery. I dreamed
dreams—some of which have come true—on Austin’s myriad
trails, like Lady Bird Lake, the Greenbelt, and Turkey Creek. My
professional pursuits have transported me to a life in New York
City, but Texas—and its wide-open spaces—will always be home.
Last winter, I visited Texas for a hike with a group of seven
Black strangers who shared my affinity for the outdoors. This
group, the Austin chapter of the national organization Outdoor
Afro, is determined to share the freedom and wonder of the
outdoors with every Black resident in or near the Austin area.
For years, Black Americans have been hampered by the ficti-
tious belief that the community doesn’t go outside. This narrative Inc. are working to reclaim this connection through social
reflects the historical trauma experienced by Black Americans in events, youth groups, and local organizing.
the outdoors, from enslaved people running from hunting dogs I bundled up for a chilly Saturday in January and met
in the wilderness to the centuries-long history of lynchings on the group in a parking lot. There, Movetia Salter, leader of
the very trees that still stand today. Statistics reveal the effects of Outdoor Afro’s Austin chapter, spoke to the hikers before
this thinking: National parks saw a total of 327.5 million visitors introducing the day’s activities. “We want to acknowledge
during 2019, but a National Park Service survey published a year that we are on other people’s land, and we acknowledge
earlier found that less than 2% of total visitors were Black or your presence on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded
African American. Black people also have positive generational territory of Lipan Apaches, Comanches, and Tonkawa,”
connections and experiences with the great outdoors, includ- Salter said.
ing agricultural and farming traditions, and sporting activities. Outdoor Afro is a nonprofit formed in Oakland, Califor-
Groups like Outdoor Afro and San Antonio-based Black Outside nia, that now hosts outdoor experiences in more than 30

54 texashighways.com

states, with Texas outposts in Austin, Houston, and Dallas. Salter sees the
group as one piece of a puzzle that reconnects Black Americans to their
relationship with the outdoors.
“Number one, we’re reclaiming what is ours,” Salter told me as we
stretched our legs over a bed of rocks on the trail. “We have entrenched in
our speech: Black folks don’t go outside; Black folks don’t hike; Black folks
don’t farm. Yes, we do! We are the original hikers. Look at Africans. Look
at them with their running and their agriculture. They do all these things,
and we are them.”
I hiked with an array of personalities who all had their own reasons for
joining the group. Jaynell Nicholson, an Austin newcomer, had heard about
Outdoor Afro and was excited to enjoy her first event with them; Norris
Photos: Jessica Attie
“We have entrenched
in our speech: Black
folks don’t go out-
side; Black folks don’t
hike; Black folks don’t
farm. Yes, we do!”
Atkins is a self-proclaimed outdoorsman; Kimuli Nteza, a
Ugandan immigrant, wanted to connect with Black Ameri-
cans while taking in the natural sights; and Kimberly Fields
simply wanted to enjoy the beautiful day. Salter’s 13-year-
old son, Micah Salter, tagged along, smiling, speed walking,
and helping his mom lead the way. Though we were from
different backgrounds, we were all looking for the benefits
that only come from being outside.
Salter, who served in the U.S. Air Force and raised four
children, understands the limiting beliefs that pervade
Black communities about safety in the outdoors. She’s
resolved not only to live her life beyond them, but also to
APRIL 2021 55
 create spaces that allow other Black Americans to feel that freedom and
safety, too.
“I think people have this desire, but I don’t think the outdoors has always
been safe for Black people,” Salter said. “So, I just need them to come once.
I want people to understand I’m not a pro at this, but I’m still out here.”

In 1838, Stephen Bishop, an enslaved 17-year-old, was purchased by

attorney Franklin Gorin. That same year, Gorin also purchased Mammoth
FROM LEFT: Caver Cave in Kentucky, which was later established as a national park in 1941
and climber Bree and is recognized as the world’s longest cave system. In 1839, Gorin sold
Jameson; Balcones Bishop and the cave to Dr. John Croghan, who used the cave to experiment
Canyonlands
Preserve.
with treatments for tuberculosis patients and as a tourist attraction. Bishop
was central to the cave’s tourism success because he knew the cave system
better than anyone. He became a tour guide and a mapmaker, and he was

