Better Blues

Tags

blue, bluebonnets, nature, road trip, spring, state flower, Texas, wildflowers

Get out of town, I urged myself. A mini roadtrip is always a balm, and my Sunday drive a few days ago was no exception, a country comfort for my bruised urban soul. I aimed the car west, alone, in the late morning, looking to find the sea of blue that sprouts this time of year in central Texas.

In late March and early April, the bluebonnets arrive. At least two forms of these lupines are native to Texas, but an ambitious Highway Department program in the 1930s to beautify the landscape spread the delicate state flower ever wider.

Five species now border many major highways in the state, and they are joined by numerous other wildflowers, like Indian paintbrush, pink evening primrose, and Indian blanket.

Envious of all the young families plopping their Easter-clad children in the flowers, I returned home in the late afternoon, picked up the old lady pooch, and settled her into her own blue bed right here in Houston’s Hermann Park.

From highway berms to private farms, Hill Country towns to city parks, Texas is awash in wildflowers this time of year. The best are yet to come, but this little glimpse put a big smile on my face.

Roughing It

Tags

Enchanted Rock, Fredericksburg, hiking, Hill Country, Texas, weathered, Weekly Photo Challenge

On our recent Texas road trip, we spent time both going and coming in Fredericksburg, an old German-influenced town in the Hill Country near the center of the state. Even before I moved to Texas, I had always loved the soft patina of Texas limestone, the predominant building material in this area. Paired with rough wood siding and beams, the pale yellow stone has a naturally weathered look that I’ll always identify with central Texas. Equally weather-worn is the split wood siding on a few historic log homes and even a few newer doors and walls.

Speaking of weathered …

Always seeking a quick hike wherever we are, here we decided to climb Enchanted Rock, a huge dome of pink granite that rises from the earth just outside Fredericksburg. A billion years ago, this rock was a pool of magma, parts of which pushed up through the earth’s surface, cooled and hardened, and turned into granite. Over time, the surface rock and soil wore away, forming the domes here today. We were fascinated to read that the domes are but a tiny part of a huge underground sea of granite. The entire batholith covers 62 square miles, but most of it is underground.

Enchanted Rock has numerous eroded layers, with pieces expanding and falling off even today on the curved surface. At the high point now, the main dome is 425 feet high, and the entire exposed rock spans 640 acres.

And that’s it for our three-day getaway a few weeks ago. I’m on my way to Ecuador now for some much higher climbs, so stay tuned!

Driving the Blues Away

Tags

2017, Hill Country, New Year, road trip, Texas, West Texas

The year I got my groove back was almost at an end, and the kids had come home for a short time and, just as quickly, were gone. I was newly bereft.

My own annus horribilis, 2016, had segued into a very good year overall. I went to Cuba at just the right time this past January. We hit a sweet spot for American citizens; things were smooth-ish, somewhat figured out, and not yet confused by the current political climate, and Cuba was still its enigmatic self.

A few months later, I left a cold and corrupt state after twenty-six mostly amazing years; if that sounds like a contradiction, it’s because everything there was perfect until it just wasn’t anymore. Although I wept leaving my home and friends, it was time to uproot ourselves from a life of diminishing returns. I settled into a semi-tropical, warm, and green new city. In my fertile new environment, I re-bloomed, making new friends, finding some rewarding writing work, getting fit, and starting fresh in myriad ways.

What didn’t change in 2017 was that I drove all over the place, and that was a good thing. I punched out day trips into the Texas countryside, a near month-long land cruise across half the U.S., a multi-week swing through five countries in Central and Eastern Europe, and a year-end sadness-subduing ride out to West Texas in the final days of the year.

 

 

As we took down the tree a few days ago, re-made the beds, and put away ate all the leftover cookies, I realized I had to get out of here. Everything was making me cry (or fat). The home-made ornaments with the kids’ little faces on them, the snowman in the powder room, the lights and candles that had made the house glow for a few weeks, all the chips my sons overbought. So we packed up the car, the dog, and our bags, and we aimed the car west. Far west. Six hundred miles west. And I started to smile again.

The farther we ventured into the heart and then the outermost reaches of Texas, the lighter the human touch and my heart became. There is no one out here, we marveled. Maybe it was a post-holiday lull, but beyond the Hill Country in the middle of the state, we saw perhaps one car every half hour or so. On a lonely stretch of US-90, through the Chihuahua Desert that runs along the Mexican border, we counted fewer than ten passenger cars all of New Year’s Eve day.

