Yurts So Good! Where to Glamp in Texas
What started as a niche trend almost twenty years ago has transformed the travel industry in Texas. Although the Hill Country is the state’s glamping capital, you’ll find high-end domes, yurts, tree...
View ArticleLuxury Caves! Futuristic Domes! The Great Glampification of Texas
The glass door to Crystal Cave, a site at the Summit at Big Bend resort, reminded me of the wardrobe that leads to Narnia. But this portal was hidden in the jagged cliffsides of the high desert. As I...
View ArticleMeet the King of George Strait Impersonators
Derek Spence, who is fifty, lives in Fredericksburg with his wife and four children. Besides performing, he makes chainsaw sculptures and owns a ghost-tour business.I played my first gig at fifteen or...
View ArticleFires, Expansions, and TV Segments Made November a Huge Month in Texas Barbecue
Barbecue news posts were once a mainstay at TexasMonthly.com, but we’ve just had too many other stories to tell lately. This past month seems different. November was full of barbecue triumphs, in the...
View ArticleHow to Watch the April 8 Solar Eclipse From a Texas State Park
In 2017, Katie Raney packed up her car and drove some nine hundred miles from her home in Lockhart to Loup City, Nebraska, to see a total solar eclipse. Like thousands of Americans, she journeyed into...
View ArticleIn Fredericksburg, Vintage Objects Meet a Modern Message
Before she begins a new painting, Sara Drescher first seeks inspiration in the objects people have left behind, scouring vintage stores for a plate, a teacup, or a casserole dish that catches her eye....
View ArticleAfter a Summer of Heat Deaths, Texas Parks Debate How to Protect Hikers
It’s a tale as old as Texas summer: A hiker heads out on the trail with too little water, or with too few salty snacks, or without a good map, or when the sun is already beating down from the middle of...
View ArticleSwing by Texas’s Smallest State Park to See Three Million Bats Soar From an...
Twenty minutes from downtown Fredericksburg—on a long, winding stretch of Old San Antonio Road that snakes past historic country schools, a vineyard with safari tours, and at least one ghost town—lies...
View ArticleFredericksburg Students Are Picking Up Trade and Life Skills Through This...
In 2016, Fredericksburg resident Richard Laughlin, the owner of Laughlin Homes and Restoration, created the program Casa Über Alles. It aims to foster a passion for the building trades with a program...
View ArticleWhere to Watch the 2024 Solar Eclipse in Texas
Do you know what you’ll be doing on April 8, 2024? Perhaps a border jaunt to Piedras Negras and Eagle Pass? A long weekend in Waco that doesn’t involve Baylor sports or Chip and Jo? Or maybe it’s...
View ArticleA Fredericksburg Couple Forges a New Path With Their Cast-Iron Pans
When Jay Mallinckrodt, head of machining manufacturer Heartland Enterprises, brought home a prototype for a cast-iron skillet two years ago, his wife and business partner, Heather, put it to the...
View ArticleIt’s Magnolia Pearl: The Internet Can’t Believe This Consumption-Chic Brand...
I’ve heard of shabby chic and heroin chic, but Magnolia Pearl, a wildly expensive clothing line that has recently blown the internet’s mind, seems to have cornered the market on “consumption chic.” If...
View ArticleHill Country Antler Art Uses “Nature’s Most Incredible Sculpture” to Create...
Del Benedict is the craftsman behind Hill Country Antler Art near downtown Fredericksburg. What started as a simple hobby has now become a business with waitlisted clients and elusive trade secrets. In...
View ArticleWhite Hats, Episode 5: Bias Toward Action
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google. Read the transcript below. Subscribe Apple Podcasts — Spotify — Stitcher — Google Podcasts People look to a Ranger to solve the...
View ArticleThe Texanist: Do We Really Want Texas to Be “Wine Country”?
Q: I recently read that Texas has hundreds of wineries, and that the Fredericksburg-area wine trail is one of the most popular in the country. How can this be good for our image as a bunch of...
View ArticleGo Ahead, Enjoy Truffles and Wine, Says the Doctor Owner of Hill Country...
In the private tasting room of Hill Country Chocolate in Fredericksburg, wineglasses and gray slate plates filled with various chocolates are positioned along a wooden table. My guests and I are...
View ArticleThe Texanist: Does a Texas Musician Need Three Names to Succeed?
Q: With all the catchy three-named Texas musicians like Michael Martin Murphey, Willis Alan Ramsey, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Jerry Jeff Walker,and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, how did Willie Nelson or George Strait...
View ArticleRecipes: Smoked Strawberry Jam and Pickled Texas Strawberries
The dead of winter isn’t prime strawberry season in Fredericksburg (or anywhere in Texas, for that matter). So when local farmer Gary Marburger stepped foot in Cabernet Grill one January offering an...
View ArticleInside the Eclectic Home of Hill Country Sculptor Jonas Perkins
Jonas Perkins’s early life wasn’t easy. His dad was a Pullman porter on the railroad lines and his mother was a housekeeper at a mental institution. Jonas attended a parochial school because his...
View ArticleMeanwhile, in Texas : A Vacation Suite Overlooking a Giraffe Barn Goes Viral
After a video of a vacation suite overlooking a giraffe barn at a Fredericksburg conservation park went viral on TikTok, visitors completely booked the guesthouse until 2024. The principal at an Austin...
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