56 texashighways.com

the first person to explore the depths of the cave. Bishop’s legacy is honored
through his burial site near the entrance to Mammoth Cave.
Bishop laid the groundwork for many Black adventurers today. Bree
Jameson, a San Antonio-based caver and climber, is on a journey toward
becoming the first Black woman in Texas to bolt and climb a first ascent.
Bolting is the process of installing hardware into holes drilled in the rock,
which allows climbers to ascend safely. A first ascent means she would
be the first person to climb that section from bottom to top. Her quest is
documented in an upcoming movie entitled J.E.D.I. Training Film, expected
to be released in 2022.
A New Orleans native, Jameson grew up with an early appreciation for
being outdoors. Her father was a thoroughbred horse trainer, and Jameson
has vivid memories of donning jeans and boots to help him in the stables
as a child.
Photos: Jessica Attie (left); Erich Schlegel (right)
She was inspired to reconnect with the natural world after
watching the 2005 adventure-horror film The Descent sev-
eral years ago. Although she found the plot ridiculous, the
cave scenes captivated her. The mom of two did an inter-
net search and discovered that parts of Texas are heavily
karsted due to their limestone bedrock. She learned about
Bexar Grotto, a local chapter of the National Speleological
Society that focuses on cave preservation and exploration,
and walked into their meeting the following week.
“Everyone kind of stopped and turned and looked at me,”
Jameson recalled about the predominantly white group. “It
was a little awkward, and people asked me if I was in the
right meeting.”
After getting past the initial discomfort, the group invited
Jameson on their next caving excursion.
“My mom was in tears, saying, ‘Please don’t go. This
doesn’t sound like a good idea. It’s not safe for you as a
young Black woman to go underground with a bunch of
white people you don’t know,’” Jameson said.
But Jameson wasn’t deterred. She went down into the
bottom of the sinkhole at Robber Baron Cave in northern
San Antonio and proceeded to enter the mouth of the cave
through an iron gate.
“And you know, my heart’s racing because I’m excited,”
she recounted. “But I’m also really nervous, and my family
filled my head with all these murder stories. And [the other
cavers] look at me and they go, ‘Okay, you first.’”
Despite her trepidation, Jameson’s inner explorer took
over. Her entrance into the cave began a new love affair
with the great outdoors and led to enduring friendships.
In 2018 and 2019, she focused on learning caving tech-
niques. She explored vertical caving (which allows cavers
to go into deeper caves that aren’t accessible without ropes
or gear) and expedition caving (which focuses on discover-
ing, surveying, and cataloging caves for scientific purposes).
Her hobby has taken her around the country and to Mexico.
She also began engaging with more women and people
of color in San Antonio to encourage them to get outside.
She worked with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s
Texas Outdoor Family program, leading mountain biking,
kayaking, and hiking expeditions, increasing leadership
representation along the way. Though she enjoys this work,
she admitted it’s challenging.
“These spaces felt very comfortable for me,” Jameson
said. “And then I realized after doing outreach and taking
other folks of color into these spaces that maybe there’s a
little bit more to dig through. I think that normalizing all of
these amazing activities by representing people who look
like me is important.”
APRIL 2021 57
Normalizing outdoor recreation is something Alex
Bailey and Angelica Holmes think about regularly. The
two outdoors enthusiasts lead Black Outside, a San Anto-
nio-based organization that engages Black youth with
nature through camps and other activities.
A native of Ohio, Bailey made his way to San Antonio
by way of Teach for America. He has formative childhood
memories of gardening with his grandfather and play-
ing outside. As an outdoor educator, he knew bringing
that experience to Black children, who are historically
underserved and underrepresented in outdoor activities,
was essential.
“Being outdoors is a human experience,” Bailey said.
“When I tell our kids that we’ve been outside for thousands
and thousands of years, that it’s wired in your DNA to be
outside, you see an instant connection, you see an instant
spark from the kids.”
Black Outside coordinates a number of programs,
including the CR Bloom Project in San Antonio, which is
an outdoor healing program for Black children with incar-
cerated parents, and Camp Founder Girls, a summer camp
that was established in 1924, but ceased operations in the
1960s. Holmes resurrected the latter in 2019 with a focus
on the outdoors.
“I think the most important thing about Camp Founder
Girls is our four pillars, which are strong, brave, creative,
and confident,” Holmes said. “Once we can check off those
boxes, then we’ve pretty much done our job.”
Bailey and Holmes also acknowledged the trauma Black
Americans associate with the outdoors and the way it
affects their campers.
“One of the pieces of intergenerational trauma that we
live with is the legacy of slavery,” Bailey said. “It taps into our
fears of the outdoors. We have to reclaim that space of what
was taken from us because of white supremacy.”
Once that identity is reclaimed, Bailey and Holmes have
witnessed, there’s joy.

Back on the Violet Crown Trail, the hike with Outdoor

Afro was coming to an end after nearly four hours. Though
many of the creeks and streams were dried up, the lime-
stone rock and greenery seemed to welcome us anyway.
As I hiked up our last hill, I gazed up at the sun shining
over Austin. It struck a markedly beautiful tone, lighting up
the Black faces around me with an ethereal glow. Nichol-
son walked steadily as Fields and I worked on controlling
our breath; Atkins skidded across a bank ever so lightly
as Nteza drifted from side to side; and Micah outpaced us
all, buoyed by the vitality of youth. Other members found
their own rhythm as we walked back to our starting point, Salter leading
the way with the confidence and fearlessness of someone who’s built a
mutual respect with the land.
“I think it’s about us reclaiming and remembering and unlearning what
we’ve been told,” Salter explained to me. “It’s kind of this thing like, ‘Black
people don’t swim.’ We did swim, but to keep us from running away, our
descendants weren’t taught to swim. It has nothing to do with this idea
that we don’t swim. We lost that skill, like we lost our language. We can
reclaim that.”

58 texashighways.com
 FROM LEFT: Black
Outside and Camp
Founder Girls leader
Angelica Holmes;
Micah Salter on a
hike with Outdoor
Afro Austin.

Engage and
Explore
Outdoor Afro
The California-based nonprofit has
outposts in Austin, Dallas, and Hous-
ton, with local leaders organizing
outdoor activities like hikes, kayak-
ing excursions, and fishing trips.
“When I tell our kids that we’ve outdoorafro.com ⁄ locations⁄state ⁄ TX

been outside for thousands and Black Outside Inc.

Based in San Antonio, this organiza-
thousands of years, that it’s wired tion offers two outdoors programs
in your DNA to be outside, you see geared toward youth. Camp Founder
Girls is a Texas summer camp, and CR
an instant connection, you see an Bloom Project is a healing program
for kids of incarcerated parents.
instant spark from the kids.” blackoutside.org

Texas Outdoor Family

The Texas Parks and Wildlife
Department program offers guid-
ance for first-time campers and
We reached the top of the trail, where the gravel exit opened up to rays burgeoning outdoors enthusiasts.
of light and the sounds of weekend road traffic and oncoming hikers, and Scheduled throughout the year, the
workshops are led by rangers and
breathed a sigh of relief. We stopped to chat about the emotions we felt at
cover basics like how to set up a tent
the end of the hike—some felt rested, some felt restored, and others felt
and general safety.
renewed. I felt all of those things, too, but mostly gratitude. Gratitude for tpwd.texas.gov⁄state-parks⁄
the sun, the towering trees, the whistling winds, the whispers of water in programs⁄texas-outdoor-family
the creeks, and the crisp chill of the Texas winter air. Chiefly, I felt grateful
that despite all of the injustice that sought to strip this land from us, it is
still ours—ours to walk, to hike, to claim, and to cherish.

Photos: Jessica Attie (left); Kayla Stewart (right) APRIL 2021 59

 PL ATES

OPT FOR A BOWL

with jerk lamb
ribs from Mi Roti
in San Antonio.