What we did see were miles and miles of post oak trees and creosote bushes in a faded terrain also dotted with yucca, mesquite, agave and prickly pear cactus, all broken up by a series of small mountain ranges and occasional canyons.

The route from Houston to Marfa, our destination, rises ever so slowly; when a low-grade headache and increasing thirst hit us after a day and a half, we realized we’d gone from barely above sea level to almost 5000 feet in elevation.

Human and man-made activity was limited to long, lonesome trains and Border Patrol stations and vehicles, and as we passed through farms and tiny towns, we took in a scattering of simple windmills, taco stands, rural post offices, and a disconcerting number of taxidermy shops and deer processing facilities.

As the West Texas wind whisked the dust off the roads, my mind was swept clean of the tumbleweeds of despair, of living far from my children, parents, and siblings. It didn’t make sense, but being out there in the vast emptiness took away my own feelings of hollowness. The spare vistas and pared-down life were palliative, and the resilience of the flora springing from rock and dry dirt was uplifting in its own strange way.

As the new year dawned halfway back, in the Hill Country, we were ready to leave our last cozy lodging and drive home. Scrubbed of the nostalgia and wistfulness I’d loaded into the car when we departed, I returned ready to start again, to try to make sense of this modern American life that keeps us all on our own paths, fulfilling ourselves where we can until we’re able to be together again with those we love.

After the Flood

Tags

#houstonstrong, Buffalo Bayou Park, flood, Houston, Hurricane Harvey, resilient, temporary, Texas, Weekly Photo Challenge

Buffalo Bayou Park was the first thing I fell for in Houston when we moved here in early spring. Less than a mile from my house, it was my walking, running, and biking track until the Gulf Coast summer humidity put an end to extended outdoor exercise. We still took visitors to the park for a stroll and a view of our shiny city rising up from the greenery, but I had taken a temporary break from the park a few months before Hurricane Harvey hit in late August.

Now I’m hoping the current state of this beautiful riparian playground is just as fleeting. Harvey’s floodwaters, as well as the emergency release of upstream reservoir contents, wiped out the banks of our urban stream, uprooting trees, drowning plants, stripping away ground cover, and coating the lower paths in a thick layer of silt and sand that has yet to be fully shoveled away two months later.

The dog park was annihilated, and the kayakers have disappeared. Plastic bags cling to dead tree branches, steep banks have collapsed into the water, and the always-murky waters have turned an even muddier brown.

At the Shepherd Drive Bridge, pictured below, the water was nearly 40 feet (yes, FEET) deep inside the park and washed up to and over several of the pedestrian and vehicular bridges that cross the bayou.

As in many places all over this resilient city, though, life is returning to Buffalo Bayou. Ducks and blue herons tentatively paddle and perch on those felled branches, ferns and mondo grass spring from ragged ground, new green growth pushes up insistently from the sand mounds, and people on foot and bicycle have re-emerged to take advantage of perfect fall days in the park.

It’s great to be back in the park.

When Will We Turn the Corner?

Tags

Arkansas, Art, Crystal Bridges, Dale Chihuly, flooding, Houston, Hurricane Harvey, Texas

I remember reading with childlike wonder Bama’s recent post about the watery paradise of Inle Lake in Myanmar. Never did I imagine that weeks later I would be living in similar surroundings or that my liquid world would have arisen due to a Biblical deluge that has left my city crippled for months and years to come.

Thankfully, my own home is still safe and largely dry, but our fellow citizens here in Houston are swimming out of their family homes and onto boats. Some are hacking through their attics with axes to reach their rooftops to wait for rescue. Our airport runway photos show wavelets reminiscent of the Mediterranean Sea, and our 10- and 12-lane interstates, viewed from above, could be river deltas.

The beautiful park I wrote about in my first weeks here is now submerged up to the treetops, and more water is expected in the bayous today, both rainfall and a controlled release of reservoir water to save upstream dams. When will it end? We had heard that the worst would be over by daybreak today, but there are sheets of rain lashing our windows as I type, and the Army Corps reservoir release has only just begun. My phone continues to blare out flood warnings, and the trees are whipping and waving dramatically hours after the last tornado threats.

We have all seen such horrible images on TV, in the papers, and online, so I leave you with some happier scenes from the last day of my recent 4000-mile road trip, completed as I pulled into the garage mere hours before Hurricane Harvey arrived. These Dale Chihuly sculptures are nestled in the forested trails of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Around every corner was another marvel – brighter, happier scenes for my troubled mind.

