We’ve gotten into doing a day trip every Thursday. Tomorrow is Thursday and we haven’t yet decided where we might go. We haven’t even talked about it.

My wife told me many years ago that she really didn’t want to leave Texas, because there was so much of it that she’s never seen. Nearly twenty years of living off-grid, and raising the children, etc., and we never got around to overmuch travel. We used to go to San Antonio or Austin or the Metroplex, but there is so much of Texas we have never seen.

Now, we take off on Thursdays and go see what is out there. Texas is huge, but you can see a lot of it with regular day trips from Brownwood, which is in the heart of Texas.

Three weeks ago, we drove down to Goldthwaite. We did the whole downtown thing, visited a bar, and then ate at a cool little restaurant. It was nice.

A couple of weeks ago on Thursday, we drove down through the Hill Country to Blanco to visit the Andalusia Distillery, then to Dripping Springs for lunch. The little restaurant was buzzing busy, and they had a bar with a lot of whiskeys. (I had the unsweet tea.) After that, a few minutes away, we had a tasting at Treaty Oak Distillery and then we went to Llano and hung around downtown visiting the antique and junk shops. One little shop down close to the bridge was right up my alley. The 40s music was playing, and the owner knew enough to make the place smell like vanilla and cedar and leather and time travel. I didn’t want to leave, which, I think, was the point. We had a beer at a taphouse and a cocktail at the distillery there in downtown.

Dinner was at a place downtown in San Saba before we headed back home.

Last Thursday we drove to Fredericksburg. We used to visit Fredericksburg all the time, but we rarely go anymore. Too much traffic, too many tourists (including us.) Prices are high. We only go to Fburg to have a meal at Auslander then walk over to visit my buddy Bob who owns Tabak Haus, the little cigar shop a half block from there. Hanging out with Bob and friends makes for a good day.

Downtown Brownwood is a destination like these other places I’ve mentioned. And we’re here every day. Yesterday we had a nice walk. We strolled over on Baker and then walked up that little road (I forget the name) that runs behind what used to be the Primal Brewery. Up that road and then back across Fisk and over to Fuzzy’s. The weather was perfect, and I talked Danielle into sitting with me on their little patio and I had a beer and she sipped water (she’s trying to cut calories. I am too, but not as stringently.) As I said, the weather was perfect, and we had the patio to ourselves, and we could have been anywhere and on any patio in the world and we would not have been happier.

Then we walked southward down Center Avenue, past the courthouse and the old jail. At the courthouse, the prisoner trustees were out doing work.

I’ve been looking at old pictures of Brownwood and so many of the old buildings are gone. You can see where they used to be, and some of them have left clues, like the places (scars) on the north wall of the big bank building that now houses my employer (Lucille and Mabel) where the ghost building next door used to attach. It was a retailer, a two-story white building, gorgeous, with a large center window upstairs. And sometimes, if you walked by at the right time and season, there would be flowers in the planter box hanging from that large, center window, stark and beautiful against the whitewashed building. Next door to that you could get an ice cream and a Dr. Pepper in 1945. Those buildings are gone.

We cross over and go into the Intermission Bookshop to talk with our friend Kim who owns it with her husband Brent. This bookshop is one of the gems of Brownwood, and you don’t know what you’re missing if you aren’t visiting there regularly. They sell all my novels, which is another reason you should go there. There is nothing like the smell of shameless self-promotion in the morning.

Leaving the bookstore, we walk down Center past the Post Office, and then we head over to Brown Street and walk back up northward to the apartment. Ok, one complaint. The milkweed has gotten tall and isn’t charming coming through the cracks in the sidewalk. Two-foot-tall milkweed in the sidewalk isn’t charming at all, but the little pepperweed plants are cool, and I reach down for some of the seeds and pop them into my mouth. Someone should do some weed-work downtown though. This ain’t Oklahoma.

We walk through and out the back into the alley and our own little garden spot. Our tomatoes and peppers and other plants are doing swell. At 2 p.m. we stroll down to 10mile, the awesome little wine-tasting room, and we have a beer and talk to a local from the Manor who likes to fill us in on literally everything that has ever happened in the history of the world (or Wisconsin.) I meant to ask him if they had two-foot-tall milkweed plants growing on the sidewalks of Racine, but I forgot.

That was just yesterday. Today I think we’ll walk down somewhere cool for lunch. Maybe you’ll see us.

Tomorrow, Lord willing, we’ll take a day trip. I’m open to ideas. It’s Thursday tomorrow and that’s a good day for ideas.

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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear periodically on the website.