Take Our Hill
Country Photo
 Tour

As you enter the Texas Hill Country there are a few rules of etiquette you might want to follow. Approaching drivers that wave are just being friendly, so wave back. If you open a gate, close it. If you’re enjoying the peaceful scenery and cars stack up behind you it’s technically illegal to pull on the shoulder to let them pass, but we do it anyway. Never honk your horn at someone on horseback, just wave. Deer, particularly at dawn and dusk, have the right-of-way. If you see fenceposts or trees with purple paint it means, “No Trespassing.” The Legislature thought that last one up.

Speaking of our representatives, they meet just up IH 35 in Austin. However, we only let them get together for 140 days every two years. If you want to visit your senator he’ll be there about the middle of January through about the middle of March of odd-numbered years. Other than that he’ll be at home, working at a real job.

Austin is a city that takes diversity to a whole new level. If you see a pickup with a Texas Concealed Handgun Association sticker the owner could be in the Capitol Building with his sidearm. Yup, that’s legal. But the car next to the truck will likely be a Prius with a “Keep Austin Weird” bumper sticker, and the two drivers are probably best friends. Get to know them at the uber-green Old Pecan Street arts festival, any of the activities at the University of Texas, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, down in the more adult entertainment of Sixth Street, or the many performances and venues that make Austin the Live Music Capital of the World.

Down IH 35 from Austin New Braunfels is home to The Natural Bridge Caverns/Wildlife Ranch and the country's number one waterpark, Schlitterbahn. San Marcos was founded on the banks of the San Marcos River, considered to be the oldest continuously inhabited site in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s home to Texas State University-San Marcos, and the Aquarena Center.

San Antonio is the south gate to the Texas Hill Country. The seventh largest city in the U.S. has a rich history and vibrant present. The four churches built as part of Spanish missions from 1718 to 1731 are still active parishes. The center of downtown is the Alamo, cradle of Texas independence. Over in the Alamodome the San Antonio Spurs win national basketball championships. Southwest Research Institute is the cutting edge of science, and the UT Health Sciences Center holds the front line on medicine.

And that’s just the beginning of the Texas Hill Country. Leave Austin and head west, on Texas 29, and you’ll find Burnet. (Not Burnet. It’s Burnet, durnit.) It looks like a typical small town of 7,000. Who would expect the annual Burnet Poetry Festival? Drive to Llano, the deer hunting capitol of Texas and home of Enchanted Rock, a 425-foot dome of pink granite that has awed visitors for at least 11,000 years. Mason is down the road a bit. It’s the Gem of the Hill Country, so look for blue topaz or find evidence of German, English, Irish, Mexican, and American immigrants that settled there before Texas was a state. Continue down U.S. 377 to Junction, the Land of the Living Waters, where hundreds of crystal-clear natural springs feed the Llano River. Drop down U.S. 83 to Uvalde, and check out the Aviation Museum at Garner Field, which has displays of World War II aircraft, or watch live theater at the Janey Slaughter Briscoe Grand Opera House.

In between you’ll find a whole bunch of towns, just as diverse and interesting. Kerrville is home to the hymn-singing Cowboy Camp Meeting, the hippie Kerrville Folk Festival, and the creative Texas Arts and Crafts Fair. Follow the Guadalupe River from Comfort to Mountain Home and find dozens of summer camps. In Center Point the oldest Civil War monument in Texas, the Treue der Union, commemorates a group of Hill County Union sympathizers, mostly German immigrants, killed trying to make their way to Mexico rather than fight against their adopted homeland.

Don’t miss the Apple Festival in Medina, the Lavender Festival in Blanco, Willie Nelson’s July 4th picnic in Luckenbach, or the turning of the Lost Maples in Vanderpool. Bandera is the Cowboy Capital of the World. Texas Hill Country wineries and vineyards are gaining recognition, along with game ranches and dude ranches. Come to Fredericksburg for German cuisine, peaches, and antiques. Bring your boat and your fishing pole to enjoy the five lakes along the Colorado River between Tow and Austin.

So whether you’re looking for a place to retire, a place to work, a place to visit, or just a place to drive through, check out the Texas Hill Country. And don’t forget to wave back.

Larry Arnold