The renovation of the Briscoe-Garner Museum in Uvalde hit a rough patch recently when a fire broke out in the historic home.

But repairs from the December 11 fire are taking place in tandem with the renovation work, and museum officials hope the hiccup won’t delay the planned re-opening of the museum this spring.

Nobody was injured in the fire, and because the exhibits are stored for renovation, no items or historical artifacts were damaged, said Ben Wright, spokesman for the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at UT Austin, which owns the museum.

The fire started when a heat gun was used near flammable materials. The fire department contained the fire quickly.

“We’re very hopeful that construction will be finished in March, and we will then install the exhibits and plan for a grand opening soon after,” Wright said. “In the near future there’s going to be a very fine museum here, a very effective public resource that tells the story of these two local figures.”

The $1.1 million renovation of the old Garner Museum began in January 2009. Much of the project has been related to improving the old structure, including foundation and asbestos-abatement work, Wright said. The museum is posting updates on its Facebook page.

Vice President John Nance “Cactus Jack” Garner lived in the home on North Park Street for more than 30 years. The museum first opened to the public in 1973 with exhibits focused on Garner’s life and career.

As part of the renovation, the second floor will be opened to the public for the first time, featuring exhibits related to Governor Dolph Briscoe.

“Governor Briscoe connects us with the narrative of the rest of our state, and Vice President Garner connects us with the national narrative,” Wright said. “It connects the local community in very special and meaningful ways with the state and national history.”

Be sure to check out the April issue of Texas Highways for a feature about visiting Uvalde.

One of the oldest tourism destinations in West Texas is up for sale.

Rock hounds have been making pilgrimages to the Woodward Ranch since the 1930s—and still do—to hunt for agates and gemstones on the 2,200-acre patch of prairies, mesas, and mountains, about 16 miles south of Alpine.

But after the 2011 death of Trey Woodward—the third generation Woodward to own the ranch—his widow Jan Woodward and other family members decided it was time to sell.

“It’s just too much for one woman to take care of,” Jan told me during a recent phone call. “This is what’s happening to farms and ranches all over. As people grow older and can’t continue to do the work, the children have moved away. The small family-owned farms and ranches are becoming a thing of the past. It’s like having dial-up Internet.”

Jan is ambivalent about the sale. She would be just as happy to stay. To complement the ranch’s tourism business, Jan leases the land to cattle ranchers and mule-deer hunters. Visitors can also hike around to view the wildlife or go horseback riding (on their own horses).

“I don’t want to move,” she says. “I love it here.”

Texas Ranger J.C. Bird homesteaded the ranch in 1884. His adopted sons, including Frank Woodward Sr., each inherited parcels of the original homestead.

It was Frank Sr. who realized the local geology was of interest to rock hunters—especially the red plume agate found only there. He opened the ranch to tourists in the mid- to late-1930s. (Big Bend National Park opened a few years later, in 1944).

In the late 1940s, National Geographic featured the Woodward Ranch in a rock-hunting article, Jan says.

“It’s a rock hound’s paradise,” she says. “It’s all igneous, formed by a small volcano. The remnants of it are still here. It’s known today as Eagle Peak.”

Despite the potential for a sale, Jan recently hired a foreman and has made improvements to the ranch to accommodate visitors, including improvements to the ranch’s RV and tent camping areas.

There’s a new meet-and-greet area for campers, a new restroom and shower, a new telescope for stargazing, and improvements to the two cabins. Also, as of January 1, the ranch is now open six days a week, up from three days.

“We want our guests to have a good time and be comfortable here,” Jan says. “In today’s economic uncertainties, who knows if (the ranch) is ever going to sell?”

Jan says she’d like to see a buyer keep the ranch open to rock hounds, but there’s no guarantee.

“If you want to come see it, now’s the time,” she says.

The Boquillas border crossing in Big Bend National Park is set to re-open.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Friday that the crossing will open 30 days after its final ruling is published. A precise date wasn’t immediately available.

The federal government closed the Boquillas crossing of the Rio Grande in 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11.

Big Bend National Park has pushed to re-open the crossing to foster both tourism opportunities and resource management cooperation with its Mexican counterparts.

Boquillas will be the only port of entry between Presidio and Del Rio, which are about 300 miles apart. For visitors entering Mexico, the crossing will provide access to the town of Boquillas and the protected areas of Maderas del Carmen, Ocampo, and Cañon de Santa Elena.

