(upbeat music)
- [Briggs] Do you have a bucket list?
You should, what is going on, everyone?
Welcome back to "World According to Briggs"
and our list of things to see in Texas before you die,
or your bucket list, whatever you wanna call it.
Recently, we did a video about the best things to see
in the entire United States.
Like I've said before, the United States
has so much to offer from a tourism perspective,
I don't think most people really understand that
or realize it.
People always say things like Rome, London, or safari,
maybe the Caribbean are on their travel bucket list,
but rarely say anything about the United States
unless it's in their state
or one of the big ones in the country,
Disney, Washington DC, Grand Canyon, Times Square,
Yellowstone, et cetera.
I study this stuff so I have a decent-sized bucket list
of things I wanna see in the United States.
I've seen a lot and I'm not even a quarter way
through my list of 250.
I make these lists with the intention
of encouraging people to explore the US.
Tourism is one of the best ways to help local economies,
and local economies, since the pandemic, need your help.
Like I said, today we're looking at Texas.
Texas has a ton of things to see and do,
and you can add them all to your bucket list.
Also, if you think we missed one,
which I'm sure in someone's opinion we missed a few,
let us know in the comment section.
As the video plays, let us know in the comment section
how many of the places you've been to,
what's your final total?
All right, let's see what could go
on your bucket list in Texas.
Number one, the Alamo, San Antonio, Texas.
This one sees a lot of tourists,
I've been here twice, and each time
it was a little too crowded,
but to tell you the truth, it was worth it.
This is one of the most historic buildings
or group of buildings the United States has to offer,
and it's great for history buffs.
The Alamo played a big part in how we became a nation,
it's definitely worth seeing if you're in San Antonio.
Number two, small towns in Texas.
Texas has some amazing small towns,
90% of the time they overflow
with good, down-to-earth people.
I'm a big fan of small towns,
especially ones that are away from metro areas
all by themselves, like out in the middle of the plains,
the prairie, the woods, whatever,
all states have 'em,
Texas tends to do them a little bit better than most.
They all have a main street or a commerce street,
and there's always a barbecue going on in the parks.
I don't know what it is,
that's just stereotypical small-town Texas.
Number three, the Fort Worth Stockyard.
This is the National Historic District
just north of Downtown Fort Worth.
In the 1800s, this was a very important
trading post for cattle,
these days, it's just a touristy, cowboy town,
but it's really interesting
and filled with all kinds of history.
They still have the cattle drive through town,
it's actually there for the tourists now,
they're not really shipping out cattle
from this area anymore.
Their old rail depot is now a mall-type thing
that has some really great food and good drinks.
It's definitely an interesting place to see.
Number four, the Texas State Fair.
It's hard to explain this one, but it's definitely,
I've been to six state fairs, probably eight county fairs,
the Texas State Fair blows all of them out of the water,
it's really a good time.
Number five, Galveston.
Galveston is an island city on the Gulf Coast of Texas,
it's known for this amusement-park-type thing
called Moody Gardens.
It's got these giant pyramids,
one's the Aquarium Pyramid, the Rainforest Pyramid
and the Discovery Pyramid.
They all opened up different years,
the first one was in '93, in '97, then again in '99,
but they're all about 12 stories high
and they got a lot of cool stuff in there to see.
That's just that one place in Galveston,
Galveston's a great place to visit, nice beaches.
Number six, the American Airlines Center.
All right, now this one, you can see anything,
there's sports, concerts, whatever,
but Texas is big into sports,
you'll see a couple things on this list
that are related to sports,
but the American Airlines Center
is one of the best places in the country
to catch a basketball game or a hockey game,
you got the Dallas Mavericks there
and you got the Dallas Stars there,
great venue to see anything.
Number seven, visit a dude ranch.
This is one of those things
you gotta do in Texas at least one time.
They are dude ranches, like the title implies,
but these days, they have nice pools
and recreation centers at the ranch,
it's just not all about cowboying it up,
riding horses and roping things,
there's a lot to do at these ranches.
For some reason, a lot of 'em
are around a town called Bandera,
which Bandera is a pretty cool small town in its own right,
but it's just surrounded by all these different dude ranches
or cattle ranches, whatever you wanna call 'em,
but they're definitely a good time.
Number eight, South Padre Island.
South Padre Island is a South Texas island
near Brownsville and the Mexico border.
This is a great resort, town or island,
whatever you wanna call it,
spring break, this place goes off, it's a lot of fun.
If anyone tells you you should go to UFO Beach,
don't go there, it is a nude beach,
unless you're into that, then go there,
but they're not into tan lines there.
Number nine, the Congress Avenue Bridge.