Photo: Eric W. Pohl APRIL 2021 61

PL AT E S | PROFILE
THE JERK SHACK'S
most popular dishes
include (from left)
braised oxtail, jerk
chicken tacos, and jerk
chicken by the pound.
On Island Time
Army veteran and chef Nicola Blaque brings
Caribbean food to San Antonio
By Steven Lindsey
W
hen diners take their
first bite and feel the
slow-burning piquant
peppers, herbs, and
onions dancing on their tongues, they
become immediately addicted. This spic-
iness isn’t coming from one of the city’s
beloved salsas. Instead, it's a careful
blend of ingredients that has made chef
Nicola Blaque’s jerk chicken the stuff
of legend and national acclaim. Yet her
restaurant, The Jerk Shack, remains an
unassuming destination tucked away on
a side street near a cluster of residential
homes in San Antonio's West Side.
Blaque has made it her mission to
introduce her love of Caribbean foods
and flavors to San Antonio. Born in
Mandeville, Jamaica, she came to the
United States with her mother and step-
father when she was 5 years old. As a
military child, she moved around often,
and joined the Army herself when she
turned 18, rising to the rank of staff
sergeant. She spent 10 years in the
62 texashighways.com
military, with two tours in Iraq, one in
Kuwait, and one in Afghanistan.
“While I was in the military, I still had
a love of food, and wherever we went I
was trying to eat whatever the food was
of the culture wherever we were, if it was
Germany, Italy, wherever,” Blaque says.
While stationed in Hawaii, she cooked
for her fellow soldiers to keep some
sense of home alive for the troops during
holidays and other celebratory occasions.
Her passion for cooking gradually went
from a mere spark to a four-alarm blaze.
Her now-husband, Cornelius Massey—an
Army vet and Purple Heart recipient—
asked her what she really wanted to do
after leaving the military. Cooking was
the immediate response.
In 2014, the couple moved from
Hawaii to San Antonio so Blaque could
attend the Culinary Institute of Amer-
ica. They had plans to return to the
islands eventually, but by 2015, Blaque
had started a meal prep company
that became so successful the couple
THE JERK SHACK
117 Matyear St., San Antonio.
210-776-7780
MI ROTI
312 Pearl Parkway, Building 6,
San Antonio.
miroti210.com
couldn’t fathom quitting the business.
They decided to stay in Texas.
Blaque found additional work as a
private chef, which led to her cooking at
the Super Bowl in Houston and catering
gala events and openings around San
Antonio. Rarely, if ever, did she prepare
the food of her Caribbean roots for these
gigs. Then, in late 2017, her aunt passed
away, and she returned to Jamaica for
the funeral.
“I was inspired during that trip when
I tasted some amazing jerk chicken and
jerk pork,” Blaque recalls. “I told my
husband it would be amazing if I could
share this back in San Antonio.”
Less than a year later, in May 2018,
she opened The Jerk Shack. The menu’s
signature items are jerk chicken—
highlighted by Scotch bonnet peppers—
and braised oxtails. Other offerings
include jerk pork, coconut-laced curry
chicken and shrimp, jerk jackfruit, and
fried jerk wings nestled atop mac and
cheese. In true San Antonio fashion, the
Photo: Eric W. Pohl
proteins on the menu can be made into
tacos. Caribbean soft drinks, including
a grapefruit-flavored soda called Ting,
add to the experience at the window-
service restaurant.
“She chose the [location for] The Jerk
Shack from the pure sense of it feeling
like a jerk stop in her home in Jamaica,”
Massey says.
In mid-2019, national dining news
website Eater.com voted The Jerk Shack
one of the top 16 restaurants in Amer-
ica—one of only three in Texas to make
the cut—and the crowds of hungry diners
became bigger and more enthusiastic
than ever before. The accolades kept
rolling in from local and state publica-
tions. Then in March 2020, GQ honored
The Jerk Shack as one of the best new
restaurants in America, heaping praise
on the tiny establishment and calling it
“the finest Caribbean fare in the Lone
Star State—maybe anywhere.”
By the time the story was published,
Blaque was eight months pregnant in the
middle of a global pandemic. She was


 
 


poised to launch a brand-new Caribbean
concept restaurant, Mi Roti, at The Pearl,
a stylish shopping and dining destina-
tion in San Antonio. Mi Roti’s debut was
The Capital of the Texas Hill Country!
postponed to July to give Blaque a brief
maternity leave, but on opening day she
was back in her chef’s coat, ready to
present her beloved island flavors in a
new way.
Mi Roti offers a lighter, fresher take on
Caribbean cuisine with a menu of wraps
and bowls that can be filled or topped
with a variety of veggies, sauces, and
proteins like jerk chicken, grilled steak,
pork belly, and curry goat.
“Jamaican food is heavy and saucy,”
Blaque says. “Although it’s made with
fresh ingredients, a lot of the cuisine is
stewed. Mi Roti represents more than
just Jamaica, but touches a little bit on all
the islands.”
Riverside Nature Center
Her interpretation of Caribbean food The Coming King Sculpture Garden Museum of Western Art
unites tradition with innovation, trends,
and a food culture that always craves
something different. Just don’t use the
word “authentic” to describe her dishes. KerrvilleTexasCVB.com • 800-221-7958
“I don’t like the word,” Blaque says.

