Llano River Country

Three towns on one river, in the oldest rock in Texas. Come for the barbecue, stay because nobody else is here.

The Llano Uplift is a billion-year-old granite dome pushed up through everything around it. Enchanted Rock is the famous piece of it; the rest shows up as boulders in the riverbed and pink stone in every old building on the square.

Llano calls itself the Deer Capital of Texas and the barbecue capital of most arguments. Mason has the state gem — blue topaz, found nowhere else — and a square that has not been renovated into something else. Castell is a store and a river crossing, and that is the whole appeal.