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Minutes before boarding begins for a flight from Dallas to Houston, it’s library quiet inside the terminal. No testy TSA agents yell out instructions. No overhead announcements drone on endlessly about limited overhead space. The loudest noise is the click-clack of a flight attendant’s heels on the concrete floor as she walks by two dozen passengers reclining on cushy couches and chairs.It’s so serene that even Alex Wilcox, CEO of the airline, seems surprised that a departure is imminent. “Oh, I guess people are checking in,” he says as a couple rolls bags past him. They’ve just dropped off their car keys at the valet outside the private hangar at Love Field.All this calm comes at a cost. The airline, Dallas-based JSX, charges business-class fares…

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

When state representative Travis Clardy, of Nacogdoches, first heard rumblings of a potential Republican primary challenger early last summer, he was surprised. The woman who was considering challenging him, Joanne Shofner, was someone who Clardy said he knew “socially” for years. Shofner’s late father, Welcome Wilson, a longtime Houston real estate developer and a former chairman of the University of Houston System Board of Regents, had previously donated to Clardy’s campaign. Clardy figured she’d at least set up a meeting to talk before entering the race—but that never happened, he said. “Before I know it, she’s out campaigning, filing treasury paperwork, and setting up booths at our downtown events,” Clardy said.An eleven-year veteran of the Texas House, Clardy had seen his fair share of primary…

The post “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished”: A Veteran East Texas Legislator Reflects on Getting Rolled Over by Greg Abbott’s School-Voucher Crusade appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

West Texas boasts no shortage of peaks from which to look out and be humbled by the Trans-Pecos volcanic field unfolding before you. Davis Mountains State Park contains dozens of vistas, but a particularly hypnotic one can be found at the Keesey Canyon Overlook. The highest point along the park’s Skyline Drive Trail, it offers a rustic wooden bench that serves as an ideal resting spot for hikers who’ve conquered the formidable switchbacks along the climb to get here. From 5,500 feet above sea level, the view stretches toward the town of Fort Davis, to the southeast, over a sea of  agarita, catclaw acacia, cholla, and trompillo covering the remnants of a volcanic eruption that transformed the landscape some 35 million years ago. Turn your…

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

Almost every year since 2016, my friends and I pack our cars with booze, bustles, corsets, and camping equipment and head east for the Texas Renaissance Festival, the largest ren faire event in the country. I grew up in Grimes County, fifteen minutes outside the fairgrounds in Todd Mission, and have attended the festival intermittently my whole life. My annual return is akin to a homecoming; I almost always see at least a few folks from my past, slinging turkey legs or driving horse carriages. And so it was with eager anticipation, and just a tad territorialism, that I shuffled into the Saturday evening South by Southwest screening of the first episode of Ren Faire, a three-part HBO docuseries coming this summer. Ren Faire centers…

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

I’m leaning on the rail of the Scat Cat, a red-and-white, 78-person fishing boat in Aransas Bay, when two bottlenose dolphins leap majestically out of the water alongside our wake. The midday sun gleams on their fins as the pair chases us, jumping and diving in what looks like a playful game of leapfrog. “Look!” I shout, unable to contain my excitement at seeing them so close. A few of my sixty or so fellow passengers turn to watch, but only for a moment. Our guide for the day, Isidro Montemayor Jr., has just spotted something that this crowd finds far more compelling. “Reddish egret at two o’clock,” he proclaims, lifting his binoculars. “And we’ve got another Forster’s tern flying by, too.” Dolphins forgotten, we…

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