Day Trips

Photo by Gerald E. McLeod

Barton Hill Farms outside of Bastrop wants you to get lost – in their cornfield maze, that is. The paths meander around the 5-acre field of 10-foot-high corn stalks in a game of hide-and-seek. The challenge is finding your way out once you're in the field of false starts, blind corners, and dead ends.

When I was a kid growing up in Nebraska, my best friend and I loved to play in the cornfields. There was something exciting about wandering the field with our small-town world blocked out by thick walls of corn stalks.

At Barton Hill Farms, the farmer wants you to explore his field. He uses an earless type of corn plant that is often used as livestock feed. The pathways tunnel through the dense strands of green plants. If you can find the correct course with no wrong turns, it will take about 15 minutes to complete. For most, it will take an hour to wind a way through the twists and turns.

Barton Hill Farms' Fall Festival and Corn Maze is about 25 minutes east of Austin at 1115 FM 969. The grounds are open on weekends Sept. 22 through Nov. 18. The festival also includes live music, a pumpkin patch, a frontier fort, and other entertainment for all ages on the banks of the Colorado River. For more information, go to www.bartonhillfarms.com.

1,104th in a series. Collect them all. Day Trips, Vol. 2, a book of "Day Trips," is available for $8.95, plus $3.05 for shipping, handling, and tax. Mail to: Day Trips, PO Box 33284, South Austin, TX 78704.