Head northwest from Austin along Hwy 183. Go west on 1431 and just drive.
It gets really pretty. And beautifully rural.
But it gets noticeably less rural every year. Maybe a little less pretty, too.
The city keeps pushing cars and houses father out into the hills like a slow-motion urban avalanche. Exurbs spring up in the juniper and live-oak thickets on the far edge of the suburbs, with new luxury homes offering "Hill Country views" (of other similar houses as it turns out).
To distract buyers from their 50-minute commutes, some developers offer dramatic 50-foot accents, like this watchtower, at the entrance of their fresh cul-de-sacs.
But just because it's developer-built and made-to-look-old doesn't mean the structure can't be dramatic as it pretends to peer out into the endless Hill Country twilight.