My Favorite Texas Experience...
...Galveston - THE most laid back city in the US!
--Submitted by Sharon in West Monroe, Louisiana
TexasTripper Note: More on
Galveston getawaysLabels: Gulf Coast
My Favorite Texas Experience...
...it is always visiting our very best friends in the hill country and going to
the Wildflower Center near Austin during bluebonnet season - nothing like
it!!!!!
--Submitted by Carol in Leonardtown, Maryland
TexasTripper Note: More on the
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower CenterLabels: Hill Country
Gandy's, Olney, Texas
I discovered the greatest place to eat while driving through North Texas last fall. It is a little hole in the wall restaurant run by a married couple and it is absolutely fabulous. It is called "Gandy's" and is located in Olney, Texas (population three or four thousand!)
The entire restaurant looks as if it could seat 20 or so; there is one cook and two waitresses, and the food is out of this world.
Their chicken fried steak is large enough to cover an entire plate, and no knife needed. It's that tender! They have homemade pies for dessert. The pie I had the day I was there was coconut cream pie, with meringue two inches high!
Everyone who came in seemed to know everyone else, and the atmosphere was one of a big family get together.
I live in Oklahoma, but have regularly made trips down to the little spot in the road called Olney to enjoy their food.
P. S. (Catfish fillet dinners on Friday nights are wonderful!)
--contributed by Jennifer in Duncan, Oklahoma
TexasTripper Note: Gandy's Chicken and BBQ is located at 112 West Main in Olney; tel. (940)-564-3539.
Labels: Panhandle Plains
Coryell Museum and Historical Center
My husband loves cowboy culture, so one Saturday we went to the Coryell Museum and Historical Center, located on Main Street in Gatesville, to see the world's largest spur collection. Even though I've never held much interest in his hobby, even I enjoyed looking at the display, which covers spurs used from the 13th century to today. The museum is open from Tuesday - Saturday.
After our museum visit, it was time for me to enjoy my favorite past time-- shopping!! I found some beautiful Mexican tiles at The Parrot on Main Street, and on our way out of town I came across a Coke tray for my collection at The Cottage, which is filled with every sort of knick knack and collectible imaginable-- I spent over an hour rummaging around. The store, which is on the way east out of Gatesville on E Hwy 84, is only open on Saturdays.
--Submitted by Barbara, Waco, Texas
Labels: Prairies and Lakes
Memories of Texas Travel
I made the wheat harvest run from Vernon, TX to northern Montana for several years in the eighties. I ran across your site by accident and some of the pictures brought back many fine memories of your state and the hospitality of the people there.
We usually were there about a month each spring, basing in Vernon and cutting around Wichita Falls, Denton, Thalia, Texoma, Iowa Park, Crowell, and Oklaunion before heading into Oklahoma. Sometimes we'd backtrack and run up to the Groom/Shamrock/Canadian/Pampa/Perryton area if Oklahoma was a bust because of rain. We'd always pick up our permits in Stratford, and I always thought it was pretty neat how they ran the road around both sides of the county courthouse there.
Anyway, just wanted to say how much I miss those days and make sure you tell everyone they really haven't lived until they've been to a Texas small town baseball game and barbecue/street dance afterwards. We used to go to them when we got rained out of the fields, and I haven't had BBQ that good since. If it was a good hot muggy evening that was brewing a thunderstorm that never quite spoiled the party, that was better yet. Iowa Park had the best ones we were ever to, and for a time Vernon had a little cafe with dirt floors that had hands down the best BBQ chicken I have ever eaten. It is long gone, but I can still taste that stuff as if it were yesterday.
Well, enjoy the warm and humid evenings coming up - lots of people didn't like that or the thunderstorms but I grew up in northeast Nebraska's tornado alley until I moved out here to SW Montana in 1979. That's one of the things I miss the most, and Texas has some of the best. You can sit outside and listen to a bluegrass band all night without ever getting even a little chilled. In August at my house north of Yellowstone Park about 70 miles, you'll have a coat and hat on the minute the sun starts down. Two days ago we had -29F with about four feet of snow on the ground, and this year I don't expect to see bare ground and warm temps until well into May - it's almost acting like winter.
--Submitted by Jay in Montana
Austin, Texas