The Congress Avenue Bridge,
which goes across the Lady Bird Lake,
it used to be called Town Lake,
but it's in Downtown Austin.
It's home to one of the largest urban bat colonies
in North America.
They estimate they got about 1.5 million
Brazilian free-tailed bats living there.
Each night from mid-March to November,
the bats emerge from under the bridge at dusk
to blanket the sky and just take off,
and they're just looking for food,
anything they can get their hands on.
If you got a good camera that works in low light,
this is a great place to take a picture or video.
Number 10, the Hamilton Pool.
About 45 minutes northwest of Downtown Austin,
you have this breathtaking natural oasis.
The Hamilton Pool is a very popular
natural spring and swimming hole.
This is a hole in the middle of the Texas Hill Country
that's got a nice little waterfall and a nice place to swim.
It's one of my favorite swimming holes in the country.
I was here years ago,
and it was more crowded than I thought it would be,
but it was a lot of fun.
Number 11, the Munster house.
Just south of Dallas, you have the town of Waxahachie,
and the Munster house at 1313 Mockingbird Lane.
No kidding, this is the Munster house from the TV show.
The couple that live there have spent years
turning their Victorian home into the Munster Mansion
from the 1960s sitcom.
The show never had blueprints to this house,
it was just all sets and stuff like that,
so the couple studied all 70 episodes
to come up with the layout for the house.
It's really interesting,
and it's really bizarre that a couple would go that far.
Then again, I know a girl
that's got tons of Darth Vader tattoos all over her body,
it's really strange.
Number 12, the San Antonio River Walk.
This is one of my favorite days
to spend a lazy Saturday afternoon,
get some drinks, have some lunch,
all on this little river walk area.
It's not too far from the Alamo either,
so you can knock those both out in one afternoon.
Number 13, Big Bend National Park.
Big Bend is an American national park
located in West Texas, bordering Mexico.
This place looks like they filmed 1950 Westerns here.
There's like three or four different places
in Texas and Arizona,
actually, I think I just talked about one,
but it looks like they film movies here
and not like, "This looks like a good place for a movie,"
like I've seen this scene before
in a movie when I was there.
It's really weird, really weird.
Anyway, the area's rich in culture, history,
from archeological sites dating back nearly 10,000 years,
to more recent pioneers, ranchers and miners,
this is some beautiful desert land,
definitely worth a visit.
It's not one of the national parks
you ever hear about really, unless you're in Texas,
the rest of the country doesn't even know it's there,
and it's a pretty good one.
Number 14, Globe Life Park and a Rangers game.
Arlington, Texas is in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metro Area,
it's actually right between Dallas and Fort Worth,
and that's where you have a couple of different things,
like where the Cowboys play
and where the Major League Baseball, Texas Rangers play,
they play at Globe Life Park,
this is one of my favorite places to see a baseball game.
It ranks right behind Fenway Park,
I've seen four games at Globe Life Park,
and oddly, they were years apart,
all four games they were playing the Oakland A's,
and I don't know why, didn't plan it that way,
it just happened to be that way.
Number 15, ride horses on the beach.
I don't know if this is just unique to Texas,
but it's the only place I've ever really seen it done.
But you could actually ride horses on the beach,
and just about almost all beaches,
Corpus Christi, South Padre Island, Galveston,
pick one and go ride a horse on the beach,
it's actually kind of fun,
it's a good time, especially if you're on a date.
Number 16, the state capitol building, Austin, Texas.
This is one of my favorite capitol buildings
that I've ever seen, it's pretty impressive.
It was designed in 1881 by architect Elijah E. Myers,
it was constructed from 1882 to 1888.
I love the inside of this building,
definitely worth taking a couple selfies,
things like that, it's really nice.
So this building stayed pretty much the same
for almost 100 years.
I mean, the typical upgrades,
phone lines, maybe new windows,
things like that went on over that 100 years,
but in 1993, they put a $75 million underground extension
in the place.
But if you're ever in Austin,
this is definitely worth a couple hours of your time.
Number 17, the DeLorean Museum, Humble Texas.
Yeah, the DeLorean, just like the car,
John DeLorean, automaker, "Back to the Future", that car,
there's a museum here.
18, the Texas Theater.
the Texas Theater is just your standard old-school theater
from back in the day,
the difference is it's a Dallas landmark.
It's located in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas,
and it gained historical significance
on November 22nd, 1963,
as the location of Lee Harvey Oswald's arrest
over the suspicion that he was the killer
of Dallas police officer, J. D. Tippit,
and eventually, obviously went on
to be suspected of shooting President Kennedy.
They still show movies here, you can go watch a movie,
they're not first-run movies usually,
you know, they're a little bit older,
it's not like one of the new high-tech movie theaters,
but it's just kinda neat to go there.
