Drawn the Road Again

Tag: Texas

  • Somewhere to lean on

    Somewhere to lean on

    This post is part of an ongoing series called 66 Fridays, which explores the wonders of old Route 66. Click on the preceding “66 Fridays” link to view all posts in the series, or visit the initial overview post here. I crossed Texas twice last year: once at its widest point (where we logged over…

  • Sunset sentinel

    Sunset sentinel

    When Mary-Alice and I drove across Texas together last year, we knew our stop for this night would be somewhere around Houston. Neither of us fancied slogging through an enormous, unfamiliar city at rush hour, so from the passenger seat I pulled out the map to see if I couldn’t find an alternative. What I…

  • Designated drawing

    Designated drawing

    You already know that if I’m riding shotgun, I’ll end up doodling while the scenery rolls by. And my travel companions know that if they take a road trip with me, they’ll end up in the sketchbook eventually.

  • The final tally

    The final tally

    If you happen to follow along on Instagram or Facebook, you’ll know I’ve just returned from a 4000+ mile road trip across the south and west of the county. One of the things I like to do at the end of a trip (and the end of my sketchbook) is a map and recap of…

  • Bird- and beastwatching

    Bird- and beastwatching

    Whenever I travel closer to home, where the flora and fauna are familiar to me, my birdwatching sketches look a lot like any other in my sketchbooks: full scenes, with plenty of time taken to get the details right. (And if my subject should happen to wander away—well, if it’s something I’ve seen before, memory…

  • The road less traveled

    The road less traveled

    Since I’ve got a road theme going this week, I thought I’d spend the next couple of posts highlighting some of my very favorite squiggly lines on the map. Everyone seems to have California Highway One at the top of their road trip bucket list (for good reason!), but FM170 in West Texas deserves to…

  • The “steer” in steering wheel

    The “steer” in steering wheel

    If I saw this big boat sailing through Seattle rush hour traffic, it would completely make my day—gridlock or no. I guess it’s sort of a moot point for me, since I work from home, but if I had any sort of morning commute at all, I could totally see myself rockin’ it with this…

  • Pet sounds

    Pet sounds

    The Tailor and I bought two new pairs of binoculars for our trip to Big Bend last year, because we knew we could expect to do some serious birdwatching there. What we didn’t find out until the ungodly hours of our first morning in the tent: the birdlistening was every bit as intense.

  • Island in the sky

    Island in the sky

    I’ve talked before about being on Island Time—and in a weird way, this is kind of the same thing. You see, islands don’t just exist in water; you can find them in the middle of the desert, too. The Chisos Mountains, in the heart of Big Bend National Park, rise 4,000 feet above the parched…

  • Ka-bloom

    Ka-bloom

    The Tailor and I visited Big Bend in mid-April, our best chance to catch the cacti in bloom. When we got there, a park ranger warned us not to get our hopes up. He told us they’d been experiencing a record drought—the park had only received about three inches of rain, total, over the past…