Freedom Voyages Volume 4: Christmastime in Texas
by Tim Seibel
Independently Published
187 pp., $35.95

Social media is often criticized for its unfortunate tendency to exacerbate divisions in society, a criticism I generally share. But it can also have redeeming qualities. For one thing, it allows us to keep up with friends and acquaintances. It also enables us to connect with others we haven’t met in person but from whom we can learn and benefit.

One such case is that of Tim Seibel, whose account on Facebook is a must-follow. The author got his start as a kind of “social media influencer” on that platform, where he regales his audience with pictures and stories of his various travels across America. Some years ago, Seibel set a goal for himself to visit every county courthouse and county seat in America. So far, he has visited and photographed 62 percent of them. I normally don’t care for the term “influencer” but Seibel’s posts make me want to travel in a way that I haven’t for four decades: to engage in the romance of the open road, discovering or rediscovering the beauty of an America that is often dismissed as “flyover country”—its landscapes, small towns, cities, and county courthouses.

Fortunately for readers not connected with social media, Seibel’s adventures are being collected into a series of attractive and compelling books for them to enjoy. His book project, dubbed “Freedom Voyages,” is now four volumes long, and more are on the way. “By experiencing America from the road,” Seibel said, “we see the country’s ordinary features—main streets, farms, homes, diners, railways, highways, warehouses, river barges, grain elevators, factories, offices, taverns, shops, parks, schools, churches—… features [that] are the essential facets of America that provide us a truly exceptional life.”

This particular collection, Freedom Voyages Volume 4: Christmastime in Texas, recounts a nine-day, 2,300-mile road trip in December 2023 that took him from his home in Colorado Springs through part of New Mexico, the Texas Panhandle, North Texas, and finally on to East Texas and Beaumont on the Gulf of Mexico. On this trip he visited the quintessentially Texas towns of Clarendon, Vernon, Wichita Falls, Denton (with a side trip to Dallas), McKinney, Longview, San Augustine, and Jasper, among others. On his return, he visited Corsicana, Hillsboro, and Amarillo. The photographs he shares are extraordinary. His commentary is uniformly enlightening.

As I perused Seibel’s book, I was overwhelmed by nostalgia. That nostalgia affected me on two levels: first, as someone who traveled the country in the days before the interstate highways; and second, as someone with deep Texas roots.

Regarding the first, my father was in the Marine Corps and in those days, there was a great deal of “personnel turbulence,” which meant that we were required to move frequently. Thus, I got to see much of the United States from the backseat of the family Buick: from the Pacific Northwest and Mountain West to the Midwest and the South—the mountains, valleys, rivers, plains, and deserts. I saw America as most people don’t or, really, can’t see it today. When I followed in my dad’s footsteps as a Marine, I again traveled by automobile multiple times from the West to the East Coast and back. During many of these trips, I traveled highways—such as the legendary U.S. Route 66—which long ago were supplanted by the Interstate Highway System.

Regarding the second, I was born in Bryan (now Bryan-College Station), Texas, the county seat of Brazos County. As both a Marine “brat” growing up primarily in California and later as a Marine myself, I spent most of my life outside of Texas. But, in the 1950s, I used to spend summers with my grandmother in Bryan. I attended Texas A&M for two years in the early 1960s and in the late 1970s studied for my doctorate at the University of Dallas (coincidentally, UD is also Seibel’s alma mater). Currently, my brother and his wife live in Wimberley in the Texas Hill Country and my older son and his new bride live not too far away in Austin.

Seibel’s photographs of the various courthouses he visited in these places are especially compelling. When I studied at UD, I lived in Denton County and visited the Denton County Courthouse, which he photographed so beautifully for this volume (his splendid photos are enhanced by the Christmas decorations that adorn these buildings during the Christmas season). The courthouse’s architecture, “Richardson Romanesque” was very popular in Texas during the late-19^th and early-20^th centuries. The Brazos County Courthouse in my hometown of Bryan was of the same style. Unfortunately, while the Denton County Courthouse became a museum, the one in Bryan was demolished in the 1960s and replaced by a modern structure without any charm. Seibel’s work reminds of how precious that charm can be to a community and how it can stir in them the pride of place.

Another thing that stirs that kind of “pride of place” in people is local cuisine. So it is not surprising that many of Seibel’s entries, in both the books and his Facebook posts, are food-related. Indeed, his signature posts on Facebook are compositions featuring a plate of food accompanied by his now-famous Eureka College baseball cap (Eureka was Ronald Reagan’s alma mater). As a lover of Texas cuisine, I particularly appreciated the photos of Texas barbeque and Mexican food. When I visit my brother and son, in the Hill Country and Austin area of East-Central Texas, I always look forward to visiting its iconic barbeque venues, such as the Salt Lick, Snow’s, and Franklin’s. For the uninitiated, cooking hamburgers and hotdogs in your backyard is grilling not barbeque. Seibel clears up any confusion about that. Similarly, most people do not realize that there are different styles of barbeque. Unlike most other styles, Texas barbeque is beef rather than pork-based as in other parts of the South.

Obviously, Seibel could visit only a small part of Texas. People often don’t realize how big the state is. El Paso is closer to California than it is to Dallas. I’m reminded of an old ditty: “the sun has riz/the sun has set/and we are still/in Texas yet.” In addition to the sheer size of the state, the geography of Texas is also quite diverse, probably more diverse than any other state, with the possible exception of California. Mountains and desert in West Texas; vast plains in North Texas (the panhandle is part of the Llano Estacado, where Larry McMurtry famously portrayed Augustus McCrae’s pursuit of Blue Duck to rescue Lorena in Lonesome Dove); grassy plains in South Texas; piney forests in East Texas.

Seibel has done a splendid job of capturing the soul and spirit of this part of America by means of his remarkable photographs, allowing the reader vicariously to experience the region at ground level. And it made me look forward to my annual visit to Austin and Wimberley for a nontraditional Thanksgiving dinner of barbequed brisket, sausage, and ribs. God bless Texas!