APRIL 2021 63
PL AT E S | PROFILE
“Authentic is something you do at
home with your mom. I’m a chef,
a trained chef, so I’ve the elevated
cuisine with traditional twists, but
they’re not authentic.” Each day she
and her staff make about 250 roti
[flatbread cooked on a griddle] and
between 50 and 100 pounds of jerk
chicken. “If this were authentic, it
would be just a few pieces on the grill,”
Blaque explains.
She has been able to keep both
businesses in operation and her
staff employed during the COVID-19
pandemic. Now she’s focusing on a
new location of The Jerk Shack, open-
ing this summer on the far West Side of
San Antonio. The reimagined concept
CHEF NICOLA will feature an expanded menu, both
BLAQUE owns The
indoor and outdoor dining, a full bar, a
Jerk Shack and Mi
Roti in San Antonio. drive-thru, and curbside pickup.
It’s all part of Blaque's plan to share
her love of Caribbean cooking with as
64 texashighways.com
many people as possible, even while
juggling the responsibilities of being a
business owner, chef, wife, and mother
to her 19-year-old stepson and 1-year-
old son. She still works as a private chef
in the evenings after being at one or
both restaurants all day.
“When you have two kids, two
restaurants, are building a new restau-
rant, creating new concepts and
menus, and still find time to create and
cook in the evening, I’m certain she
straddles the line between passion and
addiction,” Massey says.
Blaque says she tries to find balance
in her busy schedule despite feeling
overwhelmed at times. "I just try again
the next day," she says. "I was born in
Jamaica, and I’m the first generation
here, so creating something that I can
leave for my kids is very important to
me. A little extra hard work is not too
much for me. It’s all worth it.”
 PL AT E S | IN THE FIELD

CLOCKWISE FROM
LEFT: Crawfish are
typically prepared
in a boil; rice fields
serve as farms for
crawfish; Karen and
Charlie Reneau of
Reneau Mudbugs.

W
hether you call them an efficient use of land: they thrive in the
crawfish, crayfish, same conditions, and their production
crawdads, or mudbugs, cycles can be alternated seasonally.

Snug As these feisty little fresh-

water crustaceans are beloved by grow-
ing numbers of Texans. Though craw-
fish are typically associated with Loui-
“There has been an unbelievable—
almost absurd—increase in demand
for crawfish, just in the few short years
we’ve been doing it,” Karen Reneau says.

a Bug siana's Cajun cuisine, demand for them

has increased exponentially around the
state over the past few years as more
The retired elementary school principal
joined her husband, Charlie Reneau, and
son, Will Reneau, in 2015 to run Reneau

in the Texans learn about the joys of convivial

crawfish boils and restaurant feasts. But
where does this burgeoning supply come
from, and how do crawfish get from their
Mudbugs in Fannett. They're raising
crawfish on 600 of their 1,800 acres
of rice fields in Jefferson County. Most
of her customers are local, but she also

Mud native muddy habitats to restaurants and

Crawfish farmers share how
the tiny crustaceans go
from rice fields to boils
By MM Pack
countless backyard festivities?
You may not think of crawfish as a
crop, but the majority are raised on farms,
most often alongside rice in the same
periodically flooded fields in Louisiana
and adjacent Southeast Texas. Respond-
ing to market demands, more and more
rice farmers are incorporating red swamp
crawfish into their crop rotations. The
symbiosis of rice and crawfish makes for
sells to a Houston wholesaler.
Crawfish are aquatic animals; in the
wild they live in wet areas like swamps
and bayous. During the drier summer
season, they dig vertical burrows about 3
feet deep where they hatch their young,
emerging again to feed and grow with
the return of wetter weather.
When French-speaking Acadians
came to Louisiana in the mid-1700s,
they found Native Americans catching

Photos: Eric W. Pohl APRIL 2021 65

 PL AT E S | IN THE FIELD

Buy Local
Crawfish
Consider buying directly
from a farm for your
next crawfish boil. “You
can buy crawfish from
grocery stores,” Charlie
Reneau of Reneau
Mudbugs says. “But if
you want the freshest,
cleanest, best-tasting
crawfish, buy them from
a farmer.” Generally, the
minimum purchase from
farmers is one sack,
which is enough to feed
6-10 people. Call to
order or reach out via
their respective
Facebook pages.

Bayou Best Crawfish

19200 SH 105,
Sour Lake.
409-782-5892

Texas Crawdaddy’s Inc.

401 S. FM 1410,
Winnie.
409-296-2190
Prickly Pear
Watercolor Reneau Mudbugs
Print Order 5756 Burrell Loop,
$35.95 | 32234B Online Beaumont.
SHOP.TEXAS 409-782-3774
HIGHWAYS.COM

