There’s no wondering where the beef is this weekend, at least not in Hamilton County, about an hour-and-a-half southwest of Dallas. On Saturday, the fifth annual Texas Steak Cook-Off, Beef Symposium and Tourist Trap returns to Hico, a cute hamlet at the intersection of Texas 6 and US 281. In just a short time, this gathering has turned into a heckuva party that attracts up to 6,000 folks. They come to eat steak, listen and dance to live country music, and hang out in the town some claim was Billy the Kid’s last haunt. You can watch competitors in several classes of competition, all vying for the best preparation and presentation of a 12-ounce choice rib-eye steak. There are celebrity chefs, as well as professional and backyard chefs at work, and some opt to also prepare hors d’oeuvres for competition – all for prize money. While you’re in town, check out great shopping for clothing and vintage boots at Western Otter, fabulous sweets at Wiseman House Chocolates, and some of those tales about where Billy the Kid spent his last days at the museum named for the infamous outlaw. Tickets are $25. For details, visit www.texassteakcookoff.com.

Houston, we have no problem seeing all the cool stuff you have to offer. It’s going to be easier than ever on Tuesday when Houston CityPass debuts, making Houston the 11th city to be chosen for the CityPass offering. (Other cities include New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and Los Angeles.) With this new pass, you get savings to eight city attractions, including Space Center Houston, Downtown Aquarium, Houston Museum of Natural Science, Houston Zoo, the Museum of Fine Arts, George Ranch Historical Park, and Children’s Museum of Houston – all in a super-thin booklet that fits easily in your jeans or shirt pocket. You’ll save big on this, too – Houston CityPass costs $34 for adults (a $63.40 value) and $24 for children 4-11 (a $44.70 value). Buy CityPass at any of the attractions or online at www.visithoustontexas.com or www.citypass.com.

This comes pretty fast on the heels of Houston Placenotes, an untraditional but very handy guide recently produced by the Charles W. Moore Center for the Study of Place, distributed by the University of Texas Press. Billed as “a library of on-the-go information,” it’s a box that looks at first glance like notecards but is actually a stack of 44 cards detailing sites and attractions around the city, complete with visitor information and accompanied by a color photograph for each place. Easier than hauling around a guidebook, you slip it into your backpack or purse the cards you’ll need for touring on a given day and off you go. They’re organized both geographically for easy itinerary planning, and they’re labeled thematically, with places like Main Street Square, Menil Collection, Montrose, and Rice University among architecture interests; Buffalo Bayou Park, Glenwood Cemetery, and Memorial Park among recreation sites; Rothko Chapel, Bayou Bend, and the Art Car Museum are noted with the visual arts icon; and the Houston Zoo, Armand Bayou Nature Center, and Mercer Arboretum in the environment/landscape interests. It’s a great gift for someone moving to Houston, too. It’s $19.95; find it at www.utexas.edu/utpress/index.html.

Let’s say that seeing the legendary outdoor musical called Fandangle Sampler has always been on your meant-to-do list, but you haven’t found your way to the Panhandle Plains town of Albany in late June for its annual production. Let’s also say you’re feeling a little blue, missing Lady Bird Johnson in this season of wildflowers. And let’s say, too, that you’d like to pay respects to the memory of good ol’ LBJ, who would have turned 100 this year. Well, there’s a way to do all of this at once and it’s in the Hill Country on May 17. That’s because the Fandangle Sampler will play at the LBJ ranch near Stonewall, re-creating parties for the former president and first lady that took place there in 1967, when he was in office, and also in 1970. The day’s celebration will include ranch tours, a barbecue feast, and plenty of entertainment, all of which will happen in the LBJ Ranch National Park’s Picnic Grove, beginning at 3 p.m. Tickets are $85-$100. Find details and make reservations at www.friendsoflbjnationalpark.org.

Even if you don’t make it to the Sampler and party, you ought to make plans to visit this national park and the adjacent state park, where there’s a wealth of outdoor history lessons. And make a point to check out LBJ’s boyhood home in nearby Johnson City, too. While you’re in the neighborhood, you have to set aside time to chill out at Pedernales Falls State Park, about 10 miles east of Johnson City via FM 2766. This magnificent spread of nearly 5,000 acres of former ranch land has about six miles of spectacular riverfront great for tubing, swimming, fishing, hiking, and camping. Read more at www.tpwd.state.tx.us.