Number 19, see a Dallas Cowboys game.
The Dallas Cowboys play AT&T Stadium, in Arlington,
it's like right across the road from Globe Life Park
that I talked about earlier for the Rangers baseball game.
This is a killer-looking stadium,
I've never been inside, I've heard nothing but great things,
but one of our researchers here
at "World According to Briggs" has been to a couple of games
and some other events there,
and she said, "It's amazing,
it's an awesome place to see anything."
I've heard that's one of the best stadiums in the NFL,
that's on my bucket list to go see something,
should be on your bucket list too.
Number 20, the Stevie Ray Vaughan Statue.
In Austin, Texas, on the shore of the Colorado River
is a statue of the great guitarist, Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Stevie Ray Vaughn is one of the greatest guitarists
to ever come out of the United States,
he was born and raised in Dallas, Texas,
and was the front man for a blues rock band
called Double Trouble.
Although his mainstream career only spans seven years,
he is considered to be one of the most iconic
and influential musicians in the history of blues music,
and one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
In the late seventies, Vaughn's band, Double Trouble,
had become a major part of the Austin music scene,
and soon became one of the most popular acts in Texas.
He was eventually discovered by David Bowie, in 1982,
and asked to play on one of his albums,
and then the career just kinda took off.
Sadly, on August 27th, 1990, Vaughn and four others
were killed in a helicopter crash in East Troy, Wisconsin,
after performing with his band, Double Trouble,
at the Alpine Valley Music Theater.
Number 21, Billy Bob's, Fort Worth.
Billy Bob's is kinda like a huge bar,
the building now known as Billy Bob's was built in 1910
and was an open-air barn
used for housing the prize cattle
for the Fort Worth Stock Show.
And they have bull riding inside the bar,
not like, you know, the mechanical bull, old-school thing
from the 1970s that John Travolta did Urban Cowboy on,
no, they have real bulls and a real place to do it
inside this bar, it's just weird,
but not if you're in Texas, it's kinda normal.
Number 22, barbecue.
I know this is about places
and I just mentioned a type of food, let me explain,
some of the best barbecue in the world
you will find in Texas,
find one of these places and eat.
In Amarillo, go to Tyler's Barbeque,
in Austin, go to Franklin Barbecue,
Triple J's in Houston,
and my personal favorite, the Salt Lick in Round Rock,
and think they got another one in Driftwood too.
And to be honest, there's probably about 50 other places
that could go on this list too.
Number 23, The Sentinel, Marfa, Texas.
The Big Bend Sentinel is a newspaper that's still in print,
local newspapers have been going out of business
left and right in recent years, not the Big Bend Sentinel,
they found an interesting way to fund the paper,
they opened a coffee and cocktail bar.
Yeah, it's right there,
they're printing in the back
and they're serving drinks up front,
kind of ingenious if you ask me.
Number 24, Schlitterbahn.
Schlitterbahn is a water park in Texas,
and it's in New Braunfels,
which also sounds very German,
but Schlitterbahn is a German word for sliding track,
sort of, it's two words,
schlitter is to slide or to slip,
and bahn is track, path or lane,
so call it what you will, but it means sliding track.
This is definitely one of the better water parks
in the country.
Sadly, they had a horribly tragic death some years back,
and that's all anyone ever talks about,
but this is a great water park to go to.
New Braunfels is just northeast of San Antonio.
25, Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas.
Dealey Plaza is where one of our greatest presidents,
President Kennedy, drew his last breath.
He was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald,
who shot him from the sixth floor of the Book Depository
on Houston and Elm, right above Dealey Plaza.
These days, there's a JFK exhibit on the sixth floor
of the Book Depository,
so if you're in the area, check that out.
I've been to this one,
and I remember in the movie, I didn't follow, you know,
I haven't studied all the JFK stuff,
but I saw the movie "JFK"
and when I went to Dealey Plaza,
I looked at the window and where it was,
he could've made that shot, that was a big thing,
they were trying to say
that there's no way one man could've pulled off those shots,
I think you could've, I mean, I'm not an expert at it,
I was in the military, I've shot some rounds down range,
but I think you could make that shot pretty,
I wouldn't say easy,
but a guy with some talent could get that shot off,
or all three shots.
Number 26, the Dr Pepper Museum, Waco, Texas.
They have a Dr Pepper museum, why not?
They have a Coca-Cola museum and a Pepsi museum,
might as well have a Dr Pepper museum.
This one's pretty interesting,
it goes all the way back,
and Dr Pepper's been around for quite some time.
It's an interesting place to visit.
27, the Apache Drive-In Theater.