A Sunday Drive

Tags

Bryan, countryside, France, Houston, politics, reflecting, road trip, rural, Sunday drive, Texas, Weekly Photo Challenge, Williams Jennings Bryan

It’s a summer weekend several decades ago, and my dad is seeking company for his customary Sunday activity: a drive in the country. As usual, I am the only taker. Sometimes we look at houses, occasionally we explore new areas, but most of the time we just drive out into the country and admire the rustic fences, the barns, the crops, and above it all, the sweeping sky. We chat or we don’t, and we inevitably end up at a Dairy Queen for a twist cone at the end of the day. These yawning days are among my favorite childhood memories.

***

Flash forward, and there is still something about an unscheduled Sunday that cries out for a jaunt in the car. Yesterday I answered the call, and we loaded the vehicle with the dog, some water, and a few snacks, and headed northwest from Houston to enjoy a spectacular spring day on the road.

Our destination is the perfect distance away (less than two hours) and has an additional attraction; a town called Bryan, Texas, named after my distant relative, William Jennings Bryan. Three-time presidential candidate (and perpetual loser), secretary of state, famed orator, and attorney both admired and ridiculed, Bryan is a direct ancestor on my father’s side of the family. Hailing from Illinois originally, but a long-time resident of Nebraska (where my grandfather was born), Bryan somehow left his mark quite deeply in Texas, where he owned a winter home and farm.

The journey itself ends up being the enchantment. The sky is a blue bed of white puffballs, and the early crops are a cheerful lemon-green. Rural fences always rope me in, and today is no exception. We see white pickets, split rails, and dark wood dividers on both sides of the road. We get off the main highway as often as possible and keep swerving off onto the berm to photograph the ranch gates, both simple and elaborate, along the way. We follow the web of farm-to-market (FM) routes, observing the network of roads that physically connect rural America to our large cities.

My husband eats a Texas-sized beef brisket sandwich at a popular BBQ joint at 11 am, halfway through the drive out, and is still sated when we arrive home in the late afternoon. We stop at a famous rest stop/gas station to fuel up at bargain prices and peruse the outlandish array of paraphernalia available there, from fresh fudge to hot dogs, homemade kolaches to every bag snack you’ve ever heard of, stuffed animals to camouflage gear, and the “cleanest restrooms in America.”

The historic town of Bryan is closed down on this Sunday afternoon, which is fitting given William Jennings’ religious bent later in life. We wander through the downtown streets for a few blocks anyway and then load the old pooch back in the car and retrace our route back to the big city.

We’ve accomplished little, but we’ve temporarily cleared our heads in all that fresh air and sprawling land. Unfortunately, mine is now spinning with thoughts, reflecting on presidents and populations, of byways and barriers. This is what most of America looks like geographically, even as the majority of our population moves into urban environments.

In Bryan’s day and our recent past, this dichotomy did not seriously threaten our cohesion as a nation; in fact, those FM roads connected more than just farmers and our city tables. But now our differences, the other kinds of fences we have put up at home and around the world, have helped to create the calamity of our current leadership.

While I was piloting and pondering, France was rejecting a vision of the world where a nation can only house one type of person, where only the market-makers matter, and where outside interference can amplify those differences and scare people into a frightening, reactionary decision. We were not so careful or clear-headed here, but my hope is that the strong French results will somehow nudge the world back onto the kind of road that connects rather than divides.

Happy in Houston – Part 1

Tags

Buffalo Bayou Park, Houston, surprise, Texas, urban hikes, urban parks, Weekly Photo Challenge

After almost a month in Houston, I am surprised and not surprised at how quickly I have regained my happiness. Houston is one of those cities – and Texas one of those states – that elicit sneers and grunts from those who don’t know them. I endured my share of puzzled reactions when we excitedly announced that we would be leaving Chicago and Washington, DC, for the Bayou City, so my goal is to surprise my readers with some of the great things about my new hometown.

One of my favorite first impressions is the incredible outdoor link between my neighborhood and the city. Buffalo Bayou Park is a green space stretching for about two miles from the Montrose neighborhood to the edge of downtown Houston. There are bike paths, walking trails, a skate park, kayak rentals, disc golf, a dog park, and more, all nestled into a ribbon of land on both sides of Buffalo Bayou. Houstonia magazine called the park, finished less than two years ago, “Houston’s new front porch,” and that it is; from morning to night, people ply the paths, sit on the benches, and otherwise savor the outdoors here, just in front of the skyscrapers that stretch for block after block downtown.

