We had two great weeks in the Lone Star State. Our tour led us counter clockwise from Dallas to as far as El Paso and back via San Antonio to Dallas.

Sunday, May 19, 2002
In the early morning we drove into Dallas, which was completely empty - except for a few lone tourists there were hardly any people on the streets, nor was there any traffic. The Sixth Floor Museum is quite interesting and lets visitors learn a lot about JFK and the times back then, the Reunion Tower provided excellent aerial views, but wait until you see Pioneer Plaza. Gigantic bronze cowboys and 70 huge bronze cattle are a reminder to the Shawnee Trail, a route that was used in the 19^th century to drive cattle to the north. Our lunch break was spent at the Hard Rock Café, then we drove off to another must-see: The Southfork Ranch in Plano, a couple of miles north of Dallas. After a short visit to Wal-Mart we drove to the Fort Worth Stockyards. There we had dinner at the H3 Ranch - Chicken Fried Steak and Hickory Grilled Shrimp.

Monday, May 20, 2002
This was a day of driving - around 340 miles to the west, heading for Amarillo. We checked in to the Holiday Inn, 1911 I-40 East at Ross/Osage Street, Amarillo, TX 79102, and then called a chat-friend of Lianne's mom, who lives in Amarillo. He stopped smoking recently and thus was entitled to a free dinner courtesy of Mom, who lives in Canada and doesn't like to travel. We went to Logan's Roadhouse (he suggested this location, we took care of the bill - by the way: great steaks at Logan's) and then paid the Cadillac Ranch a visit. Ten brand-new Cadillacs were deliberately rammed into the ground frontend-first in 1974.

Tuesday, May 21, 2002
After cruising Palo Duro Canyon's scenic drive and checking out the visitor centre, we drove into the small town of Canyon. They have a very educating museum there - the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum. After strolling through the exhibit halls we asked the museum's ticket agent for suggestions for lunch - it was the "Ranch Roadhouse" he sent us to. There we had a Taco Salad, a plate full of stuff from their "famous" salad bar, a baked potato and their last piece of Texas Sheetcake. Good home cooking . The place was full of locals - families, construction workers, pensioners. Then it was just driving, driving and more driving, until we finally arrived in Carlsbad, New Mexico, which by the way lies in another time zone. The few restaurants they have close at 8 or 9 at the latest. The only place to get some dinner was at Denny's, where we had cream of broccoli soup, a garlic and mushroom burger and ham and swiss on rye.

Wednesday, May 22, 2002
A complementary hot breakfast at the Holiday Inn, 601 S. Canal, Carlsbad, NM 88220 was the perfect start for our trip to the Carlsbad Caverns. There we walked the 5 km long "Natural Entrance Tour" which took us about 3 hours. Highlights along this route include Bat Cave, Devil's Spring, Green Lake Overlook and the Boneyard, a complex maze of highly-dissolved limestone rock reminiscent of Swiss cheese. And of course there's the Iceberg Rock, a single 200.000-ton boulder that fell from the cave ceiling thousands of years ago. The Big Room is 77 metres high and 550 metres wide - quite impressive what 500.000 years of dripping water can achieve. After a long drive through the desert we arrived at our next destination - El Paso, Texas. Early evening we checked in to the Holiday Inn Express, 9401 S. Desert Blvd., Anthony, TX 79821. This was the night of the ACM Awards (Academy of Country Music), so we went to a grocery store, bought buns, cold meats, cheese, chocolate milk, donuts an yoghurt and spent the evening watching CBS in our hotel room.

Thursday, May 23, 2002
After driving the Scenic Drive (Mesa Street and Rim Road) we parked our car downtown and got onto the "Border Jumper", a hop-on hop-off bus service that takes you into Mexico's 4^th largest city - Juaréz. The trolley runs once an hour with several dedicated stops in downtown Juaréz. In fact the stops are businesses associated with the trolley company. Your ticket is a brightly coloured, non-removable wristband and serves also as a clearly visible sign for the locals, that you are a tourist with lots of or at least some money to spend. After getting stuck for almost 45 minutes going across the Bridge over the Rio Grande - which by the way is more like a trickle - we were glad to be back in Texas. We drove El Paso's Mission Trail and then headed east for dinner. Our destination was the Cattleman's Steakhouse at the Indian Cliffs Ranch, located 5 miles north of Fabens, in the middle of nowhere. We had an excellent Filet Mignon and the Wagonmaster, a 1¼ pound T-Bone Club Steak, which by the way did not have the usual 7" or 8" tail of fat and gristle.

Friday, May 24, 2002
There was nothing much planned for that day - just the 220 mile drive through the desert to Alpine in the Big Bend area. Besides some huge dust devils sweeping across the highway there wasn't much to see - only as we got closer to our next destination we noticed some positive changes in the scenery. It seemed that the air was extremely clear, almost unreal. Late afternoon - by the way we are back in the Central Time Zone again - we checked in to our Hotel, the Best Western Alpine Classic Inn, 2401 East Highway No. 90, Alpine, TX 79830. We took it easy there, reading the papers and the local tourist brochures. As we looked for a restaurant later on, we couldn't find anything that appealed to our tastes, so we ended up at the local Pizza Hut.

