35 Things We Love About Texas - Lori Moffatt

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35 Things Senior Editor Lori Moffat Loves About Texas


1.    Chasing sand crabs at the beach  
2.    Frosty margaritas on a hot December day  
3.    Big skies
4.    Walking to Mexico from a border town  
5.    Mosquito-free summer evenings  
6.    Big scary Texas thunderstorms  
7.    Spanglish
8.    Downtown San Antonio
9.    The cool signs (and buildings) of Texas’ old Kress Buildings
10.    Blooming ocotillos in Big Bend
11.    The recently face-lifted women in Dallas’ Galleria, who look perpetually surprised  
12.    Coming out of a movie at the Paramount in Austin and feeling like you’re in a different era  
13.    The fabulous spring day when the orchid-like catalpa blossoms fall to the ground like snow  
14.    Free chips and salsa at Tex-Mex restaurants  
15.    The movie Urban Cowboy, and Debra Winger’s line “Bud, I wanna ride the bull”  
16.    That moment when you cross the Red River from Oklahoma and you’re back in Texas
17.    Blooming grasses in the fall  
18.    Outdoor swimming pools that stay open year round
19.    Y’all. (It’s so useful and pithy.)  
20.    Japanese conjunto bands at the San Antonio Conjunto Festival
21.    Houston’s Museum District
22.    The circus decor at the 40-year-old Carousel Lounge in Austin
23.    The whirligig-festooned Orange Show in Houston
24.    The lush Japanese Tea Garden in San Antonio
25.    Fond memories of Liberty Lunch in Austin
26.    Watching crawfish at the bottom of Barton Springs
27.    Swimming through schools of fish at Balmorhea
28.    Paint-box colors of Palo Duro Canyon
29.    The huge granaries in the Panhandle, so big you can’t fit them in your camera lens
30.    Fruit stands in the Rio Grande Valley
31.    NBC’s series “Friday Night Lights,” filmed in Austin and based on HG Bissinger’s controversial 1990 bestseller Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, and a Dream. For the 2009 season, Texan Janine Turner joins the cast. What’s not to love?
32.    Ancho-chile brownies. What a combination!
33.    Driving US 285 between Sanderson and Fort Stockton, where it’s nothing but you and the open road.
34.    Buzzards. Really. They’re impressive, efficient little beasts—nature’s avuncular garbage men.  And without them, yeesh.  Things in Texas could get icky.
35.    Houston’s wonderful array of cultures, foods, and traditions. Where else in Texas can you find African groceries selling teft flour, silk saris straight from India, pickled products from the Middle East, entire grocery aisles piled high with Asian green vegetables, and pink and yellow Mexican pastries—all in the same neighborhood?


For more on Lori Moffatt, read her blog.

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