It's Not Too Late for Spring Photos

Well the Sun has finally broken out here in Central Texas. The past two weekends have either been extremely windy, or rainy. Today would be ideal for exploring the area looking for photo opportunities. But now, the problem is that as the bluebonnets begin to fade, weeds have grown through to take away much of the magic. Trips after work are limited, but I'll be out there this week looking for the opportunity. In may, the Indian blankets and prickly pear will be in bloom. Today it's anyone's guess what I will find.

My usual stops in the Central Texas area, are Meridian, Clifton, Belton, Glen Rose and the area West of Lake Whitney. Normally bluebonnets are thick and weeds are low. The hills and creeks add interest to normal picturesque highway right-of-ways.

If I had more time, some of the best locations for wildflowers in previous years include Washington, Gillespie, Bastrop, Travis, Hays, and Bosque Counties. Generally there are hundreds of photo opportunities in any direction from Austin for 150 miles or so. Toward Houston, you have low waves of hills and ranches. West are the hills, creeks and rustic life of pioneer Texas. North you have the lakes . East you have any variety of woodlands. Farther East, the area around Tyler, Ennis, and Buffalo also provide great photo opportunities.

I may have missed the best of the Bluebonnets this year, but Spring is far from over. This year, for the first time, I'll be adding video to my expeditions. My old medium format camera is all but retired, and my new digital camera simply will not produce the exciting detail that make a panorama breathtaking. But we shall see.

I hope you all have the opportunity to get out of the city, find a park, lake, or back road, and enjoy the spring. Take your camera, and surprise yourself at how great you can be with your camera. Wildflowers will be thick all over Texas in some variety until Mid-June. Check out my website at Howdyyall.com for things to do while you're exploring over the next few weekends.

Enjoy Texas - It's a wonderland this time of year.

Bob Cozby

Welcome Texas Backroaders

Hello, and Welcome to the new TEXAS: Landmarks and Legacies online Blog. My name is Bob Cozby, and aside from my blog on national issues, I am also an avid Texas backroad explorer. This blog will be a place to share many of the wonderful things I've found in my travels throughout the Southwest.

My older sister once described my family as being afflicted with "Wander Lust". My father was an officer in the Air Force, and during the 50s and 60s we moved around quite a bit. My parents are both native Texans, so when he retired, we settled back in his, and now my own, home state. (I was born in Hawaii, and didn't arrive here until I was eleven). But Wander Lust is much more than just moving from place to place. It's the urge to see what's over the next horizon. It's a curiosity to learn as much about this country as you can. It's the adventure.

As I grew up and had a family of my own, I too moved quite a bit, Texas and Wisconsin mostly. The trips back and forth always led me down a new route. Even today, I try to avoid Interstate highways as much as I can, and get more intimate with the small, forgotten towns beyond the exit ramps. It's always a treasure to happen upon a festival or craft days.

In the late 1980s my employer had me take a business trip to West Texas. I remember on the drive back, stopping at the crest of a hill, and staring at the horizon in all directions, the wind, the only sound. I may have been on a deadline to get back to the office, but I was in no hurry to climb back into my car. I knew at that moment, I wanted a job that would get me out into the countryside. In 1988, I had that job, and was traveling some 500 - 1,500 miles per week, in my car. I got to travel any back road I chose, so long as I made by various appointments.

As my territory grew, I found a cottage on lake LBJ, purchased a really fine camera, and began taking landscapes of the places I visited. I collecting maps and brochures from every corner of Texas. Each county had it's own 11x15 envelope, stuffed with these brochures, some counties with several envelopes. The brochures helped me plan out my next side trip with my camera. My collection of country maps enabled me to highlight everywhere I'd been, and where I hadn't. If I had been down some road once before, well, that was plenty a reason not to take it again (unless there was some particularly breathtaking vista on the way, for which I had made a special mark on my map).

When the World Wide Web came to my hometown, I was the first in line to sign up. I had already been using Compuserve, Prodigy and GEnie to spread the word about Texas to people from all over.

Now, with the new Web, I could explore on line even more of Texas, bookmark sites, and soon build my own website, which from the beginning was named TEXAS: Landmarks and Legacies. The name seemed to fit. I wanted the site to not only be about the places to visit for a night, weekend, or on vacation, but also to share the story of Texas, it's history, legends and folklore.

As the years have passed, I have added more and more to the website. It's hard to keep up with the big sites like Google and Yahoo, but hey, I'm just one guy doing all the research, site design, programming and data input, so although it may not be as powerful as the major sites, you can be sure that THIS site, was created BY Texas, FOR Texans, ABOUT Texans.

Over the next few months and years, I will be sharing my photographs, stories, and thoughts about this magnificent state. I invite your own stories, and pictures. Once I figure out all the buttons and bells, I will be opening up the Blog for your own stories. I hope you'll share the tale about what brought people to settle in your part of the state, and what keeps them going today. What is there do to, where's the best swimming hole, country cafe, junk store, football game, theater, ice cream shop and hill top vista in your corner of the State.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope that you will become part of this online community.

Bob Cozby, webmaster
TEXAS: Landmarks and Legacies