66 texashighways.com
 JAKE
TORTORICE III owns
Bayou Best Crawfish
in Sour Lake.
crustaceans with game meat threaded
on reeds. The Acadians recognized these
as small cousins to the saltwater lobsters
they’d known in Canada. Until World
War II, crawfish consumption was strictly
among rural families, but improve-
ments in cold storage and transportation
created small commercial markets. By
the 1960s, crawfish morphed from wild
subsistence food to cultivated staple.
An influx of Cajuns into Southeast Texas
during the early-20th-century oil boom
popularized their cuisine across the
Sabine River, and crawfish farming took
hold in the region’s rice fields. After
1975, Vietnamese Texans, especially in
Houston, created additional consumer
demand. Despite the increase in Texas
crawfish farming, the state remains a
distant second to Louisiana—industry
experts estimate Louisiana accounts for
90% of U.S. production.
“I sell everything I can get,” says Shane
Chesson, the owner of Texas Crawdaddy’s
Inc. in Winnie. He's been farming crawfish
since 2000. “I have so many custom-
Photo: Eric W. Pohl
“There has been an
unbelievable—almost
absurd—increase in
demand for crawfish,
just in the few
short years we've
been doing it."
ers, I have to buy from other farmers.
We supply restaurants in Austin, Waco,
Houston, San Antonio, and South Texas.”
To raise crawfish, rice fields are
flooded in October. As crawfish emerge
from burrows in the fall and winter,
farmers stake baited traps 40 to 60 feet
apart in the shallow water. Between
January and Easter, traps are baited
with a fish called pogy. Once the waters
reach about 65 degrees, farmers switch
to manufactured bait cubes that don’t
deteriorate in warmer water.
During harvest, farmers travel down
rows in continuously moving flat-bottom
boats. They pull each trap, empty out
the crawfish, rebait the trap, and stake
it back in the water before reaching the
next trap in the row. It’s rhythmic, inten-
sive labor that requires dexterity, coordi-
nation, and upper-body strength. Jake
Tortorice III of Bayou Best Crawfish in
Sour Lake says his crew of 15 harvests up
to 10,000 traps a day from 1,900 acres
of rice fields. “You wouldn’t want to
arm-wrestle one of these guys,” he says.
Along with so many food industries,
2020 pandemic restrictions caused big
problems for crawfish farmers. “When
restaurants shut down, I lost about
30% of my business,” Tortorice says.
“We started selling smaller amounts of
already-boiled crawfish because people
couldn’t get them from restaurants and
they couldn’t gather in sizable groups
for boils. But I’m hopeful that for the
2021 season, people will be able to have
larger family crawfish boils and eat in
restaurants again.”
APRIL 2021 67
 PL AT E S | DRINK
Fire Brand
Wild Bunch Brewing Co. uses a historic brewing
F
ire brewing is one of the oldest
forms of beer production in
the world, and one of the few
commercial breweries in the
U.S. using this historic technique is in Red
Rock, just east of Lockhart. There, Wild
Bunch Brewing Co. creates flavorful beer
cooked over an open flame like a batch
of oatmeal.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, all
beer was brewed over an open flame,
from the earliest recorded beers in
68 texashighways.com
technique rarely seen in modern times
By Ruvani de Silva
ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia to those
brewed by George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson. Like horseback riding,
fire brewing, also known as direct firing,
was once ubiquitous but is now a niche
pursuit requiring the deft and dedicated
hand of someone as passionate and
precise as Wild Bunch co-owner and
head brewer Jarle Lillemoen.
A native of Norway, Lillemoen began
dabbling in homebrewing while pursu-
ing a doctorate in biochemistry at the
WILD BUNCH
BREWING CO.
Taproom is open
Sat-Sun, 3-9 p.m.
1764 Taylorsville Road,
Red Rock.
wildbunchbrewery.com
University of Texas at Austin in the 1990s.
“Of course, brewing and biochemistry
have a long history together,” he says.
“In fact, the science of biochemistry was
born with Louis Pasteur’s work in discov-
ering enzymes while he was working on
understanding the process of fermenta-
tion in beermaking.”
Lillemoen employs his biochemis-
try skills in fire brewing, which can be
more difficult than standard brewing
techniques. Most brewers prefer the
 JARLE LILLEMOEN
shows off his fire-
brewing equipment
and serves beer from
a takeout window.

consistency and temperature control

offered by modern steam and electri-
cal equipment. “The direct flame is very
hot and requires a lot of attention as you
could potentially burn the mash or the
wort,” Lillemoen says. “But the beauty of
direct-fire brewing is that you get a small
amount of caramelization, and that adds
a wonderful flavor to the beer.”
Curious drinkers can get a taste of
Wild Bunch’s rare brews at its rural
tasting room. The small gray clapboard
taproom and corrugated metal brew-
house sit behind a beer garden filled
with picnic tables and a wooden stage.
A sign leading to the brewery cheekily
announces the taproom is open until
“dark-thirty.”
Beers are dispensed through a service
window or hand-delivered to the table
in Mason jars. Choose from seven brews
across a range of styles. The gloriously
honeyed Waterhole Gold and pine
forest-fragrant Red Rock Wild IPA are
staples. If you’re lucky, you might find a
seasonal selection brewed with straw-
berry, watermelon, or prickly pear.
Wild Bunch has built a community of
dedicated regulars from the Red Rock
area and further afield, while draw-
ing new customers who want to try
this unconventional style of beer. “It’s
a great place for people to get together
and socialize,” brewery bartender Jerry
Dodgem says. “And our views are next to
none out there.”

Photos: Eric W. Pohl APRIL 2021 69

 TEXANA
F
ilmmaker King Vidor was
only 6 years old when he
survived the deadliest natu-
ral disaster in U.S. history.
The Great Galveston Storm
of 1900 nearly wiped out his hometown
and claimed an estimated 8,000 lives.
It also left Vidor with a moment that he
said “influenced me throughout my life.”
As his family found shaky refuge in the
house of a friend, Vidor heard power-
ful singing coming from another room,
which was packed with about 40 African
Americans. “They even had segregation
under those conditions,” he recalled in
a 1976 interview. “It was facing death
about as close as you can face it. … The
impressions of people praying and the
Black people singing spirituals and
hymns never left me.”
The theme of inner strength and per-
sonal expression in the midst of conflict,
both physical and social, runs through
many of Vidor’s films—from Our Daily
Bread (1934), about a farm coopera-
tive during the Great Depression; to
the ambitious and sweeping War and
Peace (1956), based on the novel by Leo
Tolstoy. The latter garnered Vidor his
fifth and final Oscar nomination for
THE FILM DAILY, a
best director.
New York publication, “King Vidor was a master of the inti-
featured King Vidor on mate epic,” says Brian Gannon, direc-
one of its covers in 1919.
tor of the Austin Film Commission. “At
the time, directors were hired guns, but
Vidor was one of the few enigmas within
the studio system, as he was able to pro-

From Galveston duce fairly personal projects with ease.”

Vidor was born in Galveston in 1894—
the year the public first paid money to

to Hollywood see a motion picture in the U.S.—and he

King Vidor was a pioneer among Texas filmmakers
By Michael Corcoran
grew up right alongside this new form
of art and entertainment. As a 15-year-
old, Vidor worked as a ticket-taker at
Galveston’s Globe Theater, situated in the
back of a music store on Market Street.
When the projectionist went on break,
Vidor took over the cramped booth, hyp-

