Getting the flavor of...A bird paradise on the Rio Grande

A bird paradise on the Rio Grande

A protected habitat in southern Texas taught me the secret to bird-watching: “Stay focused, and you’ll find bliss,” said Robin Soslow in The Dallas Morning News. To catch the start of fall’s big migration, I decided to spend a day at the World Birding Center, a network of nature preserves near the Rio Grande where two major North American flyways converge. Aiming my binoculars was a challenge until I joined a tour, fell into “the Zen of bird-watching,” and started spotting species after species, from altamira orioles to buff-bellied hummingbirds. Hiking and cycling trails connect many local highlights, so after cycling to the center’s McAllen section and spotting some chachalacas, I pedal into town, where more surprises await. Farmers markets and hip bistros abound in McAllen, and I stop at Frida’s, “a food-and-jazz oasis,” for its creative take on Mexican cuisine. After all, “bicyclists, like birds, need energy for the miles ahead.”

A town named Romney

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Little Romney, W.Va., has been torn apart by politics, said Zofia Smardz in The Washington Post. Sure, that was 150 years ago, but it still makes a good story for any visitor drawn to this hamlet of 2,000 by the chance fact that it shares its name with this year’s Republican presidential candidate. Located along “a natural invasion route” between the Potomac River and the Shenandoah Valley, Romney changed hands at least 10 times during the Civil War, as you’ll learn from various markers and the town’s “very small” war museum. The stately brick home that Stonewall Jackson used as headquarters still stands on Main Street, opposite the house where many of the changeovers were negotiated. But stroll past the Bank of Romney and the fancy banners celebrating the town’s 250th birthday, and you can ask the owner of the Courthouse Corner Café yourself if politics still divides West Virginia’s oldest town. “We all get along, Republicans and Democrats,” he told me.