In their joint announcement, the National Park Service and U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the “decision to open the state of the art border crossing is based on extensive CBP analysis, consultation with our Mexican counterparts, and is part of our ongoing commitment to ensure that we continue to take steps to enhance security along our borders.”

Visitors will cross the Rio Grande via a rowboat operated by a concessionaire. The port of entry will be open to pedestrians from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Cars won’t be allowed to cross.

Crossers entering Mexico from the United States will be required to have a Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative approved document.

Crossers from Mexico to the United States will go through entry procedures at a  National Park Service interagency facility. The facility will have two kiosks for visitors to transmit their documentation to Customs and Border Protection and participate in an interview via a remote link, DHS said in its news release.

National Park Service rangers and Border Patrol agents will provide security in the area, and National Park Service personnel will staff the interagency facility.

Big Bend National Park’s plan to re-open the Boquillas border crossing to Mexico is still pending, nearly two years after the park proposed the idea.

Park spokesman David Elkowitz tells TH that the plan is still in the works, but there’s no set schedule. The federal government closed the Rio Grande rowboat crossing at Boquillas in 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11.

Big Bend wants to re-open the crossing because it provides tourism opportunities and better access for park officials to work with their Mexican counterparts on natural resource management projects, Elkowitz says.

Before the crossing closed, the tiny town of Boquillas del Carmen drew visitors into Mexico with a couple of bar and restaurant establishments and tourist activities like horseback rides.

If the crossing is re-opened, Park Service personnel would man the crossing to provide information for tourists, Elkowitz says. The Department of Homeland Security would handle security checks via a kiosk operated by the Big Bend Border Patrol Sector.

The park concessionaire, Forever Resorts, would operate the johnboat to row crossers back and forth, at least for the first year, Elkowitz says.

The future of the Boquillas crossing may be up in the air, but tourism activities in the Big Bend region abound. Check out the Texas Highways Big Bend issue this February for inspiration.

It’s shaping up to be another busy weekend in Texas for Santa with dozens of events to get people jingling all the way to Christmas. If you’re looking for a place to get in the holiday spirit, check out the list below for tips on what’s happening this Friday and Saturday, or browse all the December listings here.

Do you have a favorite event that you’re planning to visit soon? Let us know in the comments, or better yet, share your holiday photos with us on Instagram. We’d love to see Christmas light displays, little ones meeting Santa (whether happy to or not), live nativity scenes, Texas-sized menorahs, luminarias, ice skating in short sleeves–anything that says “holidays in Texas” to you. Just be sure to post your photos with the tag #TxHwysHolidays, and they’ll be added to our slideshow. We’ve posted a few already (above) just to get started. For more details on how it all works, check out the previous blog post.

Holiday happenings this weekend include:

• Baytown: Christmas on Texas Avenue Street Festival, Dec. 8
• Belton: Old-Fashioned Christmas, Dec. 8
• Burnet: Christmas on the Square and Christmas at Fort Croghan, Dec. 8
• Caldwell: Old-Fashioned Christmas on the Square, Dec. 7-8
• Chappell Hill: Holiday Home Tour and Teddy Bear Parade, Dec. 8
• Conroe: Annual Christmas Celebration, Dec. 8
• Fredericksburg: Lighted Community Christmas Parade, Dec. 7; and St. Nikolausmarkt, Dec. 7-8
• Kemah/Clear Lake Area: Annual Christmas Boat Lane Parade, Dec. 8
• Kilgore: Snow Hill Festival, Dec. 7-8; and Holiday Happenings in Historic Homes, Dec. 8
• Lubbock: Candlelight at the Ranch, Dec. 7-8
• McAllen: Candlelight Posada, Dec. 8
• Mesquite: Christmas in the Park, Dec. 6-8
• Round Top: Christmas in Winedale, Dec. 8
• Tomball: Christmas on Commerce, Dec. 8; and the German Christmas Market and Festival, Dec. 7-9

And don’t forget these ongoing events:

