My last trip was planned around a special event organized by San Antonio expressive arts facilitator and playwright Dianne Monroe.  “I know it’s a long drive, but I’d really like for you to be there,” she told me the last time we met. Now when Dianne organizes an event, I always want to be there. […]

POTRERO CHICO, Nuevo Leon, Mexico – Less than half an hour from the crowded metropolis of Monterrey, the mountains rise in a spectacular series of limestone peaks that have come to be known as a world-class climbing destination. It started as a municipal park with a swimming pool and barbecue pits, but it didn’t take […]

ENCHANTED ROCK STATE PARK – Deep in the canyon between the two pink granite domes that give this place its name, there’s a world parallel to the one most of its thousands of visitors see. [slideshow id=3314649325763679292&w=426&h=320] Jamie McNally and Kit Garcia, two veteran climbers from Austin, were my guides into the world of the climber, […]

Mision cumplida… Potrero Chico escalada…. ahora, casa y cama! (Mission accomplished, Potrero Chico clumb, now home & bed!)

Galveston’s gearing up for a big Memorial Day weekend celebration, and they’ve given it a name that reflects the resiliency of this island’s hardy inhabitants: Re-Birth Day. It’s been only seven months since the third worst storm in the nation’s history walloped this small island city, leaving smelly water standing chest-high in the grand centenary Tremont Hotel, the […]

BIG THICKET NATIONAL PRESERVE —Ranger Leslie Dubey lifted a paddle and dipped it into the still brown waters, her kayak gliding as noiselessly as the great blue heron that just slid across our path in these cypress-tupelo sloughs. Two decades spent probing this once-impenetrable wilderness and interpreting it for visitors have made Leslie a true […]