Weird Texas: Your Travel Guide to Texas's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets by Mark Moran (Foreword by), Rob Riggs, Wesley Treat, Heather Shade, Mark Moran (Editor)

Synopsis

Think you know Texas? Sure, there's the Alamo, the Cowboys, armadillos, Longhorns, Aggies, chili, the Space Center, and lots and lots of bluebonnets. And everybody knows not to mess with us. But there's something else, something we've got more of than any other state-we've got a whole lot of...weirdness. Yep, the Lone Star State has a vast amount of strange people and unusual sites, and they burst forth from every page of the biggest, most bizarre collection of Texas stories ever assembled: Weird Texas

Our weird quotient is so high that it took three expert chroniclers of the weird to put this book together. With notepads and cameras in hand and steeds of one sort or another at the ready, Wesley Treat, Heather Shade, and Rob Riggs traveled the highways, byways, back roads, and all roads in between in search of the odd and the offbeat. They tracked down impossible-to-believe tales only to discover an odd grain of truth that gives the stories just enough credibility to make one feel a little...uncomfortable. Whether it's a goatman, a mystery airship, haunted cemeteries, or bouncing ghost lights, our authors have researched and chronicled the stories and present them here for you, fellow admirers of the weird.

So turn the pages and visit the Munster Mansion, chat with the Big Thicket Wild Man, coast up Austin's Gravity Hill, and drive down Demon's Road (after that road trip, see if mysterious handprints appear on the outside of your car). Check out the Lonely Ghost of Old Greenhouse Road, lean against the Leaning Tower of Texas, motor on out to Cadillac Ranch, enter the cave of the White Shaman, get healed in Sour Lake, and travel across, if you dare, the Screaming Bridge.

A brand-new entry in the best-selling Weird series, Weird Texas is packed with all the good stuff your history teacher never taught you. So join Wesley, Shady, and Rob on their great adventure. You won't regret it. And that's a Texas-style promise.

Biography

Wesley Treat has spent the last decade seeking out unusual roadside attractions in the hope that two guys from the east coast would one day ask him to help write a book.

Wesley enjoys photography as both a hobby and profession. In his spare time, he likes singing 80s hits at stoplights, sneaking outside food into movie theaters and spelling things correctly. His hobbies include pressing buttons and purchasing needless office supplies. His favorite food is miniature cupcakes.

He is currently living in Arlington, TX and seeking an evil genius in pigtails. Map-reading skills a plus. Interested parties should submit a photo and describe their master plan in 50 words or less at www.wesleytreat.com.

Heather Shade (known as Shady to her friends, and you can call her that too) was raised on a steady diet of ghost stories, Scooby Doo cartoons, treasure hunts, and horror flicks. She has been a lifelong addict of both the photography and exploration of all things strange and unusual. Maybe the half-Welsh/half-Italian gypsy-explorer ancestry also helped bring out the avid wanderer in her. Shady currently resides El Paso with husband and master navigator Markus, and is the founder of the spooky exploration website, LostDestinations.com.

Rob Riggs is an award-winning Texas journalist and is currently the editor of Natural Awakenings magazine in Austin. His interest in ghost lights, wild man sightings, and related phenomena began as a child when he heard tales about them in his hometown of Sour Lake in the Big Thicket country of East Texas. He is the author of In the Big Thicket: On the Trail of the Wild Man, published by Paraview Press in 2001. His work has been featured in such publications as the Kountze News, Houston Chronicle and the Beaumont Enterprise.

Mark Moran is a graduate of Parsons School of Design in New York City. It was a boring and misspent suburban New Jersey childhood that first led him to his lifelong fascination with exploring the lost history and forgotten landmarks of his surroundings. Eventually he would share what he had found with others through his pictures and stories.

These days he lives with wife, Barbara, and their two daughters in a boring suburban New Jersey neighborhood.

Mark Sceurman is known as a graphic artist, publisher, and all around nice guy. His journey to discover the weirder aspects of local history and legends began many years ago when his brother told him tales of Albino Village, where "they come out at night to get you!" Since then the roads less traveled have been the only paths he chooses to take.

He resides in New Jersey with his wife, Shirley, and their daughter.