• Burnet: Christmas Trail of Lights, Dec. 1-31
• Grapevine: North Pole Express and Christmas on Main, weekends through December
• Johnson City: Lights Spectacular, Hill Country Style, through Jan. 1
• Marble Falls: Walkway of Lights, through Jan. 1
• Midland: Christmas at the Mansion, Dec. 1-29
• Nacogdoches: Nine Flags Festival, through Dec. 8
• Spring: Home for the Holidays, weekends through Dec. 23
• Wichita Falls: ElectriCritters (weekends until Dec. 22) and Fantasy of Lights (through Jan. 1)
• The Woodlands: Winter Wonderland and Woodlands Ice Rink, through Jan. 21

Families enjoy the big sleigh at Lubbock’s Winter Wonderland at Vintage Township. (Texas Highways photo/Kevin Stillman)

Tomorrow it will officially be December (though I could have sworn it came a few days earlier judging from how much Christmas music I’ve heard already), and cities across the state are ready to spread the holiday cheer with a huge weekend of Christmas festivals and parades. Check out the list below for a small selection of events—or you can find more using the event search tool.

While you’re out and about at holiday events this year, we’d love to see what fun you find! Just share your favorite holiday photos with us on Instagram by tagging your pictures with #TxHwysHolidays. Your pictures will then show up on a real-time slideshow we’ll post next week at TexasHighways.com.

Not an Instagram user yet? You can join in the fun by downloading the Instagram app to your mobile phone or tablet. Then create a free account and take a photo (or choose one you’ve already taken from your mobile photo library), choose a filter to stylize your image, and upload the picture with the #TxHwysHolidays tag in the caption box. (Also make sure your photos are public so we can see them!) More tips on using Instagram can be found here.

You can also click this button to see what Texas Highways is up to on Instagram from your web browser:

Here are just a few of this weekend’s offerings to get you started:

• Alvin: Home for the Holidays Christmas Festival, Dec. 1
• Athens: Holiday on the Square, Dec. 1
• Austin: Chuy’s Christmas Parade and the Holiday Sing-Along and Downtown Stroll, Dec. 1
• Bellville: A Small-Town Christmas, Nov. 30-Dec. 1
• Corpus Christi: Harbor Lights Festival, Dec. 1
• Galveston: Dickens on the Strand, Dec. 1-2
• Huntsville: Huntsville for the Holidays (several events on Dec. 1)
• Lampasas: Carol of Lights, Dec. 1
• Llano: Christmas Market Day, Lighted Christmas Parade and Home Tour, Dec. 1
• Monahans: Christmas and Chili Market, Dec. 1
• Quanah: Christmas Festival and Lighted Parade, Dec. 1
• Rockport: Rockport Tropical Christmas Festival, Dec. 1
• Rosenberg: Christmas in Rosenberg, Dec. 1
• San Antonio: Tamales! At Pearl–A Holiday Family Festival, Dec. 1
• South Padre Island: Christmas Lighted Boat Parade, Dec. 1

And some ongoing events through the end of the season:

• Burnet: Christmas Trail of Lights, Dec. 1-31
• Grapevine: North Pole Express and Christmas on Main, weekends through December
• Johnson City: Lights Spectacular, Hill Country Style, through Jan. 1
• Marble Falls: Walkway of Lights, through Jan. 1
• Midland: Christmas at the Mansion, Dec. 1-29
• Nacogdoches: Nine Flags Festival, through Dec. 8
• Wichita Falls: ElectriCritters (weekends until Dec. 22) and Fantasy of Lights (through Jan. 1)
• The Woodlands: Winter Wonderland and Woodlands Ice Rink, through Jan. 21

Move over, Cowboys Stadium—Texas has a new premier sports facility.

I know, I know. It’s not a fair comparison. Football will always have a special place in many Texans’ hearts. But the opening race this weekend at the new Circuit of the Americas, just southeast of Austin, definitely put the state on the Formula One map.

Admittedly, I went to the event knowing almost nothing about Formula One racing (aside from what I learned watching the documentary Senna a few months back). But I quickly found out a few things:

1. Bring ear protection–no joke, those engines are LOUD. It’s like part of the challenge is to defeat your earplugs.
2. The only way to tell who’s driving is to memorize who’s wearing what helmet, since multiple drivers on the same team may drive identical cars.
3. European guys all seem to have good hair. Go figure.

Our view from Turn 15–close enough to make you think, “I hope these guys know what they’re doing!”

