For the quintessential Texas experience..I wouldn't waste my time on the touristy looky-loo spots and restaurants and focus on some of the more pedestrian nostalgia.
Here's the closest and one of the last 7-11s in the area (hope the link works).
I would stop by there and pick up a six pack or two of Lone Star (disregard those delicate of taste) and a bottle of Boone's Farm for Mrs. File (get lots of ice too, its hot down here) and make my way North to Pedernales State Park to camp, or at least for the day.
..or you can opt out for the Texas refrigerator magnet and gamble on what might be a good Mexican restaurant. Your choice.
BTW you didn't ask, but there is a great bed and breakfast near Fort Sam Houston. It's the house built by General John L. Bullis, a famous frontier Texas military figure, who as a lieutenant commanded a unit known as the "Seminole Scouts" consisting of men of mixed African and Seminole Indian ancestry. That was during the Texas segment of the Indian Wars after the Civil War and before about 1880. General Bullis, by the way, only reached the rank of general at the time of his retirement, promoted with a stroke of the pen by President Theodore Roosevelt.
The foundation of Bullis's wealth was the vast quantity of land that he acquired (hundreds of sections, if I recall) on the Texas frontier in advance of the arrival of railroads and settlement. He followed the simple scheme of acquiring the land with permanent water on it and so was able to rent it later to those individuals who ended up with the dry grazing lands around the springs.
Kent
> MANY years ago, when I lived in Texas, all the "Kickers" drank Lone Star long necks.
Oh, back in the 1970's it was cool in Austin to drink Lone Star. I quaffed my share. The thing about knowing what good beer actually tastes like, though, is that you can tell yourself that life is too short to drink Lone Star.
those are excellent suggestions... I'm just sayin' it don't get much better vacation wise than refrigerator magnets, beer and Mexican food....
tho cold beer and a cool river are even better! Perhaps with a study of highway concrete on the way....
For awhile (not sure if they still do it) there was a grafitti artist contest/exposition on the inside of the flood wall along the Mississippi just south of the Arch in St. Louis....One could get a 12 pack of Bud or even better...Schafly... and pick up some reefer magnets and go stare at the flood wall and watch trains go by.....
