Becker Vineyards

Acres of vines awaiting the growing season shown here at Becker Vineyards near Stonewall, TX. The Becker label features a few regional award winning wines according to connoisseur cat magazine. I found their stock to be tasty at a very busy bar on this beautiful central Texas day.

Grape Creek Stonewall, TX

The oldest winery in the hill country. The wine was tasty as I sampled a half dozen different variety's on the Grape Creek label.

Hill Country Vineyards

Barrels of wine awaiting there next destination - my mouth. This photo taken at the Sister Creek Vineyard in Sisterdale, TX near Kerrville. This winery is located in an old cotton gin building built in the late 1800's.

A Hill Country Mile

A hill country mile with vastly different landscape than the panhandle.

William O'Loughlen - Texas micro-historian, folklorist, and highway explorer.

William O'Loughlen pictured here near Miami, TX. The morning sky was dark and the wind had finally subsided. I left my tripod at home so the car's top would have to suffice. The O'Loughlin Ranch (please note different spelling) is located in Miami. The town of Miami was founded by Irishman, Thomas O'Loughlin in 1875. He was the first white to settle his family permanently in the Texas panhandle after discovering it while hunting buffalo.

Tour of Texas complete

After 15 plus years I finally passed through my last Texas county (there are 254 total). Hemphill County is located in the extreme Northeastern part of the panhandle along the Oklahoma border. The photograph to the right shows me signing off on the last sign post. It has been a good run.

The River Red

One of 13 Texas rivers, the Red River takes it's name from the red color of the current. The Red River is part of the Mississippi drainage basin and it one time emptied all of it's water into the Mississippi. The river was a menace to the early traveler because of both it's variable current and it's quicksands which brought disaster to many a trial herd cow as well as ox team and covered wagon.

the Cotton grows so high, it sucks the water table dry

A whole lot of Texas cotton waiting to be made into t-shirts for you and me.

The Texas Theater

the Texas Theater is located in Shamrock, TX and is closed for the holiday season. Shamrock is home to one hellva' St. Patrick's Day Festival despite the fact it's located in a dry county.

The Palace Theater

the Palace Theater is located in the city of Canadian, TX and is currently screening Cheaper by the Dozen 2.

The Canadian River

The Canadian River is one of 13 major rivers in the state of Texas. It crosses the Texas panhandle into Oklahoma and there flows into Arkansas. Among several theories as to how the Canadian got it's name, one is that a group of early explorers thought it flowed into Canada. The Canadian is known for having quicksand at many places and has been a difficult river to bridge.

Pampa Theater

The Pampa Theater is located in Pampa, TX.

The Aggie Theater

Located in downtown Pampa, TX the Aggie has been closed for some time now.

Morley Theater

Recently renovated, the Morley Theater has the biggest screen in the panhandle. The Morley is located in Borger, TX - a former oil boom town.

Why do you think they call 'em "count-ies"?

Road Maps and Blurry Eyes. Texas highways roll for 76,000+ miles. And I've seen every last mile (no, not really). The current target: the panhandle plains is pictured to the left. The city of Amarillo is to the left of center on the map. A couple of useless facts for your arsenal:

Beaumont TX to El Paso TX: 742 miles
& Beaumont TX to Chicago IL: 770 miles.

El Paso is closer to California than it is to Dallas.

IAM TEXAS!

The Evelyn Theater

the Evelyn Theater in Dumas, TX screening a popular panhandle favorite "the Chronicles of Narnia."

The Mission Twins

the Mission Twin in Dalhart, TX still in operation. Please note: Cinema 2 film...

the ??? Theater

Spearman, TX's theater is also screening the popular Chronicles of Narnia.

The Ellis Theater

the Ellis Theater in Perryton, TX still in operation. A clean sweep for the hit: Chronicles of Narnia.

Drive Friendly Amigo

A West Texas Mile

Nothing quite like the expansive Texas panhandle plains. Yours truly chipped another 5 counties off the master list of 254 leaving exactly one county left. That remaining county is Hemphill which borders Oklahoma.

Some Important Background Information

County collecting is the process of driving through each county of a particular state. I decided to focus on the state of Texas first since it is my favorite state. I’ve been to every state so it’s only natural to start chipping away at the counties. It’s like once you’ve mastered the alphabet you can start reading and writing. Once you’ve been to every state you can start going to every county. There are different rules to county collecting: some collectors insist you stop at the county courthouse at the county seat of each county, others want you to spend some time in a particular county doing something, some want you to physically touch the ground of the county you are in, others insist you can only count the ones you see during the daytime. My rules were simple if you drove through the county it counted. Most of the time I would stop to take a picture of a movie theater anyway (more on that later) so my feet were actually touching the county. And I hated doing it at night and I have more or less re-done all the counties I visited at night (again it’s hard to take pictures in the dark). Anyway, I started with Texas approximately 15 years ago although I’ve been traveling to Texas my entire life. However, I didn’t count the counties I may have picked up when I was a kid. When I was a child it was not uncommon to spend a summer month visiting my Grandmother in South San Antonio. I have very fond memories of those times. We would drive or ride the bus but I never flew until I was an adult. In fact my first flight was from San Antonio to Minneapolis (my home at the time).

Texas has 254 counties spread out over 260,000 plus square miles. It is quite a spread of land. If you have never been to Texas it might be very hard for you to imagine (especially if you live on the East Coast) driving endlessly and never leaving the state. There is a lot of real estate and quite a variety of environments to explore. And up to this time I have seen almost all of it. This isn’t to say I’ve driven every mile of every road, that’s probably impossible or at least very unlikely but I’ve seen more of Texas then most Texans have and that is saying a lot.

So many years ago I started taking photographs of old Movie Theaters. You know the kind from yesteryear with the big marquee out front and all of the colored lights and interesting building design features. Most of them are closed down these days. It’s like the history of a by-gone-era. Movie theaters don’t look the way they used to - anymore then the movies they show inside look like the movies from days long gone. Actually, I call my photographs - snapshots so I wouldn’t give anyone the idea that I was a real photographer because I’m not. I have used just about any camera; little disposable cameras, Polaroid’s, a traditional SLR 35mm camera, and sometimes even my Lomo toy camera. One time I used a camera for golfers that that takes multiple pictures on one frame milliseconds apart designed to help them improve their club swinging technique. So clearly it wasn’t about talking great artistic pictures, although you might be surprised if you saw the results. The collection of photos has grown pretty steadily over the years. Much like driving EVERY mile of the highways of Texas, I know I haven’t taken a snapshot of EVERY old movie house in Texas. The margin of error is just too great. Along the way I’ve picked up a lot of stories about these theaters and in fact a lot of stories about the people of Texas as well. There are millions of old stories as you can probably imagine. It’s always a new adventure.

I’m down to collecting my last six counties and they are all in the Panhandle Plains near Amarillo. So that’s where this adventure will start. I will be nice to clean up Texas once and for all. But I have a feeling I will probably just start over again anyway. There are fifty states and thousands of counties but nothing, and I mean nothing is like being here.

I AM TEXAS.

p.s. those missing counties mentioned above can be seen on the map below if you look very carefully at the top of the TX map (they are NOT highlighted).