My new morning routine is becoming a short walk or drive to the park, followed by a brisk hike, jog, or bike ride within the green confines. I can spend 30 minutes, an hour, or longer winding my way through the spring wildflowers on the banks of the bayou, watching dogs frolic in the Ritz Carlton of dog enclosures, or passing under the Waugh bat bridge, where thousands of Mexican freetail bats emerge and soar against the city backdrop each evening. I can stay low and close to the water’s edge and disappear into nature, or I can ride higher on the paths, closer to street level, and stop at any of a number of sculptures, fountains, gardens, or memorials.

One of the coolest surprises here is that the park was designed with the knowledge that it would flood. In Houston’s tropical climate, rains can be heavy, and the bayous and streets flood numerous times each year. Engineers took into account the fact that waters would rise up to and occasionally above the top of the bayou banks, so they placed electrical lines above the floodplain and used materials like raw concrete and galvanized steel that could hold up under water.

The lower paths are often sandy after a downpour, but the walkways and bike lanes were designed to be easy to sweep clean. Buffalo Bayou Park is built along a natural body of water that is an integral part of the city’s drainage system, so park planners also planted native grasses, trees, and wildflowers whose roots would absorb water underground.

Beyond the practical results of all this planning, the design and flora create a natural habitat for wildlife and make the park feel like a real refuge from urban life. The biggest and most wonderful surprise of all, though, is the moment when you crest one of the graceful park bridges and see before you a bucolic, riparian scene: a trio of kayaks slipping away from a rough, natural shoreline, framed by flowering trees and bordered by shady pathways – all reflected in the shiny spires of the city skyline. The city and nature coexist here in the most surprising and wonderful way, and this park has fast become one of my favorite parts of my new life here in Houston.

Boomerang!

Tags

Houston, moving, New Year, Texas

It’s a warm place (I looove warmth), it offers easy access to a whole Spanish-speaking continent (which I’ve only half explored), the city is now considered the most ethnically diverse in the U.S. (that means great culture, cuisine and more), housing is pretty affordable (I can’t wait to make a true home again), there are real neighborhoods less than 1-2 miles from downtown (urban feel with a little grass on the side), the restaurant scene is hopping (I love to eat out), U.S. flights are almost all of reasonable length (for reaching the kids and other family), overall cost of living is low (and there’s no state income tax), the museums and medical services are of world-class quality (for good times and bad), there is more green space than in any other top 10 U.S. metro area (we need that outdoor fix of walking and biking), and … you get it: we are pretty damn excited about our next home.

Ten months ago, I moved halfway across the U.S. from Chicago to Washington, DC, and now, with great excitement, we are making a wide U-turn and heading back to the Central Time Zone. Not to our original city, but to a whole different terrain and personality: Houston, Texas!

I know lots of you are groaning “ugh … I was expecting something really great!” Well, we think Houston is really great. Like any place, big swaggering Texas has its negatives, but this move I am focused on pure positives, like all those things listed above. Add in the fact that Houston was the site of my very first real job assignment decades ago, and the place where I met my future husband, and we feel like winners to have scored a great job (for my husband) back in the Lone Star State, which I lauded on the blog a few years ago, incidentally.

Less than two months from now, I’ll be unpacking another truck, and soon after, I’ll be selling you all on my new locale. You will like Houston when I’m done with you! Meanwhile, I’m off to Cuba this week to start off my year in another warm place, trying to put a rough 2016 behind me.

Happy New Year to all!

Don’t Mess with Texas

Tags

Fort Worth, Fredericksburg, Gruene, Hill Country, Houston, San Antonio, Texas, The Alamo

In the last month, I have made two trips to the state of Texas and have spent time in four of its major cities and much of the ground in between them. Many of you may be guffawing (or even feeling sorry for me) since a surprisingly large number of people seem to loathe Texas and all it stands for. But I have a fondness for Texas that has lasted for 30-some years, and I’m here to convince you to rethink your feelings!

Texas does everything big, but who says living large can’t be fun on occasion? There are some bad big things, like a few megalomaniacal egos, gun racks, snarled mega-highways, and gas-guzzling trucks. But there are just as many harmless and amusing big things, like gargantuan turkey legs, hairdos, and belt buckles, and there are plenty of good big things, too, like a medical center on steroids, expansive fields and skies, towering shiny buildings, wide friendly smiles, … and giant margaritas, of course.

Turkey legs at Houston Rodeo

My history with Texas dates back to my first real job assignment when, after training, I was transferred from a northern bank to its oil and gas lending office in Houston. It was not where I ever expected to live, but it was a blast for a few years in my 20s, and I’ve had a soft spot for it ever since. I loved the weather and the casual social life; to this day, there is almost nothing more appealing to me than sitting on an outdoor patio strung with little white lights, drinking a longneck beer, and listening to live music.