I also expected more of a culture clash, with the casual come-as-you-are attitude of Austin rubbing wrong against the international jet-set crowd that follows F1. But it was soon apparent that this motorsports mecca becomes a world all its own, with about as many people wearing gear for their favorite Texas sports teams as there are others decked out in racing team colors or their national flags—and all of them in high spirits for this inaugural event.

The sprawling facilities can accommodate about 120,000 fans, or a crowd about the size of the whole city of Waco. By the good graces of someone in the family who won tickets, I had a seat in the third row of the “premium grandstand” on Turn 15—close enough to think maybe the drivers could see us as they slow down to take the curve.

For a seemingly exclusive event, I was pleasantly surprised to see how open and accessible the course was. Though the main grandstand and other premium seats are, naturally, closed off to most, there were general admission areas and other open spots for anyone to see the action from different angles. We moved around during some of the qualifying races just to see what there was to see, like the tower and the pedestrian bridge (which intentionally has any view of the track blocked off to keep people moving, although foot traffic bottlenecked here nonetheless). Swapping seats with friends at Turn 4 during some of the Ferrari and Porsche races on Saturday gave us a sweeping, colorful view of a winding stretch of the course.

The landmark tower of the Circuit of the Americas offers a bird’s-eye view of the track for a $35 fee.

Aside from the bridge bottlenecks, the only other place where we hit a snag was in the vendor areas. I was blissfully unaware of this on Saturday, when I managed to sneak in some food and avoided spending a single dollar at the track. On Sunday I went for a tasty chicken-in-a-waffle “taco” from the local Lucky J’s food truck, which was one of the shorter lines—and I still waited half an hour for food, then another half hour in a seaprate drink line.  Of course, the food and drinks were pricey, but not as much as I feared—most things seemed to be at least double what they’d cost outside the race (ever the pessimist, I was expecting quadruple). Meeting for lunch with friends at the race also became impossible since cell phone reception also was spotty to nonexistent, depending on the density of the crowd.

On the bright side, the weather was perfect (as long as you remembered to bring sunscreen), and the massive traffic delays feared before the race never materialized. Having attended other big events in Austin, such as the Austin City Limits Music Festival, I can say the logistics of getting in and out of Circuit of the Americas seemed to flow much more smoothly. The only traffic I encountered was the half-hour line waiting to get into the park-and-ride on Saturday. I was shocked to arrive at the park-and-ride at 9 a.m. on race day to find no line waiting to get in, so I was on a bus and at the track in about 30 minutes.

A view of the main grandstand area with the start/finish line, winners’ podium (in the middle with the checkered background), and pit area (bottom level) from a general admission area.

FanVision was my electronic “cheat sheet” for learning which driver was in which car.

At the main U.S. Grand Prix race on Sunday, the enthusiasm of the crowd reached its height. By then, I could spot the top four or five cars and got to see a couple of drivers overtake another on the curve in front of us. When Lewis Hamilton passed leader Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull car on Lap 42, just a couple of turns before our seats, you could feel the excitement ripple through the crowd. Then it was a game of people waving their hands to cheer Hamilton on every time he passed our section until he took the checkered flag.

We waited for the drivers to wave to the crowd on their victory lap before hustling for the exit. I dreaded the wait for the buses to take us back to the park-and-ride as about 117,000 people exited the grounds, but the lines kept moving and we were on a bus just 30 minutes after exiting the gates. Friends who left after the podium ceremony told me they waited about an hour. Not too bad, considering the scale of the event.

All in all, it seemed that the weekend went pretty smoothly for most folks. It will be interesting to see how much money came to Central Texas this weekend in the form of hotel rooms, meals and so on. I’m not sure if I’ll become a regular follower of Formula One racing, but now I certainly understand what all the F1 buzz is about.

Tearing up the floor at Wurstfest. If you can’t polka or two-step, just wait for the next Chicken Dance.

It’s become a yearly tradition for us to head down to Wurstfest in New Braunfels to share the joys of beer, sausage and polka with a few friends. Both the Longhorns and the Aggies had won football games when we went this Saturday, so the grounds were extra-packed with jovial fans–and a few in burnt orange even offering congratulations to those in maroon after their team beat No. 1 Alabama. Usually we’d park somewhere in town and trek on foot to the festival, but this time we caught the Wurst Wagen from the park-and-ride at the New Braunfels VFW, which was worth the money: $20 each for parking, admission, a ride to the front gate and some drink tickets, which saved us from standing in a couple of long lines at the event.

