My first destination in Texas — Seguin, about an hour south of Austin, where my friend Hilmar grew up and still lives, in a house that was built by his grandfather. It’s a small town of about 25,000 souls and not too far from Hilmar’s cattle ranch, the Diamond-Half.

On my first night, Hilmar took me to have a beer at a local ski lodge — a water-ski lodge — on a lake made by a dam on the Guadalupe River, which runs by Seguin. It was a place Hilmar loved as a kid and still loves, though I don’t think he’s kept up with his water-skiing.

Then we drove over to New Braunfels and had a memorable dinner at Myron’s, an elegant restaurant with superb food and a first-class wine list.

If you think of Texas food as chiefly barbecue, steaks and tacos, you just haven’t spent much time in the area around San Antonio and Austin, where the restaurants serve all kinds of cuisine, from the fanciest to the plainest. I didn’t have a bad meal of either description in the ten days I spent rambling around with Hilmar.

At Myron’s I had sea scallops wrapped in bacon and found them outstanding.

Seguin is mentioned twice in passing in my book Fourteen Western Stories, in honor of Hilmar, who talked about it a lot when we were in college together in the 60s, though I’d never visited the town before.

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