Live music and longnecks at Hondo’s on Main, Fredericksburg

Houston is much more than a humid, un-zoned sprawl on a bayou. A few years ago, Forbes magazine named Houston one of the coolest cities in the U.S.; more recently they called it “America’s next great global city” and other publications have proclaimed it a sweet draw for twenty-somethings. Atop the reasons for all these accolades is another big thing: the job market. Young people are flocking to Houston, where jobs are plentiful, rents are still comparatively low, and there is no state income tax. Outdoor music and entertainment venues abound, the arts scene is deep and sophisticated, and upscale bars and restaurants seem to multiply every few months.

Houston skyline from Buffalo Bayou trails

The lack of zoning does make for some ugly streetscapes on occasion, but it also produces some fun and funky juxtapositions: a tattoo parlor next to a new gourmet restaurant, open-pit BBQ joints abutting pricey condos, or a highbrow museum nestled into a quiet, unassuming city neighborhood. From the gleaming skyscrapers in one of the best skylines in the country to the Montrose rollerblader (a seriously hilarious dude who cannot be explained, so see here), Houston offers a mix of high and low, sophisticated and quirky attractions under sunny Texas skies. Throw in the annual Rodeo (much more than calf-roping), a medical center bigger than downtown Dallas, NASA, and the fact that Houston is now the most ethnically-diverse city in the U.S., and you’ve got a real winner. Give it another (open-minded) chance and you might be extolling its charms, too!

Houston skyline

You can see I clearly love Houston. But there’s more … lots more. This month, I also enjoyed Fort Worth again for a few days. “Cowtown” is smaller and more western-feeling than Houston, but it’s also a great place to enjoy the weather and mix good old country appeal with some upscale stops. Although I’ve been to the Stockyards many times, I had to go again to see the cattle drive down the main street. In my flawed memory, the longhorns stampeded down the cobblestones, but in reality they plod in a most docile fashion! They are still magnificent beasts to behold, and the daily cattle drive and the Stockyards in general recreate the former fame of Fort Worth as the major livestock supply and shipping point it was over a century ago.

Cattle drive in the Stockyards, Fort Worth

Today, Fort Worth maintains its western ambiance while blossoming as a modern city of many cultural and natural charms. Billy Bob’s is still there for you line dancers, and even the businessmen sport cowboy boots under their suit pants.

At the same time, though, the Kimbell Museum and Bass Performance Hall often get the same blockbuster exhibits and shows seen in larger markets, the parks system is extensive and includes the heavenly Botanic Garden, the restaurant scene is growing and impressive, and the town’s support of and connection with TCU, its up-and-coming private college, make for an energetic, young vibe.

Trinity Park, Fort Worth

TCU campus, Fort Worth

In the middle of the state, Austin and San Antonio are well-known towns that are growing by leaps and bounds. Austin, the college town and state capital, keeps making best-places-to-live lists, and San Antonio still feels like a small town even though it’s now the seventh largest city in the U.S. This trip, we visited the Alamo again; the tiny mission in the middle of San Antonio is not only a fascinating historical site, but an oasis of calm and quiet in the city. Its gardens hold centuries-old oaks and ancient cacti along soft gravel pathways, and the bullet-riddled walls of the Alamo glow warmly in the sun.

The Alamo, San Antonio

The Alamo, San Antonio

Grounds at The Alamo, San Antonio

Between our city stays, we squeezed in a few days in the Hill Country, passing an afternoon in tiny Gruene (where George Strait got his start at Gruene Hall) and spending the night in the charming German town of Fredericksburg.

Hoffman Haus, Fredericksburg

Back patio at our 1871 “dog-trot” house in Fredericksburg

As an honor to local son Admiral Chester Nimitz, Fredericksburg also boasts the National Museum of the Pacific War, an enormous collection of WWII memorabilia and equipment housed in an architecturally stunning building. We could have spent days around Fredericksburg and a week in the Hill Country, eating barbecue, visiting vineyards, hiking, and shopping.

National Museum of the Pacific War, Fredericksburg

National Museum of the Pacific War, Fredericksburg

Texas has its detractors and, like anywhere, it is not perfect, but both living there and visiting often in the last few years have reinforced my feelings of affection for this diverse and spirited state. Luckily, I will be back in the great state of Texas twice more before the end of the summer and if you’re lucky, I’ll write about it again!

Enchanted Rock, north of Fredericksburg