New Mexico.....lots of public land......Texas, not so much. We like to go to New Mexico to ride off road (mainly in the summer). There's some national forest riding down in the Houston area. You need to keep an eye on this forum to see when there are family day rides planned. They are awesome and involve a lot of work to prepare and they ARE weather permitting. We can't tear up the properties when they're too wet and ruin the trails. Obviously we've had a lot of rain lately. There are several off road parks and ranches that we get to ride weather permitting. There is an off road park out near Marble Falls and a small city of Austin park and another off road park up north of Georgetown that provide some more rocky terrain riding and are less prone to be effected by a lot of rain. There's several MX tracks in the area that are fun and one has trails to ride (weather permitting). That's what I did yesterday, old man motoX practice. A lot of people like to race the cross country (TORCS) and enduro circuits to get access to a lot of different ranches that are not usually accessible for recreational riding. There's always a class for all skill levels. What part of Austin are you in?