Filmmaker Ben Masters’ latest documentary, which traces the Colorado River from its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains to the deserts of Mexico, premiers next week in Austin.

“The American Southwest,” a full-length feature film, chronicles life and death along the 1,400-mile waterway, as it transitions from forests and canyons to diversion tunnels and irrigation canals. The Colorado, the most litigated river in the world, provides water to more than 40 million people.

The documentary makes its debut Thursday, Sept. 4 at AFS Cinema,6406 Interstate 35 in Austin. It opens in theaters around the Southwestern United States on Friday, Sept. 5.

Masters teamed with American Rivers, a non-profit organization that works to restore and protect wild rivers, on the project and its call to action.

Quannah ChasingHorse narrates the film, which also features the artwork, architecture and culture of indigenous people who have lived along the Colorado River for generations.

Watch the Official Trailer here, and click here to buy tickets for showings at local theaters.

Three special screenings that will include Q&A sessions with Masters and Matt Rice of American Rivers are planned for Texas.

• San Antonio – Wednesday, Sept. 10

• • Happy hour: Santikos Palladium Café, 5 p.m.
  • Film: Santikos Palladium, 6:30 p.m.

• Dallas – Thursday, Sept.11  

• • Happy hour: Londoner Pub, 5:30 p.m. 
  • Film: Angelika Film Center, 7 p.m.

• Houston – Friday, Sept. 12

• • Happy Hour: Goode Co. Kitchen & Cantina, 5:30 p.m.
  • Screening: River Oaks Theatre , 7 p.m.
  • Bonus showing: a sneak peak of Master’s next film, a sequel to 2022’s “Deep in the Heart: A Texas Wildlife Story.”

Masters is best known for his most recent film, “Deep in the Heart,” narrated by Matthew McConaughey, which highlights the wildlife of Texas, from black bears to mountain lions.

He made two earlier films, “The River and the Wall” which follows five friends who ride horses, bike and paddle1,200 miles from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico, and “Unbranded,” which tells the story of four young men who adopt, train, and ride a string of wild mustangs 3,000 miles from Mexico to Canada.

I spent a day with Masters in 2020, when I crawled through the South Texas brush looking for ocelots with him. Read my story in Texas Monthly here. 

A new free Zilker Park shuttle will carry visitors from the parking area on Stratford Drive to three places inside the park. Pam LeBlanc photo

I’d rather ride my bike to Barton Springs Pool than fight the traffic and fork over $3 an hour to park my car there.

Not everyone can make that work, though. That’s why I’m happy to report that the city is launching a free shuttle that will loop between the parking area on Stratford Drive and three locations inside the park.

The free Zilker Loop will make stops at the Stratford parking lot, the Zilker playground, Barton Springs Pool and the Polo Fields parking area. Service begins May 24 and continues from noon until 6 p.m. every Saturday, Sunday, and holiday through Sept. 1.

Visitors who use the Stratford lot get a discount on parking fees, too. By using a code in the Park ATX App, the first two hours of parking fees can be waived.

Read more: Freeze-dried meals from Bowl and Kettle get a big thumbs up

No pets or coolers are allowed on the shuttle.

And remember, the parking lot on the north side of the pool remains closed due to the rehabilitation of the bathhouse. That project, which includes new plumbing, structural repairs and restoration of the entry rotunda and changing rooms, began in February 2024. Construction should wrap up later this year.

For more information about the Zilker Park shuttle, visit AustinTexas.gov/Zilker.

Corn Next makes non-flavored and fruit flavored biodegradable straws. Pam LeBlanc photo

I hate it when I go to a restaurant and the server delivers my drink with a straw.

Most folks don’t need straws – or single-use plastics in general – but we use them anyway, because someone hands them to us. (And yes, I understand some people need straws because of coordination or medical issues. That’s fine.)

I avoid straws and other single-use plastics when I can, which is most of the time. Plastics are filling up trash dumps, washing up on beaches and breaking into tiny bits that, ultimately, wind up inside our bodies as microplastics.

The straws stay sturdy for several hours. Pam LeBlanc photo

Happily, some businesses have stopped using plastic straws, shifting to paper straws. Still, Americans use hundreds of millions of straws every day. And in February, the White House banned the federal government’s purchase of paper straws, shifting back to plastic.

Read more: When in Argentina, try maté

Which brings us to the latest product I’ve been testing – straws made from corn starch, water and natural enzymes.

I tested a few made by Corn Next this week. They’re thicker than regular straws and felt almost like dry pasta. You can’t bite through one when it’s fresh.