70 texashighways.com Photo: Courtesy

PHPPHty Ray Chapa
The(left);
FilmTosh Brown (right)
Daily/Wikimedia
notized by the flickering of light.
He became obsessed with finding a
camera to make his own movies when
his friend George Roy Clough—who
would later become Galveston’s mayor—
built one from cigar boxes and old pro-
jector parts. In September 1909, the two
were filming as a storm surge lifted a
bathhouse from its pilings and crashed
the building onto the street. The short
clip was shown in Texas movie theaters
as a newsreel.
“School classes became progressively
less interesting, and I was impatient to
get started on this new profession,” Vidor
wrote in his 1953 autobiography, A Tree
is a Tree.
Vidor dropped out of high school to
become the Texas stringer for the Mutual
Weekly newsreel company, which was
based in New York. His first assignment
was to document the longest march of
massed U.S. Army troops ever—11,000
soldiers—from Galveston to Houston in
1912, a mobilization prompted by the
Mexican Revolution.
Vidor started his first film company,
Hotex, in Houston in 1915, about the
same time he fell in love with Florence
Arto, a local actress. Before long, they
married and set off for Hollywood
together. It wasn’t exactly the career path
envisioned by Vidor’s father, Charles
Shelton Vidor, who had hoped his only
son would take over his lumber business.
The business prospered for a while—
even resulting in the East Texas town of
Vidor being named for C.S. Vidor. (While
the town is pronounced like “cider,”
the family pronounced its name “VEE-
dor.”) Later, when the lumber business
faltered, C.S. decided to join his son in
Hollywood, where he helped build the
Vidor Village studio.
King Vidor directed his first feature,
The Turn in the Road, in 1919. The box
office hit was a story of spiritual quest
based on tenets of Vidor’s Christian
Science upbringing. For the next four
decades, until his final feature, Solomon
and Sheba, in 1959, Vidor directed epics,
comedies, musicals, and dramas with
equal proficiency, letting the material

APRIL 2021 71
TEXANA
A King Vidor
Movie Primer
Texas-born King Vidor, who made
over 50 movies in his 40-year career
directing feature films, was known
for his ability to draw insight from the
stories of ordinary people. To get a
feel for Vidor’s work, check out some
of his most memorable films.
The Champ (1931)
The story follows a washed-up
alcoholic boxer who comes out
of retirement for one last shot at
redemption in the eyes of his son.
Stella Dallas (1937)
Barbara Stanwyck was nominated for
a best actress Oscar for her role as a
working-class mother who neglects
her own needs for the happiness of
her social-climbing daughter, played
by Anne Shirley, an Oscar nominee for
best supporting actress.
The Fountainhead (1949)
With Ayn Rand adapting the
script from her novel about an
uncompromising architect, this film
is noted for Vidor’s stylized urban
imagery and the sexual tension
between stars Gary Cooper and
Patricia Neal.
Ruby Gentry (1952)
Jennifer Jones stars as a woman
scorned by townspeople as a “gold
digger” after her rich husband dies in
a boating accident. Jones’ character
uses her inheritance for vengeance
and to try and rekindle a romance
with an ex-boyfriend.
72 texashighways.com
dictate the style. He was “a poet of the
American landscape” according to a 1972
appreciation in The New York Times. But
his films were also deeply personal.
Ordinary people doing extraordinary
things was a Vidor trademark. The Big
Parade, for example, was the first war
movie about GIs, not generals or presi-
dents. The 1925 picture was the highest-
grossing film of the silent era and estab-
lished MGM as a major studio. Four years
later, The Crowd, about seeking identity
in the rat race, earned Vidor an Oscar
nomination in the first year the awards
were given.
Vidor’s subsequent film, Hallelujah,
fulfilled his longtime dream of mak-
ing a motion picture about the African
American experience, with an all-Black
cast. This had never before been done
in Hollywood, whose biggest musical
attraction in the late ’20s was Al Jolson
singing in blackface.
“The environment of my youth in my
father’s East Texas sawmill towns had
left many indelible memories of the
colored man,” Vidor wrote in his auto-
biography. He recalled attending Black
river baptisms as a boy, and no doubt he
heard the raucous parties inside the
barrelhouses built in remote logging
camps. The dueling themes of sin and
Illustration: MGM/Wikimedia; Photo: John Springer Collection/Getty Images
KING VIDOR, standing in
the dark jacket, on the
set of La Bohème, a 1926
silent film co-starring
Lillian Gish, seated.
salvation found in blues and spirituals
promised the dramatic content Vidor
was always looking for in his films.
Hollywood studios initially shot down
Vidor’s idea for an all-Black film, in part
because of limited screening oppor-
tunities during the Jim Crow era. But
with sound coming to movies in 1927,
Vidor re-pitched the project as a musi-
cal that would feature the gospel, jazz,
and blues popular at the time. After he
offered to forgo his $100,000 fee until
the movie earned a profit, he received
studio approval from MGM and made
Hallelujah in 1929.
A triumph of Vidor’s career was his
deft transition from silent movies to
“talkies.” The advent of sound changed
filmmaking in the late ’20s, with more
talking and less action. Movie cameras
had to be encased in wooden boxes so
the microphones wouldn’t pick up their
whirring sound. Therefore, they didn’t
move. Vidor filmed Hallelujah on loca-
tion in Arkansas and Memphis without
sound because there were no mobile
sound units available. He dubbed in the
dialogue and music later. Vidor said that
although the post-production synchroni-
zation was a nightmare, the film proved
the potential of talking pictures.
It turned out the studio had been right
about limited distribution, however, and
Hallelujah did not make money. But the
film earned the Texan another Oscar
nomination for best director, and today
Hallelujah is regarded as a landmark
in cinema.
Ironically, Vidor received no official
acknowledgement for his most-watched
work—the black-and-white scenes in
The Wizard of Oz (1939). While director
Victor Fleming was called away to work
on Gone With the Wind, Vidor shot Judy
Garland singing “Over the Rainbow”
from angles that underlined the sense of
yearning. Vidor wasn’t credited because
the Screen Directors Guild—which Vidor
helped organize in 1936 before serving
as its first president—issued guidelines
giving sole credit to the hired director.
Though Texas can boast such great
directors as Robert Benton, Terrence
Malick, Richard Linklater, Robert
Rodriguez, and Wes Anderson, Vidor has
to be considered the king of Texas film-
makers for his historical significance and
wide range of subjects.
Throughout his career, he never forgot
the display of inner strength that buoyed
his spirits as a young boy facing the
devastation of the 1900 hurricane. “The
moving picture camera approximates
the consciousness that everyone has,”
he said in a 1973 retrospective. “We look
out through the eyes and we take in the
whole universe; we can do something
about it.”

