The Guadalupe River Drive in the Texas Hill Country, now approaching its 100th anniversary, began as a small path carved from the rocky hillside. Today called River Road, this popular tourist destination is enjoyed by both residents of and visitors to New Braunfels. In Hill Country Backroads: Showing the Way in Comal County, Laurie E. Jasinski explores the time when roads such as the Guadalupe River Drive were unknown and unexplored. A time when it was nearly impossible to reach your destination without having to change a few tires or find a team of mules to pull you out of the mud. A time when a journey was an adventure. Jasinski spent nearly a decade researching the early history of motoring and tourism in the area. Hill Country Backroads combines the setting of the Hill Country in the early 1900s with a historical narrative of Joe Sanders, Jasinki's grandfather, who was central to making the countryside of Comal County accessible to visitors and residents. Sanders improved travel in the area by creating the first scenic map of Comal County and implementing a system of road signs to label the county's confusing byways. Sanders' passion for travel and his attempt to show others how to enjoy life are driving forces throughout the book. Sanders' scenic maps of the area are reproduced along with original photographs of the characters, landscape, and automobiles of the period. Interviews with people who knew Sanders provide fascinating insight into this man and his contributions to Hill Country tourism. Hill Country Backroads combines two distinct but interwoven elements: the setting of the Hill Country in the early 1900s and the life of Joe Sanders. This rich compilation of historical events and human interaction is irresistible.

Where the Paluxy River now winds through the North Texas Hill Country, the great lizards of prehistory once roamed, leaving their impressive footprints deep in the limy sludge of what would become the earth's Cretaceous layer. It wouldn't be until a spring day in 1909, however, when young George Adams went splashing along the creekbed, that chance and shifting sediments would reveal these stony traces of an ancient past.Young Adams' first discovery of dinosaur tracks in the Paluxy River Valley, near the small community of Glen Rose, Texas, came more than one hundred million years after the reign of the dinosaurs. During this prehistoric era, herds of lumbering ""sauropods"" and tri-toed, carnivorous ""theropods"" made their way along what was then an ancient ""dinosaur highway."" Today, their long-ago footsteps are immortalized in the limestone of the riverbed, arousing the curiosity of picnickers and paleontologists alike. Indeed, nearly a century after their first discovery, the ""stony oddities"" of Somervell County continue to draw Saturday-afternoon tourists, renowned scholars, and dinosaur enthusiasts from across the nation and around the globe.In her careful and colorful history of Dinosaur Valley State Park, Jasinski deftly interweaves millennia of geological time with local legend, old photographs, and quirky anecdotes of the people who have called the valley home. Beginning with the valley's ""first visitors"" - the dinosaurs - Jasinski traces the area's history through to the decades of the twentieth century, when new track sites continued to be discovered, and visitors and locals continued to leave their own material imprint upon the changing landscape. The book reaches its culmination in the account of the hard-won battle fought by Somervell residents and officials during the latter decades of the century to secure Dinosaur Valley's preservation as a state park.

The musical voice of Texas presents itself as vast and diverse as the Lone Star State's landscape. According to Casey Monahan, "To travel Texas with music as your guide is a year-round opportunity to experience first-hand this amazing cultural force....Texas music offers a vibrant and enjoyable experience through which to understand and enjoy Texas culture." Building on the work of The Handbook of Texas Music that was published in 2003 and in partnership with the Texas Music Office and the Center for Texas Music History (Texas State University-San Marcos), The Handbook of Texas Music, Second Edition, offers completely updated entries and features new and expanded coverage of the musicians, ensembles, dance halls, festivals, businesses, orchestras, organizations, and genres that have helped define the state's musical legacy. More than 850 articles, including almost 400 new entries 255 images, including more than 170 new photos, sheet music art, and posters that lavishly illustrate the text Appendix with a stage name listing for musicians Supported by an outstanding team of music advisors from across the state, The Handbook of Texas Music, Second Edition, furnishes new articles on the music festivals, museums, and halls of fame in Texas, as well as the many honky-tonks, concert halls, and clubs big and small, that invite readers to explore their own musical journeys. Scholarship on many of the state's pioneering groups and the recording industry and professionals who helped produce and promote their music provides fresh insight into the history of Texas music and its influence far beyond the state's borders. Celebrate the musical tapestry of Texas from A to Z!