Texas Highways Magazine December 2015

Oh, the places we will go this season—shopping for this and that, holiday partying here and there, up the attic ladder for lights and ornaments, and back to the store for more. But where to go to catch that Christmas spirit? Across the state, holiday memories await at Christmas tree farms, ice-skating rinks, lighting displays, Las Posadas processions, and plentiful parades, pageants, and plays. Unwrap a few of our favorite Yuletide travel ideas in this issue, from Galveston’s Winter Wonder Island, with its Dickensian spin on the season, to Amarillo Botanical Gardens aglow. And who can resist the architectural gems in Waxahachie’s “Gingerbread City” this—or any—time of year? Seeking some Christmas merriment while drafting this column on a 95-degree day in October, I checked in with Chuck Lee of Ovilla, who we…

I do believe the fork nicked the screen on my iPad. Dang that looks tasty! RAUL RUIZ, Kuwait City OUR FAVORITE SOCIAL MEDIA OF THE MONTH... Got our Comfort Food copy, and we intend to eat our way across Texas! Celeste Hardy Newton, Liberty My grandma was known for her delicious kolaches. Wish I had learned to make them. S.A. Williamson, Gonzales I view this #TxTop40 list of best burgers as more of a To Do list. Leann Guzman, @LDFGuzman Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram Taste Memories “Let Them Eat Fruitcake” [November] brought back many happy memories. My grandfather, Lewis Griffin (Grif) Compton, worked at the Collin Street Bakery when it was actually on Collin Street, from 1896 until his death in 1956. All the grandkids waited excitedly to see him walking across the high school…

Prairies and Lakes With accumulated snowfall, this hill near the corner of North Hampton and North Plymouth roads in Dallas’ Stevens Park Golf Course draws fun-seekers. When it’s not snowing, nearby scenic walks lure joggers and walkers. The 1.25-mile Coombs Creek Trail leads east from the golf course through Kessler Parkway Park along a pecan- and oakshaded path, where wildflowers bloom in spring. Farther to the east, the 4.6-mile Trinity Skyline Trail provides hikers and bikers with views of the Trinity River and downtown Dallas. For more information on scenic trails in Dallas, visitwww.dallasparks.org/149/Trails.…

Though you will not be running cattle like a real cowboy does, you will ride hard and perhaps walk a bit bowlegged after the first day. “WHAT I LOVE MOST ABOUT THIS RANCH,” says horseback guide Missy Cantrell as a wasp lands on the wide brim of her cowboy hat, “is the stewardship of the land. The owners are maintaining the integrity of a working cattle ranch when fewer and fewer ranches are raising cattle.” As I look west over the rolling blue and green mountain ridges toward Fort Davis—an awe-inducing view comparable to that from Big Bend’s South Rim—I understand why stewarding this corner of paradise would be near to Cantrell’s heart. Cantrell, her friend Margaret O’Donnell, and I are having a picnic lunch at 6,500 feet, on the rocky red…

THE HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY made history in 1952 with the publication of a novel called Sironia, Texas. At 840,000 words, the book’s two volumes made up what was believed to be the longest novel in the English language at the time, dwarfing both Gone with the Wind (500,000 words) and War and Peace (670,000 words). Sironia and its multigenerational tale of early 20th-Century Southern aristocracy made a national stir as a New York Times bestseller and winner of the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award. But nowhere did the novel garner as much attention as in Waco, the hometown of the book’s reclusive author, Madison Cooper Jr., who had written the entire 1,731 pages in secret. From the day it was published, many Wacoans believed the setting to be a thinly disguised version…

THE RECENT BESTOWING OF WORLD Heritage Site status to San Antonio’s five missions—the first attractions in Texas to receive this honor—has ensured an increase in the city’s already steady pilgrimage of visitors. And while touring the missions calls for a certain reverence, selecting a souvenir in the gift shop afterwards need not require such gravitas. And yet … do you really want to visit these Texas icons and then settle for a dinky refrigerator magnet? A flimsy postcard? A fragile coffee mug? Consider instead the Posy Collection’s Tex-centric needlework kits. Available at about a dozen parks and historic sites across the state, including the Alamo gift shop, the kits allow visitors to prolong the travel experience and to imbue a little bit of themselves into their keepsakes. “REMEMBER THE ALAMO” REDWORK KIT is for…