This one I really don't suggest you go to,
but it's so weird, I have to tell you of its existence.
While researching this video,
I found in the woods outside of Tyler, Texas,
the nation's one and only adult drive-in theater.
Yes, you heard me right,
a drive-in theater that shows adult films.
You can sit in your car and get your freak on
in the middle of the Texas woods.
That one's just weird, and I just thought you should know.
28, West Texas football.
If you haven't watched my videos before,
I've talked about this, many times,
West Texas football is close to a religion to these people.
If you've ever seen the movie or the TV show,
"Friday Night Lights", that isn't really far
from how serious these people take their football.
If you've never seen the movie "Friday Night Lights",
please, watch it, it's one of the best movies
I've ever seen, and I generally don't like sports movies.
But if you ever get a chance
to see a high school football game in West Texas,
head out to Odessa, Texas,
which is about 2 1/2 hours west of Abilene,
there you'll find Permian High School.
This was the focus of the movie "Friday Night Lights",
these people take their football seriously.
Now, years ago, I had heard that most of the shops
shut down on Friday night because everyone's at the game.
I don't know if that's still true to this day,
things change, but this was back in the 90s I heard this.
The football's nice, if you're a football fan, see that,
but just go and see how much this town
loves their high school football, it's amazing.
Back when "Friday Night Lights" came out,
I have a friend that's from Midland, Texas,
which is just east of Odessa,
and he went to Midland High School
and all this, and they were rivals,
but he said that there is nothing to Odessa,
this is back probably in the late 80s,
but this football team and the way
that people act about this football team,
in his words was, "It's kind of beautiful,"
so you gotta go with that.
29, Barkin Springs, Austin.
Just outside of the Barton Springs Municipal Pool spillway,
you have Barkin Springs, as in dog barking,
Barkin Springs is sort of a rebellious swimming hole.
Barton Springs has lifeguards,
entry fees and a no-dog policy,
so the locals that don't wanna pay
and don't mind drowning and have dogs go right here.
It's just outside their fence, over the spillway.
It's just kinda weird they have this fenced in area
that you're charging money for
and people go, "Ah, nah,
I'll just go over here instead," it's kinda neat.
Number 30, the Texas City Memorial.
I've talked about this one on videos in the past,
on April 16th, 1947, a cargo ship
called the Grand Camp caught fire,
this wasn't unusual for this place,
they have refineries, loading docks,
there's always something flaring up,
some sort of hotspot or a little fire.
This was a little different
because of the nitrate that they had on the Grand Camp
created this bright yellow smoke
that billowed out of the ship.
The yellow smoke brought people
to the docks across from the ship.
Now, they figured it was a good distance away from the fire,
everyone felt safe, it wasn't,
the Grand Camp blew up.
The explosion was so powerful
it knocked a couple planes out of the sky
and knocked people off their feet
10 miles away, in Galveston.
The blast killed 581 people
and leveled almost 1,000 buildings.
Bodies that had floated out to the Gulf after the explosion
came floating back in for days afterwards,
people had to keep go collecting people off the shoreline.
Anyway, they have a memorial
which includes the Grand Camp's two-ton anchor
that was sent flying over a mile and a half inland
and was found in a 10-foot-deep crater.
That one's always, always interested me,
that is one of the most deadly man-made disasters
in US history up until 9/11.
I think actually, Pearl Harbor's considered one of those,
even it was an act of war,
so Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and then Texas City.
If I'm wrong about that,
let me know if there's another man-made disaster
that was bigger than that.
Yeah, that's weird.
Anyway, it was a pretty serious explosion.
Before we get to the last one, don't forget,
we got another channel called "On This Day",
we would really appreciate it
if you would run over there, watch some videos, subscribe.
And number 31, dinosaurs.
About 30 miles and 110 million years
northwest where Downtown San Antonio is
some dinosaurs went for a walk
and left some footprints in the mud
where present-day Government Canyon State Nature Area is,
they're still there, yeah,
they are frozen in time, they turned into rock,
and you've got dinosaur footprints there.
Texas has a few different dino track places
that you could go visit, this is one of the better ones.
It's very interesting when you look at these footprints
and realize that's like over 100 million years ago,
I mean, a million years ago
is mind blowing when it comes to thinking about time,
but 110 million years ago, that's just hard to comprehend.
All right, that's today's video,
hope you guys enjoyed it,
hope you got some information out of it.
Let me know what you thought,
these are all places either I've been to,
or one of our researchers,
or the employees here at "World According to Briggs"
have seen or been to,
if there's some that you think should've gone on here,
we would love to make a second list
with just the viewers' suggestions,
so let us know in the comment section below.
All right, everybody have a great day,
be nice to each other.