Texas Highways Magazine January 2016

A new year. A fresh start. And for many of us, a mostly open engagement calendar. Now’s the time to book an adventure or two in 2016 before that daily to-do list takes over. And while you’re at it, consider adding a couple of extra days to take the long way there. That’s certainly TH Associate Editor Ma. Joyce’s MO, whether he’s exploring the Panhandle for a story on Dust Bowl history, wandering the Piney Woods for a piece on the Timber Trail, or pulling the family camper on a road trip to the coast. This month, our resident Clark Griswold shares his recent westward excursion on US 90 from Bracke. ville to Sanderson, along which he discovered refreshing Fort Clark Springs, mysterious Pecos River rock art, and the land of…

30º 35’ 35.05” N 103º 56’ 36.96” W Inside Davis Mountains State Park at the end of Park Road 3, the historic Indian Lodge hotel offers spectacular views of the park, including this Keesey Canyon vista taken from a walkway on the east side. Constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, the lodge is a stunning building of adobe blocks and hand-hewn pine beams tucked into the hillside. For more information on Indian Lodge, visitwww.tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/indian-lodge. To order a print of this photograph, call 866/962-1191, or visit www.texashighwaysprints.com.…

GOT SOMETHING TO SAY? OUR FAVORITE SOCIAL MEDIA OF THE MONTH... Mary’s Cafe in Strawn is the best! Used to tell the Mrs. we were going hunting. But that was just an excuse to stop in Strawn for chicken-fried steak! Lewis Griffin I’m VERY disappointed that the November comfort food issue isn’t scratch & sniff. Christopher Wilson, @CDub06 Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram Good for the Hearth I have enjoyed campfires [December] in many places and with many people. One favorite was a night alone on our acreage with just my two dogs— one little poodle snuggling on a cot with me and the other sleeping under my cot. We had a tree stump to burn as we cleared the property. I dozed but mostly was awake enjoying the peace and night sounds around…

STYLLE READ TOOK AN INTEREST IN re-creating old-time Texas with colorful artwork while growing up in Lufkin in the 1950s. “It was the decade of Davy Crockett on TV’s wild frontier and the John Wayne Alamo movie,” he explains. “I was hooked on history from a very young age.” Born in 1953 “with a palett e and brush in my hand,” Read was influenced by his father, Sleepy Read, whose paintings range from abstracts to Texas landscapes. The youngster began mixing his love of art and history in junior high school, when he painted a scene of the Batt le of the Alamo aft er a trip to San Antonio. Today, Read’s murals depicting scenes of Texas history and culture make him one of Texas’ most recognizable painters. About 150 of Read’s…

HOW CAN ONE EXPLAIN THE neon magnetism of Route 66? Before this summer, I could quote a few lines of the famous 1946 Bobby Troup lyric, but if pressed, I had trouble pinpointing on a map precisely where you could “get your kicks.” And like most dads of the new millennium, I’ve seen the movie Cars—which features fictional towns on the route—at least a dozen times. So in late June I set out to acquaint myself with America’s most famous transcontinental highway, packing my wife and two small kids into the car and heading north from Fort Worth to drive the piece that cuts across the Texas Panhandle. A litt le more than four hours later, we found ourselves 14 miles this side of the Oklahoma border in the sleepy…

THERE’S A NEW SENSE OF ENERGY and possibility on the streets of downtown Waco—not a boom, exactly, but a steady drumbeat led by some determined entrepreneurs whose vision of the future is infused with an affectionate regard for the city’s past. Taking in the city’s small downtown on a recent visit, I got the sense that it’s both reinventing itself and staying true to its roots. Up and down Austin Avenue, Waco’s main street, longabandoned brick buildings have come back to life as hip cocktail bars, art galleries, and live music venues. THE WACO HIPPODROME THEATRE is at 724 Austin Ave. in Waco. Call 254/227-6723; wacohippodrome theatre.com. “Twenty years ago, you did not come to downtown,” says Casey Turner, an outgoing fourth-generation Wacoan with a slight Texas twang. Casey, along with her husband…