The plastic-free straws sell for $8.99 for a pack of 50; less if you buy in bulk.

More on straws made of corn

Corn Next sells biodegradable straws made from corn starch. Photo by Pam LeBlanc

According to the company’s website, they can get slippery and expand after they’ve soaked in a drink for a while. I stuck one in a glass of ice water and after an hour it was still sturdy, and not at all slippery.

Weirdly, they come in both non-flavored (recommended) and fruit flavors including lemon, lime, orange, strawberry and blueberry. I tried lemon, which elicited a curious citrus twang when I used it in water.

My recommendation? Don’t use a straw at all if you can avoid it. If you must, try one made of corn starch.

According to the Corn Next website, the straws work best in cold drinks and are not recommended for hot ones. (Does anybody drink coffee with a straw?)

The straws are made with corn grown in America and break down in 30 days. They should be stored in a cool dry place, away from direct sunlight. And if you have a corn allergy, don’t use them.

Sounds corny, but I’m all for it.

Smithsonian Journeys tour guide Gabi Mlcek sips maté during a hike to Mount Fitz Roy. Pam LeBlanc photo

Here in Texas, we drink a lot of sweet tea and Dr Pepper. In Patagonia, the locals drink maté.

While traipsing through South America this month, I saw people sipping the infused herbal drink while chatting at cafes, sitting on street benches, and even while driving their cars.

“For us, maté is not just a drink,” says Gabi Mlcek, the leader of the Smithsonian Journeys trip through Argentina and Chile that I took. “For us, it’s an excuse – a moment to share with people we love, to see your friends and family, and talk with them.”

The drink is considered the national beverage of Argentina, and serving it is a lot more complicated than popping open a can of Coke. But that’s what makes it special.

How to prepare maté

Mlcek demonstrated the process one day, filling a special cup, also called a maté, three fourths full of dried yerba maté leaves, then pouring hot water over them. Traditional matés are made of dried gourds; today you can also buy wooden or metal matés.

The national drink of Argentina is maté, a type of infused herbal tea. It’s served in a special cup like this one, and sipped through a metal straw. Pam LeBlanc photo

To prepare the beverage correctly, you have to follow two rules, Mlcek told us. One, the water must be hot but not boiling. Electric kettles in South America have a “maté mode,” which heats the water to exactly 85 degrees Celsius. Second, don’t touch or move the straw once it’s placed in the vessel.

The person who prepares the maté is first to try it, sipping the liquid through a special metal straw called a bomba with a sieve at the bottom. Once the person preparing the drink has taken the first sip, he or she adds more hot water and passes the maté to the next person. In this way the drink makes its way around the circle, returning after each person drinks it to the preparer, who adds more hot water.

“It’s an acquired taste,” Mlcek says. “It’s really strong and bitter.”

Maté is considered the national beverage of Argentina, and just about everybody drinks it. Cell phones are even equipped with a mate emoji – a pumpkin with a straw in it.

“The rich people drink maté and the poor people drink maté,” Mlcek says. “And we drink a lot of maté.”

With that, she passed the maté to me.

I took a sip. It tasted bitter and earthy, with a hint of dried grass clippings. Not exactly bad, but I’m not ready to exchange it for my morning tea quite yet.

Pam LeBlanc had her passport stolen while visiting Santiago this month. Pam LeBlanc photo

My husband and I were sitting at a table outside a fast-food restaurant in a bustling Santiago neighborhood recently, exhausted after a nine-hour international flight, when someone dropped a few coins at my feet.

I bent over to help him scoop them up. They must have spilled out of a hole in his pocket, I figured. Then a few more trickled onto the sidewalk. My husband leaned in to help.

Suddenly, something felt weird. I bolted upright and yelled at Chris, “Where’s your bag?”

He grabbed for his backpack, which he’d set on the chair next to him, but it was gone – along with our passports, his wallet and driver’s license, a wad of cash, his prescription eyeglasses, ear buds, and a library book. A man at a nearby table pointed down one street, and we gave chase.

It was pointless. We realized quickly that a group of thieves had targeted us. One man distracted us by dropping the coins, another grabbed the backpack, and a third pointed us in the wrong direction to chase the thief down.

Thank goodness Chris still had his cellphone, and I had my backpack, along with my own wallet and valuable camera gear. But we lost $400 in cash – especially frustrating since we rarely carry cash when we travel. (Our tour group advised us to bring it this time because we’d be visiting areas that might not take credit cards.)

