The Fort Worth Stockyards are for tourists also--and for the dozen + years I've lived in town I've never managed to go there.

I agree with what our Dreaded Guest has said. It's lovely out there by Rio Frio. At Garner State Park there is a pool in front of the old CCC lodge that is as green as koolaid, it is so clear and cold. And the rolling hills and red clay. . . a great drive is to go from Enchanted Rock (north of Fredericksburg, which is a wonderful little German town) down the back roads to Kerrville, then west along the Guadalupe. Head out from there to Uvalde and Utopia.

Driving from Fort Stockton south is another interesting drive. Balmorhea (a huge natural spring, complete with desert pup fish) south toward Alpine and Big Bend takes you through the countryside of the Davis Mountains. I love all of that columnar basalt along the eroded valleys. McDonald Observatory is up there also.

And there's Hueco Tanks (east of El Paso) then up to Guadalupe National Park and across the pass to Carlsbad. . . lots of really great drives.

If you want to read a novel that captures life in a small Texas town, you might want to pick up McMurtry's The Last Picture Show and later drive up to Archer City to visit his huge used bookstore complex (takes up several buildings in "downtown" Archer City) called Booked Up. It's a couple of hours northwest of Fort Worth and is the place the fictional Thalia is modeled after. (And you'll find a real convincing reason why Laredo is a pretty smarmy place if you read The Last Picture Show).

Actually, to get the grittiest feel for the landscape around here (and westward into New Mexico and Arizona and down into Mexico) you might want to pick up a copy of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.

SRS