Day Trips: Coming in 2020 Across Texas
What Capt. Day Trips is looking forward to in the new year
By Gerald E. McLeod, Fri., Jan. 10, 2020
• Work has begun on a redesign of Alamo Plaza. The city of San Antonio and the Texas General Land Office have been hellbent for a number of years on changing the look of the site of the 1836 battle. Coming this year will be the restoration and relocation of the 1936 Cenotaph (pictured above) to where a bandstand now stands. Visitors can expect several downtown street closures as part of the redevelopment project.
• Immersive and interactive experiences are becoming the norm for a new kind of entertainment. Whether a permanent or touring show, the productions leverage technology and creativity to provide inventive playscapes at places like the Museum of Ice Cream, Museum of Memories, Museum of Illusions, Color Factory, and Hopscotch. It's a brave new world of fun.
• Improvements in our state parks system should start appearing as repairs begin to percolate through the organization, funded by a new dedicated sporting goods tax. Look for Palo Pinto Mountains State Park near Weatherford to open this year, the first new park in North Texas in almost 20 years. The 4,421-acre preserve includes a 90-acre lake and several 1,400-foot peaks.
• A new park is coming to Williamson County in 2020. River Ranch County Park is expected to open this summer. Between Liberty Hill and Leander, the park encompasses 1,354 acres along the San Gabriel River.
• The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston announced the opening in the fall of 2020 of the jigsaw-puzzle-piece-shaped Nancy and Rich Kinder Building (pictured above). The new building ups the museum's exhibit space by more than 100,000 square feet, increasing the available galleries for showing Latin American art, photography, and American paintings from the permanent collection.
1,481st in a series. Follow “Day Trips & Beyond,” a travel blog, at austinchronicle.com/daily/travel.