Luckily, some quick action kept a bad situation from getting worse.

Make a plan if your passport gets stolen

After we gave up chasing the thieves, who had scattered in all directions, we made a hasty game plan. Chris would cancel the credit cards that were in his wallet while I called the U.S. Embassy to find out what we needed to do to get emergency passport replacements. We also asked workers at the restaurant to call the police.

Chris has an online ap that tracks his credit card purchases. He cancelled two of his cards but forgot about a third. Fifteen minutes later, the thieves used that one to place a charge for $2,100. Chris contacted the credit card company, which froze the payment.

Meanwhile, I reached the U.S. Embassy, which told me we’d need to apply for emergency passports. I made an appointment to go in the next morning to fill out the necessary paperwork. We needed the passports quickly, because we were flying to southern Chile in two days, then crossing into Argentina after that.

We tracked down a place that took passport photos and set off to get that done. We also reached out to the leader of our group tour, whom we hadn’t even met yet.

We got lucky

Then, a miracle. After getting new mugs made for the passports, I got a call and a text from the Embassy. Someone, an official told me, had called in to report finding our passports (but not the rest of our belongings) in a trashcan. The official gave me the woman’s contact information.

Since we’re not fluent Spanish speakers, we enlisted the help of our tour group leader (what an introduction!), who contacted the woman, then called an Uber and went with us to retrieve them.

The woman who found the passports worked at a bank. She’d gone out to take a smoke break and noticed a couple of passports in a small trashcan on the sidewalk. She pulled them out and – here’s the lucky part – decided to call her son, who works in customs at the Santiago airport. He advised her to call the U.S. Embassy. If she’d called the police, it may have taken days to reunited us with the passports. We’d have missed part (or all) of our trip.

We thanked the woman, hugged her, gave her a reward (which she tried to refuse), and made our way back to the hotel.

We’d lost some cash and a few odd items, but with our passports in hand, we could get on with our trip. A couple of things had conspired to make us victims of petty theft.

First, we’d just arrived in Chile, and our hotel room wasn’t yet ready. We left our suitcases at the hotel desk, but took our passports with us because we didn’t want to leave them unattended. Second, we were jet lagged and not thinking clearly. Third, we didn’t pay attention to the warning signs – nearby buildings had burglar bars and we’d been told thieves sometimes grab cell phones from the hands of unsuspecting walkers in the area. When someone dropped money on the ground right next to us, we didn’t realize at first what was happening.

Tips in case your passport gets stolen

Here are some things you can do to avoid becoming a victim yourself…

1. First, carry your passport in a zipped interior pocket or in a cross-body bag. Or leave it in a safe in your hotel room, if you’ve got one.
2. Second, be aware of your surroundings. Buildings in the neighborhood where we were walking had metal security bars, and we’d been told that thieves sometimes grab cell phones out of the hands of unsuspecting pedestrians. Still, we weren’t on high alert.
3. Never set your bag on a chair next to you – especially if you’re outside. Keep the strap looped over your shoulder or in your lap.
4. Know exactly what’s in your wallet, and immediately cancel all your credit cards. Keep a list so you don’t forget one, like we did.
5. Use your cellphone to take a photo of your passport and keep it on your phone.
6. Report the theft to police (we waited an hour at our restaurant, but they never arrived) so you can get a theft report for insurance purposes.
7. Contact the U.S. Embassy to report the incident and find out what to do next.

The Banff Film Festival returns to Austin – as a one day event on March 22. Photo courtesy Banff Film Festival 2025

The Banff Mountain Film Festival returns to Austin next month – as a one-day event instead of the two days it has covered in past years.

But if you’re up for a day of binge-watching cool outdoor and adventure movies, you can still get your fill. The festival will still feature two collections of films – one at 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 22, and a completely different one at 7 p.m. the same day.

Read more: No matter the season, Banff serves up adventure

I go every year and consider the festival one of the best annual events in Austin for folks who prefer hiking and pitching tents to glitzier pastimes. Our city historically draws some of the largest audiences for the traveling show, which stops in more than 500 communities and 40 countries each year.

Read more: I rented an old-timey swimsuit and soaked in Banff Hot Springs

Whole Earth Provision Co. again hosts the Banff Film Festival 2025, and donates proceeds from the event, along with funds raised during its State Parks Month event in their stores where customers can make donations for parks. In all, the two events have raised more than $317,800.

Tickets are $35 for the matinee and $40 for the evening show (prices include service fees.) Tickets are available online at the Paramount Theatre website.