So you haven’t figured out how to fete Mom this weekend, huh? There’s still time to treat her to a wine celebration, and you can do this within the context of a roadtrip – a treat for yourself. Some of the vintners along the Texas Wine Trail will be celebrating Mother’s Day with lovely lunches, but you ought to quit wasting time and get on with your reservations now. At Becker Vineyards, just outside of Fredericksburg at Stonewall, the three-course affair on Sunday will pair goodies such as chilled melon mimosa mint soup, herb-garlic leg of lamb, and lemon chess pie ($60); www.beckervineyards.com. At Driftwood Vineyards, between Dripping Springs and Wimberley, the lunch at noon on Sunday will include romaine salad with citrus and almonds, baked stuffed chicken, and cheeses and berries with wines sold by the glass and bottle ($35). Details at www.driftwoodvineyards.com. Another Hill Country destination, Fall Creek Vineyards on Lake Buchanan, near Burnet, there will be a Saturday luncheon for Mom with two seatings. The menu will include mixed field greens with beets and goat cheese, grilled salmon, and a lemon tart, plus some vegetarian options. Wine is included ($40); see more at www.fcv.com. Just west of Fort Worth, Lightcatcher Winery will put on a Sunday lunch buffet, bearing a bounty of chocolate-covered strawberries, fruit and green salads, roasted quail, garlic shrimp, halibut in puff pastry, veal-shank confit, and more for $35, not including wine. Get the scoop at www.lightcatcher.com. Even if you don’t get to these places for Mother’s Day, each is worth a daytrip on any weekend for sipping wine on quiet patios – and for shopping. Good wine touring websites include www.texaswinetrail.com and www.wayoutwineries.org.

By now, everyone’s at least heard about Round Top and the myriad shopping reasons to go there. But just down the road a spell, also in Fayette County, is the wonderful old German farm burgh of Fayetteville, where the art community just keeps growing and growing. This weekend, the town hosts its ninth annual Art Walk, a juried art show of work in ceramics and clay, glass, sculpture, mixed media, painting and drawing, and photography, all hosted on the town square by the Art Guild of Rural Texas. There will be live music, kids’ art classes, and lots of food, too. And through May 28, there’s an exhibit of local artist Mike Clann’s paintings at the Ross Gallery (114 N. Live Oak St.) Whenever you get to Fayetteville, you absolutely have to book a room at the Country Place Hotel, a charming little place that got a thorough update five years ago. My favorite room is the Park Community Room, or No. 7. It’s sunny-yellow, with two comfy double beds, plus a bath with shower. The inn’s owners, Clovis and Maryann Heimsath, are two of the loveliest people you’ll ever meet, and Maryann puts on a very nice breakfast in the morning. They’ll point you to some of the cool historic sites in town and give you the rundown on places to eat, like the home-cooking favorite called Orsak’s Café, right across the square. Ask real sweet and the Heimsaths will probably show you their own art gallery, too, justifiably a source of much pride. Check the place out at www.countryplacehotel.com; for Fayetteville art events, visit www.artguildtexas.org or www.texasartwalk.org.

You’d have to try pretty hard not to have a good time at the island city just down the road from Houston. Galveston Island always oodles of options for fun, and my favorite for this weekend is the monthly installment of Movies on the Strand. This free outdoor movie screening happens on the first Saturday of the month at Saengerfest Park, 23rd Street at the Strand. This Saturday, it’s one of my three all-time favorite flicks: Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the classic starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard. On June 7, it’s National Lampoon’s Vacation; Aug. 2, Grease; Sept. 6, Casablanca; and Oct. 4, Psycho. All you have to do is bring a blanket or some lawn chairs. When I’m on the island, I love to eat fish at one of the places along the seawall – who doesn’t? – but I also make a point on each trip to make a stop for breakfast at the Mosquite Café (628 14th St.), for the mosquito benedict – that’s a fresh scone piled with portobellos, shrimp, sundried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, asparagus, poached eggs, and Serrano-spiked hollandaise sauce. Check it out at www.mosquitocafe.com. For a little romance, I like staying at the Tremont House (www.wyndham.com), a beautiful historic hotel on the Strand; for luxurious digs, a spa and fast access to the beach, it’s the San Luis (www.sanluisresort.com). If you can nab one of the poolside cabanas there, you’ll start looking for someone to peel some grapes for you. You know that’s what Holly Golightly would have done.

