Taking the Scenic Route

Texas sun ablazin’. Swamp critters alive and chitterin’. Mouthwatering aroma of golden-fried seafood risin’. This is the scene at Bluebird Fish Camp, a family-owned gastropub perched on the edge of the Sabine River in Orange, Texas. It’s also the site where an episode of “The Texas Bucket List,” a weekly, nationally syndicated TV program hosted by Texas native Shane McAuliffe (’03), took an unexpected turn back in 2021.

What started out as an inspiring episode about the LeBlanc family’s humble fish camp unfolded into something far more meaningful. While talking history about the restaurant’s history with the owner’s daughter, Ashley Steiner, McAuliffe glimpsed a man with a tracheostomy and asked about his story.

That man was Bluebird’s owner himself, Oscar LeBlanc Sr., who had survived six gunshots during a robbery, beating the odds and living to tell McAuliffe his tale. (Sadly, LeBlanc died in June 2022 at the age of 66.)

“He told me he’d prayed about us coming to see him,” McAuliffe says. “And I’m sitting here going, ‘This guy almost died and he’s praying for me?’ That was a really emotional moment.”

It’s this unpredictability that makes “The Texas Bucket List” a must-watch ode to the wonderful corners of the Lone Star State. In each episode, McAuliffe goes in expecting a routine story but leaves having met remarkable and resilient Texans, capturing their stories in authentic ways.

The Road to Texas Stardom

Storytelling has always been McAuliffe’s passion. Since he was a kid in Round Rock, manning the map for his dad on family excursions and listening to his pops tell him about all the hidden stories living in plain sight, he knew discovery and narration were for him.

In high school, he and his family moved from Round Rock to Houston. “I always used to tell people, ‘I lived half my life in a small town and half getting refined in Houston,’” he jokes. Years later, he attended the University of Houston, chasing a degree in broadcast journalism.

For a while, McAuliffe worked as a tour guide at Space Center Houston, which he says got him comfortable presenting in front of crowds and learning the art of conversation.

His first gig out of college was covering sports for a local network in Abilene where he says he went from “making $16 an hour doing computer work to making six bucks an hour at a TV station.”

Abilene is also where McAuliffe met his future wife, Meredith. Fate took her to College Station and McAuliffe to Austin, but the sting of dating long-distance couldn’t keep them apart. In 2008, McAuliffe put down roots in Aggieland, where he still lives with Meredith and their three children.

Building ‘The Texas Bucket List’

It’s here where the story of the “The Texas Bucket List” begins. McAuliffe says he was approached by a local TV news producer, who was clamoring for a human-interest summer series brimming with fun features highlighting the area’s lifestyle. The resulting “Brazos Valley Bucket List” was a hit.

“People were coming up to me and saying things like, ‘This is like “Texas Country Reporter” but better,’” McAuliffe says. “I’m like, ‘Really? Bob Phillips? He’s a legend.’”

After a couple of years winning over audiences and solidifying himself a purveyor of Texas taste, McAuliffe was given carte blanche to follow his own vision for the show. He says the moment he got the call from the program director informing him the show would be airing on not one, but three, stations was like “divine intervention.”

“I was like, ‘Here we go!’” he says.

Whipping Up His Secret Sauce

In the entertainment business, it’s gung-ho new season one second and soul-crushing cancellation the next. Knowing this, McAuliffe injected a bit of magic into his show to keep his producers singing.

“It’s really hard to tell a good story — and to tell one that takes some time,” he says. “Everything today is consumed in 30 or 60 seconds. You have to work hard to grab people’s attention, tell a good story and not make it about yourself. We just try to tell genuine stories about folks who are doing what they can to be successful here in the Lone Star State.”

If the show doesn’t air in your area, you can find “The Texas Bucket List” videos online at thetexasbucketlist.com. About a minute into any cut, you’ll see that although the show is a guide to the state’s most memorable sights and bites, it’s really about the people.

“We sneakily make the show about these people who are behind the experiences and how they got where they are and how they got to do what they’re doing,” McAuliffe says.

Stories From the Road

Traveling the roads of Texas, exploring each of its nooks and crannies for long stretches, takes heart and grit. McAuliffe says it’s the people who keep him going, adding that the best stories come from word of mouth and the ultimate local tipoff: “You gotta meet this guy!”

It’s giveaways like this that led McAuliffe to Ox Ranch in Uvalde, where he got behind the wheel of a real tank and took it for a spin before filming his segment. A forever stargazer, McAuliffe name-drops the McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis as another standout pit stop, adding that “The stars are absolutely amazing; you feel so small and it’s just beautiful.”

But it was his chance encounter with LeBlanc that takes top honors. In fact, the Bluebird Fish Camp episode won McAuliffe and his crew a Gold Telly Award in the category of General: Biography.

Life on the road has its fair share of twists, turns and touchpoints — some that even make McAuliffe chuckle in hindsight. One such time, he shares, was when he and his team visited a family-run fusion joint nestled in the heart of H-Town; its name, Cowboys & Indians, is often mistaken for being culturally insensitive.