Vidor in Austin
The Harry Ransom Center at the
University of Texas at Austin holds
a collection of King Vidor materials
donated by the director in 1941, when he
lectured on moviemaking for the drama
department. The scripts, photos, props,
sketches, studio memos, and other
production materials came from the
film he directed that year, H.M. Pulham,
Esquire. Also in the collection
is a script for Vidor’s 1936 film,
The Texas Rangers. hrc.utexas.edu

APRIL 2021 73
 T HE DAYTRIPPER’S TOP 5

Guadalupe Mountains
National Park
On the edge of Texas
BY C H E T G A R N E R

In all of Texas’ 268,597 square miles, there are only two outdoorsy national parks:
Big Bend, known far and wide for its rugged border landscape; and Guadalupe
Mountains, which features Texas’ tallest peak. Visitors who make the trip to far West
Texas to visit the Guadalupes are rewarded with some of the most stunning sights
in the state.

Pine Springs Visitor Center
No matter what adventure lies ahead,
start here—not only to get a permit and
let the rangers know where you’re head-
ed, but also to learn about the park’s
amazing diversity. Interpretive displays
cover the plants, animals, and history
found in the Chihuahuan Desert and
the mountain range, an ancient fossil
reef. Plenty of taxidermied animals on
display show what you might encounter
in the park. And don’t miss the paved
Pinery Trail behind the center, which
serves as an educational warmup.
Guadalupe Peak
Summiting the state’s highest peak and
standing on the “Top of Texas” isn’t for
the faint of heart. This 8.4-mile round
trip is marked by 3,000 feet of elevation
gain, numerous false summits, and the
ever-present perils of cacti, snakes,
and scorpions. After winding through
the dry lowland desert, the trail takes
hikers through pine forest and grassy
valleys. Three to five hours in, hikers
get to stand 8,751 feet above Texas and
look out over its Lone Star grandeur.
McKittrick Canyon
At the northeastern edge of the park lies
an area described as the “most beau-
tiful spot in Texas.” This tree-covered
canyon is a treasure trove for birders,
wildlife watchers, and plant lovers. In the
spring, flowering prickly pear cacti and
wildflowers paint the hills in stunning
colors. Hikers can choose between short
loops and tough climbs that give trekkers
a view of the entire canyon. The small
open cavern called the “Grotto” is an
especially great spot to grab a snack and
rest a minute.
Frijole Ranch Cultural Museum
This outlying pioneer site engenders
appreciation for how easy life is now-
adays. Ranchers first settled this area
on the south side of the Guadalupe
Mountains in 1876, but evidence shows
Native Americans used the nearby springs
for centuries. The ranch changed hands
a number of times before J.C. Hunter Jr.,
an oilman from Abilene, inherited it. He
purchased additional land and then sold it
all to the National Park Service in 1966 at
a bargain price. The historic stone ranch
house and small red schoolhouse date to
the late 1800s.
Salt Basin Dunes
Visiting this under-traveled yet beautiful
destination—featuring windswept gypsum
sand dunes and the towering Guadalupe
Mountains as a backdrop—feels like land-
ing on an alien planet. Dunes nearly 60
feet high lured me into an epic tuck-and-
roll tumble to the bottom. I highly recom-
mend it, if you don’t mind shaking sand
out of your clothes for the rest of the day.

So whether you follow my footsteps or forge your own path,

I hope to see you on the road.

Chet Garner is the host of The Daytripper® travel show on PBS.

To view the Guadalupe Mountains National Park episode visit thedaytripper.com.
Follow along on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @chettripper.

