County Map ProjectTX - Texas
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For three years ending in July, 1997, Pharr, Texas was our home. In
this 1996 aerial photograph, our
apartment building is shown in the northeast quadrant. It is the second
in a series of six square buildings shown in a perfectly straight row.
The area is developing rapidly; all of the empty fields to the north of
that apartment are now full
of homes and apartments.
While we lived in McAllen, both Pam and I volunteered at the International Museum of Art and
Science, then known as the McAllen International Museum. Pam was a
docent, leading tours of the museums ever-changing variety of exhibits.
I provided advice to the staff and consultants during the early stages
of the museum's highly successful "A River Runs through Us" exhibit
about the Rio Grande / Rio
Bravo watershed.
In June 2001, Time magazine featured the border region in a special issue entitled Welcome to Amexica. Visit the interactive map and timeline created to accompany the issue, to learn more about the entire border region, including my previous home in the McAllen area.
Just as jazz is America's major contribution to world culture, South
Texas has given the world Tejano music
-- known best to outsiders because of the rise and tragic fall of
Corpus Christi Tejano star Selena.
Nearby Hidalgo Texas was the first point of entry for
Africanized "Killer Bees." In tribute, the town built the world's
largest killer bee (to go along with many "world's
largest" public artworks in Texas). Pam and Paloma are shown here
with the bee on our 1999 visit.
For more, see the Africanized Honey Bees report from the University of Georgia Entomologist Keith Delaplane or read about my own killer bee encounter in the Amazon. In Texas, our only encounter with Africanized bees occurred during a hike at the incredible Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. We heard the loud buzzing in the canopy overhead, and walked gingerly but quickly away. |
If you are ever driving across remote, West Texas Presidio County at
night, you might see the famous Marfa
Lights in the distance. We did so on a drive from Tucson to Pharr,
and it was spooky, even though I do not subscribe to the paranormal
explanations for the phenomenon. Such lights are also known as friar's lantern
or foxfire.
I apparently have a long-lost cousin in San Antonio: Mark Bohanan
even spells his last name the "right" way, though we do not know of any
direct family connection. I found him because he has a restaurant
called -- simply enough -- Bohanan's. It was not open when I lived in Texas,
but I'm certainly going out of my way to dine there on my next visit.
It has one of the finest restaurant
web pages I have seen; I look forward to trying the food!
To learn more about the fascinating state of Texas, visit Texas Monthly.
So far, I have visited the counties shown in yellow.
I have been to 138 out of 253 counties in Texas.
For a very clear map with the county names, visit Delorme's Texas
Counties page.
Return to my home page.