Big Sky National Monument - Stonewall, TX

Lyndon Johnson is not a president often associated with the Antiquities Act. In his term, he enlarged four existing national monuments and established another two, most of which he did only at the behest of others. The exception to this is Big Sky National Monument. Set close to his ranch in Stonewall,Texas, Lyndon used to load VIPs into the back of his Lincoln Continental and go careening across the open prairies that would one day become the monument. He’s quoted saying that he loved seeing the faces of those unfamiliar with the Texas sky, crushed under the weight of it. And admittedly, there is something magical about the skies over the Lone Star State, something countless have commented upon. It’s in every song and story the state has to offer, the wide panorama of open sky that ensures storms can never sneak up on you, that teaches you from an early age how small you are in the world. It’s only fitting that a state obsessed with size would be blanketed by an equally big sky. Previ...

The Celebrated Jumping Frogs of Eastland County - Eastland, TX

In 1897, Ol’ Rip was entombed in the cornerstone of the Eastland County Courthouse. Thirty-one years later he was exhumed, still living. On this, the residents of Eastland County can agree, though not on much else. Some say that Ol’ Rip was a bullfrog, others a horned toad. The first camp says that upon escaping his prison, the first thing the sacred Rip did was leap over the courthouse in ecstasy. The second camp says that instead he cried tears of blood in sorrow at the state of the world. Both agree his longevity was a miracle, but have chosen to celebrate it in very different ways.

The first camp established the Jumping Contest in 1940, a year before the other camp started hosting the Blood Spitting Contest. Both are in essence relatively mundane funfair-type events, but they are known to attract protestors from the opposing camps and engender occasional bouts of violence between the different sects of believers. This has led to the strange situation where more often than not the tourists who arrive to attend the festivals do so to gawk at the fighting more than the spectacular animals.


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