“What’s funny is the restaurant’s run by Indian guys — actual guys from India!” McAuliffe says. “So it is literally cowboys and Indians. And their tikka masala chicken-fried steak is pretty darn good.”

‘Only-in-Texas’ Moments

And then there are the double-take moments, those only-in-Texas happenings. One of them happened when he was shooting a birding center on the southern border.

“Here we are, just looking at birds, and all of a sudden the road between Texas and Mexico turns into a dust storm with a truck barreling toward us,” McAuliffe says. “I’m thinking they’re either after someone or we’re in trouble.”

Both were wrong, actually. The rocket on wheels was carrying fans.

“The guys get out of the truck and they’re like, ‘Hey! It’s Shane from “The Texas Bucket List!” Look at that!’” McAuliffe laughs. “That was crazy.”

Another amusing moment unfolded while McAuliffe and his team were trying to capture the mysterious and unexplained ghost lights that occasionally paint the night skies of Marfa.

“These lights just refuse to show up for me,” he says.

The crew had tried to film the phenomenon on more than one occasion with no luck, until the last night they were there. Waiting for dark, cameras set to record, anticipation building, they waited for the elusive lights to show themselves. But as the sky finally came alive, mystery gave way to a cosmic joke.

“The lights were just the train of Starlink satellites,” McAuliffe says, laughing. “Still, I was like, ‘Yes! Something’s finally happening in Marfa!’”

Driving Toward Common Ground

Whether those moments on the road made him laugh or made him pause, McAuliffe says he’s learned the very same lesson from each encounter: “All of us relate to each other, no matter how different we are.”

From El Paso to the Panhandle, the Brazos Valley to East Texas, we all have Texas pride in common, McAuliffe says, adding that he loves to see “Texas flags everywhere. When you say you’re Texan, everyone here relates to that.”

Texas pride runs deep; it’s what gets communities through the good times and the bad — including the tragic floods that struck Central Texas this past July. In the spirit of giving back to the communities that make “The Texas Bucket List” so special, McAuliffe’s team partnered with Prosperity Bank to raise more than $70,000 for the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund.

“Shared experiences definitely define our lives and generations,” he says.

Savoring the Pit Stops

Texas isn’t without its hardships. But just as fiercely as we come together to rebuild, the people of Texas make the most of life and remember to savor every morsel along the way. For this reason, McAuliffe details his own must-visit places around the state. And his list is impressive.

From Tejas in Tomball for chocolate and barbecue to the Topwater Grill in San Leon for shore-side hospitality, this champion of Texas culture really knows how to cover his bases. Topping his entire list is the 1877 tall ship Elissa, parked at the Galveston Historic Seaport.

“Sailing on the Elissa is another one of those awesome things we’ve done on the show,” he says. “Getting to sail on one of the oldest sailing ships in the country was just amazing.”

Even though McAuliffe has been around the Lone Star State and back, he still ranks Houston as one of the best cities around. Taking us on a mini jaunt of hidden H-Town gems, he stops at Antonini’s Subs & Steaks in Webster, an unassuming shop tucked away in a shopping center off Highway 3, for “the best Italian subs” he’s ever had.

We then head to Buffalo Bayou Park, where the city’s cistern — once a drinking water reservoir — has been transformed into an 87,500-square-foot public space that hosts tours, performances and art installations. Then it’s off to the San Jacinto memorial, a museum of quintessential Texas history in Houston’s backyard. We finish at Cream Burger, just steps from the UH campus.

“There are so many amazing places in Houston that we could do an entire season on H-Town alone,” McAuliffe says. “It’s such a great town, so full of diversity.”

Showing his Cougar pride, McAuliffe says Houston is the reason he’s able to tell the stories that make him whole. Studying broadcast journalism at UH prepared him for the road, giving him the building blocks and opportunity to be successful. He also credits his professors for teaching him what not to do.

“I was not the best student, and my grades reflected that, but there was a professor, Beth Olson, who recognized something in me,” McAuliffe says. “She was a fantastic teacher. I didn’t know what I had, but she could tell that I had something.”

Another influence he mentions is William Hawes, the same communications professor who taught many broadcast greats, including NFL sportscaster Jim Nantz, over the years. Perhaps someday, Shane McAuliffe will be the name on UH grads’ lips.

The Future of ‘The Texas Bucket List’

For now, McAuliffe is looking forward to his 13th year producing the show, and his 25th season launching later this fall. He also plans to turn the studio into its own mini-adventure.

“People are always asking for tours, so we want to expand the studio to make it a little more of an experience,” he says.

As for a “The Texas Bucket List” podcast, book or spin-off, there’s no word yet. But McAuliffe does have a takeaway he hopes resonates with his viewers.

“Things are not as bad as you might think they are,” he says. “The world is a great place. Go out there and experience as many experiences as possible. Because you only get one ride, and you might as well see it all before you kick the bucket.”