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At the start of any great road trip, there's a moment when the dreaming and doing intersect and giddiness spills over like hot coffee on a bumpy street. That moment hits me in Bandera, a two-block strip of honky-tonks and cowboy apparel stores an hour beyond the car-choked San Antonio loop. Inside the bell-jangling door of a tourist shop, amid Indian blankets, baskets of flint, and a box of fossils labeled "Dinosaur Droppings," I spy a rack of music CDs and nearly let out a whoop. Road tunes!
It doesn't take long for Asleep at the Wheel's tribute album to Western swing legend Bob Wills to become the soundtrack of our four-day trip. With me are my wife, Heather, and our two children: Luther, 5, and Eliot, 1. We slap thighs to "San Antonio Rose" and "Take Me Back to Tulsa" while whizzing down lonesome back roads in one of the most beloved regions of Texas—the Hill Country. We don't plan to go yee-haw overboard. Luckily we don't have to, since the Hill Country, with its oak forests, jade green rivers, and quaint German-influenced towns, is Texas Lite. Except for the occasional rodeo arena and boot shop, we've left the myth of the cowboy in Bandera, "Cowboy Capital of the World."
photography: Robbie Caponetto
Housed in a 1930s roadhouse and decorated with commemorative plates from around the world, Po-Po Family Restaurant is the place near Comfort for hot meals and Texas-size smiles. "For fast, go to New York," reads a sign at the door. |
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We're blowing by wildflowers and blasting road tunes 