74 texashighways.com
SPEAKING OF TEXAS | B E N M A S T E R S
Lights, Camera, Wildlife
Ben Masters goes a Texas mile to capture the state’s iconic species and landscapes
By Melissa Gaskill
B
en Masters makes films celebrating the
wilderness of Texas, propelled by rivet-
ing scenes of adventure and cinematic “It’s not if
grandeur. For 2015’s Unbranded, he and we can do it,
three other men rode mustangs 3,000 miles from but if we
Mexico to Canada. In 2018’s The Return of the Desert decide to do it.
Bighorn, he documented the reintroduction of the To allow
rugged sheep to West Texas. In 2019’s The River and ocelots, our
the Wall, his hardy crew journeyed by bicycle, horse, most beautiful
and canoe along the Rio Grande from El Paso to the species, to just
Gulf of Mexico. dwindle away
Masters’ latest work, American Ocelot, tells the is not an
story of the country’s most endangered wildcat. option. People
Ocelots still live in Central and South America, but want them;
in the U.S. their range has dwindled to South Texas, let’s bring
where fewer than 100 live in Cameron and Willacy them back.”
counties. American Ocelot follows biologists who
study the spotted cats in an attempt to capture the
first high-quality footage of wild ocelots ever taken in
this country. Spoiler alert: They succeed.
Illustration: Jordi Ferrándiz
Masters, who was born and raised in Amarillo,
studied wildlife biology at Texas A&M University and
now lives with his wife and daughter in the state’s
filmmaking hub of Austin. The 32-year-old describes
Deep in the Heart, his project due for completion next
year, as a wildlife documentary with grand ambitions
worthy of his home state—a Planet Earth for Texas.
TH: How did you spend your time growing up in
Amarillo?
BM: I come from a ranching and farming family, and
my dad often took me hunting. I became fascinated
with the species that you don’t hunt. I have been
known to do more birdwatching than deer hunting
in the blind.
TH: How have you seen Amarillo change since your
childhood?
BM: There are a bunch of windmills up there now,
but the people are still pretty much the same.
APRIL 2021 75
The canyons are the same. There’s still a
lot of agriculture and not enough water
in the aquifer. I’d say it hasn’t changed
that much.
TH: What did you enjoy most about
studying biology at Texas A&M?
BM: I’d always been fascinated with
nature, but I got to learn about the his-
tory of conservation in the state of Texas
and the country as a whole. Texas has
changed so much, and a lot of those
changes are positive. Look at where we
are now with big charismatic megafauna.
There are so many more bison and big-
horn sheep, mule deer, pronghorn. We
have figured out how to recover so many
species. Some species, such as the ocelot
and Texas horned lizard, will be harder to
bring back. But we have success we can
point to, living proof that we can do it.
TH: How did you get into making films
about wildlife and the outdoors?
A: I started making movies right out of
college, and I saw that movies have a real
ability to create change and inspire folks.
I did a lot of short films for different con-
servation organizations, to help them get
support and recognition for their resto-
ration efforts. I feel fortunate to get to do
what I love and help out organizations
that are doing amazing things.
TH: Your work has taken you across
much of the state. If you had to pick
a favorite Texas vacation spot, where
would it be?
BM: I don’t want people to go there, so
I’m not going to say… Seriously, though,
floating any river, especially the stretch-
es where people don’t go very often. The
Nueces, the Frio, the Colorado below
Austin. We’re a state of rivers.
TH: Which of your films has been the
most difficult to make?
BM: There are different kinds of chal-
lenges. Some come in the field—footage
of ocelots was definitely the hardest to
get. Getting a story right is also really
difficult. I think I did a good job with The
River and the Wall, showing the poten-
76 texashighways.com
tial effects of the border wall without
being too partisan and with respect for
multiple viewpoints.
TH: What was most challenging about
filming along the Rio Grande?
BM: We got in a massive canoe wreck
on Upper Madison Falls—canoes turn-
ing over, stuff washing up in Mexico. It
was a full-on disaster. We got enough of
our stuff back to keep going. The most
rewarding thing on that trip was just to
see so many of the people who live on
the border, to hear their perspectives.
The landscape was absolutely awesome.
There are a lot of special rivers in Texas,
but nothing like the Rio Grande.
TH: Why do you take a character-driven
approach in your films?
BM: Because people connect with peo-
ple. Most of our films tell a story or issue
through a character, someone looking at
something larger than who they are. In
American Ocelot, professor Mike Tewes,
biologist Hilary Swarts, and rancher Neal
Wilkins allowed us to tell audiences the
challenges that ocelots face as a species,
as well as recovery methods we could be
employing to help bring them back.
TH: What drew you to ocelots?
BM: Filming The River and the Wall,
we were looking into the effects a wall
would have on wildlife. I had assumed
that it was going to have a great impact
on ocelots here because they would not
be able to cross between populations
in Mexico and Texas. But when we got
down there, and I started seeing the
habitat myself, I realized it was a lot
more complex, that there was mystery
and misinformation about the cats out
there. I also found it really fascinating
that this species, the most beautiful one
we have in this country, had never been
documented well on video, ever.
TH: How did you manage to capture the
footage of ocelots?
BM: We had custom camera traps made
by a guy in the U.K., then had to cus-
tomize them for South Texas brush and
develop a triggering system to turn them
on when the ocelots came by. It took a lot
of trial and error to figure out where the
ocelots were and the right camera system
to capture them. It was a big team effort.
TH: In the film, you have a strong reac-
tion to footage of two kittens. What
emotions were you feeling?
BM: We knew there was one kitten
because we got earlier video of the mom
carrying it around, but we didn’t know
there were two. We had been fighting
false triggers, moisture, bad batteries—
we had so many problems with our cam-
era traps. To finally get not only a shot,
but one of a mom and two kittens, in
the daytime—it was one of the greatest
moments I will ever have in my life.
TH: What are your thoughts about the
future of ocelots in Texas?
BM: Across the world, there have been
successful reintroductions of felines—
Canada lynx in Colorado, Iberian lynx
in Spain, panthers in Florida. It’s not if
we can do it, but if we decide to do it.
All the pieces are there. To allow our
most beautiful species to just continue
to dwindle away is not an option. I hope
landowners realize the gift they can
give to the world by allowing people to
research and continue to conserve that
brush habitat. Historically, ocelots were
in East Texas, Central Texas, along our
coast and rivers. People want to live
alongside wildlife. People want them;
let’s bring them back.
Ben Masters’ latest movie, American
Ocelot, debuted in December on the virtual
Wild Texas Film Tour. It will be available
online this spring. Find details on the film’s
release and Masters’ other work on
his website, benmasters.com.
Texas Highways (ISSN 0040-4349) is published monthly by the
Texas Department of Transportation, 150 E. Riverside Drive,
Austin, Texas 78704; phone 512-486-5858, fax 512-486-5879.
The official travel magazine of Texas encourages travel within the
state and tells the Texas story to readers around the world.
Periodicals Postage paid at Austin, Texas, and additional mailing
offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Texas Highways
Circulation, P.O. Box 8559, Big Sandy, Texas 75755-8559.
 VINTAGE
BY JAC DARSNEK, TRACES OF TEXAS

Holding Court
SAN ANTONIO, CIRCA 1904

F
rom the 1860s to the late 1930s, food vendors proliferated in San Antonio’s plazas. The mostly
female vendors were known as “chili queens” because of the savory fare they served from
dusk until dawn. Appearing in the evening after the produce vendors and hay wagons had
departed for the day, the chili queens presided over sometimes raucous scenes as boisterous, gossiping
customers lined up at long tables illuminated by oil lamps. This image, which was included in a 1904
photo album sold by merchants W.F. Crothers & Co., shows a chili queen with her family in Haymarket
Plaza. Located just southwest of today’s Milam Park in the area of Farmers Market Plaza, Haymarket
Plaza was displaced in the 1950s by the construction of Interstate 35. Stephen Crane, the famed
author of The Red Badge of Courage, visited the Alamo City in 1895 and described a scene of “Mexican
vendors with open-air stands [and] food that tastes exactly like pounded fire-brick from Hades—chili
con carne, tamales, enchiladas, chili verde, frijoles.” Pounded fire-brick from Hades? Let’s eat!

Know of any fascinating vintage Texas photographs? Send copies or ideas to tracesoftxphotos@gmail.com
Photo: General Photograph Collection, University of Texas at San Antonio Special Collections