Saturday, May 25,2002
We started the day with a breakfast in our room watching Bass Fishing on ESPN2. Then we headed for our first sight for the day - Fort Davis National Historic Site. The Fort was built in 1854 to secure the path from San Antonio to El Paso. Nowadays, besides a few reconstructed buildings with exhibitions in them, there are mostly only ruins left. The reconstruction efforts are ongoing though, so that in a few years there will be certainly lots more to see. Right across from the Fort on North Highway 17 lies another attraction - "Rattlers and Reptiles", a tiny but very interesting museum dedicated to rattlesnakes, amphibians, venomous arachnids, desert mammals and insects. But the stars of that place sure are the rattlesnakes. The owner gives visitors both amusing and educating information on his "pets". Next stop was the McDonald Observatory where we had a closer look at two huge telescopes, before we drove the picturesque highway towards the I-10 and on to Fort Stockton. We checked in to the Holiday Inn Express, 1308 North US Hwy 285, Ft. Stockton, TX 79735 and then cruised the main street in search of a restaurant. We ended up at K-Bob's Steakhouse where we had steak and salad from their "Salad Wagon".

Sunday, May 26,2002
Sunday morning was the time to pay a visit to Paisano Pete, the world's largest roadrunner (which is in fact a bird statue on the eastern side of main street) - click, click, two pictures, and we headed off east for Ozona, where we first seached for the Davy Crockett Monument and then had our lunch at a Taco Bell inside a gas station. We arrived in San Antonio late afternoon, checked in to the Holiday Inn Express, 606 Division Avenue, San Antonio, TX 78214, and then headed straight for downtown. We parked the car at the Rivercenter Mall parking garage, and went down to the Riverwalk. At the banks of the San Antonio River you find a very enjoyable atmosphere, due to the cobblestone walkways, arched footbridges, plentiful shops and romantic sidewalk cafés and restaurants. The Riverwalk (or "Paseo del Rio" in Spanish) was definitely one of the highlights of our Texas 2002 trip. We had dinner at Joe's Crab Shack, at an excellent table with a wonderful view onto the river and ideal for people-watching. By the way, the stuffed Jalapeños (with crab, cheese and shrimp) are extremely spicey - but yummy.

Monday, May 27, 2002 (Memorial Day)
We spent the morning travelling the mission trail - the chain of missions established along the San Antonio River in the 18th century are reminders of one of Spain’s most successful attempts to extend its New World dominion from Mexico. The San Antonio Missions National Historic Park (mission trail) contains the historically and architecturally significant structures of Missions Concepción, San Jose, San Juan and Espada. Apple Annie's Tea Room, located in the unique setting of Artisan's Alley (north of downtown) was our choice for our lunch break. We then drove back into downtown. It was time to visit the most famous site of all: Mission San Antonio de Valero - better known as The Alamo - which was established in 1718 as the city’s first mission. We then walked to Market Square (El Mercado), where the festival "The Return of the Chili Queens" was going on. By the way, El Mercado is the largest Mexican marketplace outside of Mexico. With the streetcar we went back to the Riverwalk, where we strolled alongside the banks and headed straight for a tourist trap - the Casa Rio Restaurant. We saw lots of people waiting to having dinner there and made the assumption it must be good. Their location is excellent, but their food and their service is just terrible.

Wednesday, May 29, 2002
After having a hearty breakfast at Denny's we headed for Bandera, the self declared cowboy capital of the world. The drive further on to Fredericksburg through the Hill Country wasn't as scenic as our guide books and the locals told us - at least not for us. It looked just like the scenery in many parts of Lower Austria. Fredericksburg is a nice main street town with neat shops and cafes. Having enough from the countryside we decided to head straight to Austin via (four lane) Highway 290. We stayed at Country Inn and Suites, 7400 IH-35 North, Austin, TX 78752. They had coupons for free drinks or appetizers from various restaurants in the area at the reception desk so we decided to give the nearby "Texas Land and Cattle" a try. It proved to be the right decision. We had the delicious TXLC Smoked Sirloin and the Mesquite Grilled Shrimp - plus a free appetizer, the spicy spinach and artichoke dip with tortilla chips. It was already dark as we drove to downtown Austin just to cruise for a while and to take pictures of the beautifully lit and very impressive Texas State Capitol.

Thursday, May 30, 2002
We parked our car right across from the State Capitol on a metered parking spot - in the shade. This was probably the most unpleasant weather we had had the whole two weeks - the sun was beating down at 97°F/36°C and 95% humidity. We really don't mind the heat, as long as it's a dry one. The free guided tour through the State Capitol - which by the way is about 6 feet higher than the Capitol in Washington D.C. - was quite educational and interesting. We then walked a couple of blocks down to the Hardrock Cafe to get some souvenir T-shirts, and then left Austin with the air condition on full blast and headed north on I-35. On our way to Arlington we took a break at Cracker Barrel, where we had some home-style lunch. Our hotel in Austin was the Holiday Inn Express, 2451 East Randol Mill Road, Arlington, TX 76011, located near the Six Flags theme park. Our choice of restaurant for dinner was the Outback Steakhouse, just a short drive from our hotel.

Friday, May 31, 2002
The day started with breakfast at the hotel. Like the one we stayed in Fort Worth, they too have waffle irons and cups filled with dough, so that you can make your own fresh waffles. We then visited Six Flags Over Texas, the theme park housing the Texas Giant, which is constantly named the number one wooden roller coaster in the world. The ride lasts a little over 2 minutes and gains top speeds of up to 62 mph. Instant headaches and next day back pains for newbies guaranteed. Late afternoon we drove back to the hotel to do some packing and to get ready for the evening. We had tickets for Tracy Byrd performing at Cowboy's Dancehall Arlington. We had to wait very long for the concert to begin, but we got compensated (starting at around 11pm) by Tracy singing all of his hits - from "Keeper of the Stars" to his latest chart topper "Ten Rounds with Jose Cuervo".