Tourism Texas

The marquee outside the Coffee Station on dusty and dilapidated Main Street bears the only clue that a sitting president of the United States bunks here: "Crawford, Texas. Home of President George W. Bush. NOW SERVING LARGE PIZZA." This is the only restaurant in Crawford, population 705, a place that, like many of Texas' fabled small towns, has spent the last 20 years slowly dying.

We were hardly an hour into our motoring tour of West Texas when the words "check engine" flashed from the dash of the rented Hyundai Sonata. I scanned the desolate landscape. "Is that a town?" Emily, my traveling companion, wondered, pointing. Calling Cornudas a town is stretching things, since the population is five people--all of whom work at the roadside cafe. Still, owner May Carson does make that claim and others.

Evidently, businesses and vacationers need a big incentive to consider Houston. As part of an image-building campaign, the city is sponsoring a scratch-and-play trivia contest in subscriber copies of Time magazine. Winners can observe heart surgery performed by Dr. Denton Cooley, have tea with Houston Rockets basketball star Charles Barkley, get a gymnastics lesson from Mary Lou Retton or take a spin on the ice with champion skater Tara Lipinski. Or you can get lucky and lose.

They cross the border in convoys of Suburbans and Silverados, fair-skinned and light-eyed migrants. They carry gold cards with their Mexican passports, wear Rolexes with their Speedos. On the island, they eat $29.95 lamb chops at the Grill Room, buy $125 Italian shirts at Tate's, drink top-shelf whiskey at Tequila Frog's, share their prayers and prosperity with Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church. They are los regios, the regal ones, the elite of Monterrey.

Where three rivers come together, spirits must abound. I think this as I leave Big Bend National Park and head east toward los tres rios, the confluence of the Rio Grande, the Pecos and the Devils on the Texas-Mexico border. The cliffs and canyons above these rivers are alive with paintings of fantastic figures, part human, part animal, part bird. They are believed to be ceremonial images 4,000 to 5,000 years old.