I could have told you that two exceptional museums exist in and near Amarillo; recognition of this now comes from a source outside the state. In its May issue, True West magazine reviews the top 10 western museums and ranks the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum (PPHM) in Canyon its No. 1 Most Loved Museum. What’s more, True West included the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame & Museum on its honorable mention list, too. Personally, I could visit PPHM again and again, if nothing else than just to see the rotating exhibit of selections from the collection of 700 works by Frank Reaugh (1860-1945), known as the Dean of Texas painters. But if I needed an extra excuse to go this summer, it would be to see Samuel Colt: Arms, Art and Invention, opening May 24 and continuing through September 1. Colt was much more than a gun-maker; he actually came up with the advertising tag, “new and improved.” And as an inventor, he introduced production lines and created interchangeable parts for firearms. Among pieces in the exhibit are gifts and awards from global admirers, including Russian Czar Alexander II and Japanese shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu. See more at www.panhandleplains.org. If I’m staying in Canyon, the best overnight is at the Hudspeth House (1905 Fourth Ave.), an easy walk from the museum. Georgia O’Keeffee, who taught here at the university, was a former resident. There are eight comfortable rooms in the beautifully renovated 1909 house. Find it at www.hudspethinn.com. Additional Amarillo info can be found at www.visitamarillotx.com.

Roaming around Marfa sounds like something that could take place in five (or fewer) minutes, but you’d be surprised. The town gets new things to see and places to shop all the time. As you’d expect in a town with a great collection of art galleries and a major art center like the Chinati Foundation, the new businesses in town have a sophisticated edge to them. I found plenty of great shopping for home decor and jewelry at the little shops opened off the lobby at the Hotel Paisano. And I’m still thinking about the great dinner I had two Saturdays ago at the Blue Javelina, a very cool café on the west end of town. The garbanzo fries dusted with cumin salt were the perfect starter, and my entrée of pollo bravo, or crispy-skinned baked chicken with Spanish-style potatoes, was pretty darned wonderful. At breakfast, the Brown Recluse coffee shop (where they roast their own beans) has expanded offerings to include pancakes, bountiful burritos, and luscious lemon-blueberry muffins. And if you’re blessed with a friend out there who will loan you her vacation house, you’ll be happy to know that there’s now a place to shop for food provisions so you can make meals at home. Maiya Keck, owner of the famous Maiya’s restaurant in Marfa, knows that foodies can’t live on the meager offerings at the old-fashioned grocery store in town, so she opened a terrific little market called the Get Go (208 S. Dean St.; 432/729-3335; www.thegetgomarfa.com). This is where you can find imported cheeses, organic eggs, meats and produce, lovely chocolates, Asian foods, a good wine selection, and more.

My favorite time to hit some of Texas’ hot vacation spots is right now. During this magical time between spring break and summer, it’s quiet – at the beach and out in Big Bend. Last week, I traipsed all over the Trans-Pecos region and found a lot of solitude, which is the reason for going, of course. But I also made a few fun discoveries, some new things that I want to go back and experience a bit more. One is the Eleven Inn, a new lodging in Balmorhea. This is a fabulous option for people who find the cool, old San Solomon Courts cabins in Balmorhea State Park are booked up. There are – you guessed it – 11 rooms in this renovated motor court, all spanking clean and updated with iron or wood beds, cool antique or retro furnishings, and flat-screen televisions. No two rooms are alike; two have microwaves and mini-fridges. The grounds have picnic tables, grills, a fire pit, and clothes lines where scuba divers hang their wetsuits after exploring the depths over at the park’s spring-fed pool.

Eleven Inn is at 504 S. Main St., 432/275-2263; www.eleveninn.com.

I keep hearing this isn’t a great year for wildflowers, but I’ve seen plenty of pretty roadside displays in the past few days. A few days ago I drove from Houston northwest through Aggieland toward Waco and saw magnificent pastures swept in bluebonnets, particularly around Hempstead and Navasota. Seriously gorgeous vistas of flowers atop lush meadows, for sure. Shortly after that, I was driving around the Trans-Pecos area and saw patches of bluebonnets along highway shoulders, but the most impressive displays near Marfa, Alpine, and Fort Davis were yellow blooms atop prickly pear cactus and brilliant red flames sprouting from the tips of ocotillo. And just this past Sunday, cruising between Dallas and Fort Worth on I-30, the biggest traffic hazards were cars pulled over while people jumped out to take pictures of the dense expanses of bluebonnets punctuated by Indian paintbrush, evening primrose, and Mexican hat. These displays were truly stunning. Yet, officials report this is a below-average year. I’m not getting it! If you’re headed out for a drive, you can call the highway department’s hotline – 512/452-9292 – for recorded information about which highways in Central Texas are reporting the best wildflowers. Even better, you can hear about wildflower festivals, such as those at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin and at Wildseed Farms, near Fredericksburg.