Once inside, we headed to the food pavilion for dinner. I went in with a strategy to try at least a little of a lot of different offerings: a Wurst-kabob (with five different types of sausage and a dinner roll), bratwurst hot dog, fried sauerkraut, fried pickles, fried cheesecake, and a kolache. These went fast among our group of six people, and when we were full, we agreed that we should come back next year to try the things we didn’t get around to (I’ll get you next time, apple pancakes…next time!).

Aside from the food area and the dance hall, another popular stop for a lot of people was the hat vendor. I think this photo of my new headgear is a perfect testament to the great time we had. Yes, the wings actually flap. Even the cashiers at Buc-ee’s on our way home were impressed.

It’s pretty rare that I’m drawn to an event on the strength of a poster alone, but then I saw this:

Lightning! A famous scientific rivalry! …Fictitious metal?

My curiosity was piqued, so I checked out the website. At the center of the event is a “fictional smack down”/stage show portraying Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, who personify the competing electrical technologies that emerged in the late 1800s. Add costumed entertainers, music, vendors, mad-science labs and a generous helping of ”steampunk” style (imagine combining Victorian Era technology with a Renaissance festival), and the ghost town of Unobtainium, Texas, crackles to life. The website predicts:  “Sparks will fly. Ray guns will be drawn. History will be re-made!” Even if it doesn’t sound like your kind of scene, you have to admire the earnest creativity behind the concept.

The imaginary town of Unobtainium can be found at Ball Farm in Dale, Texas, about 30 minutes southeast of Austin. Tesla and Edison are set to take shots at each other throughout the day before the actual showdown at 10 p.m. Saturday and again at 5 p.m. Sunday. For more information, visit http://showdownatunobtainium.com.

Last week I took some time off to host my dad while he visits from out of state, which means I got to play tour guide. In his previous visits, we already explored most of the sights around my home in Austin, so this time I made plans to get out and stretch our legs in the surrounding area.

I let dad rest up on his first evening here, but the next day, we were off to explore downtown Bastrop and Bastrop State Park. Among the downtown shops and eateries on Main Street, we especially enjoyed the sign to the right (which, naturally, points to a door that can’t be opened). In the park, the loblolly pine trees still bear scorch marks as a reminder of the Labor Day fires that burned the area more than a year ago, but the trails were all open. Newly built wood bridges span many of the creek beds. More sun gets through the sparse canopy than it used to, but there’s plenty of healthy, green growth underneath.

After our six-mile morning hike, we jumped in the car again to head out to Round Top. For a little country town, a lot of events happen here, and this weekend was no exception. The beautiful concert hall at Festival Hill was hosting a chamber orchestra performance, but unfortunately, we were too late to attend, so we browsed the cute shops in historic buildings at Henkel Square instead. At dinnertime, we found an Oktoberfest celebration at Scotty & Friends Restaurant, complete with lederhosen, accordions and German tunes by Das Ist Lustig (“That’s Fun”). I enjoyed a huge cheeseburger and dad had a plate of tender sauerbraten and sauerkraut at one of several tables on their outside deck beneath a huge oak tree. It was pretty much perfect except for a few yellowjackets that seemed to really like hanging out with dad, too–one of them eventually drowned itself in what was left of his beer. Prost!

Last Saturday, we gathered more of the family together to head down to Boerne for the Harvest Moon Celebration. We overshot the location at the Boerne Visitor Center at first, not expecting it to be essentially in the parking lot of a Walmart. But once on the grounds, encompassed by the historic Menger-Kingsbury-Shumard House, we lost track of our surroundings and found ourselves immersed in a fascinating birds-of-prey demonstration by Last Chance Forever. Founding falconer John Karger and volunteers led an engaging hourlong presentation that featured hawks and falcons  flying over the audience; a juvenile (but huge) bald eagle; insights into raptors’ roles in the environment; and how to tell birds apart by their colors and shapes from afar. One of the hawks decided to hunker down in a tree directly over my head rather than swooping in for a proffered treat—luckily he didn’t do any decorating on me. An owl presentation later in the evening, plus belly dancing, a children’s costume contest and henna tattoos, made this little fall festival a real treat.

Though dad has already headed home, the fall weather is so lovely that I might keep this going and venture out somewhere else this weekend…I have my eye on Wurstfest in New Braunfels. What are your plans for this weekend?