“Texas could get along without the United States, but the United States cannot, without great hazard, get along without Texas.”
-Sam Houston
I find Texas a pretty interesting state to live in. It has a rich history, filled with much lore and myth. But I have also found some interesting and somewhat unique facts about this state.
Texas was the only state in the confederacy that allowed its citizens to vote (those who were allowed to, that is) and decide whether to secede from the Union. In all other Confederate states politicians decided this.
Texas is also the only state that entered the Union as a Republic and by law retained its right to become its own country again and divide itself up into five states.
In Texas, pickup trucks are perhaps as common as Porsches in LA. Perhaps the per capita ownership of pickups is slightly lower in Dallas and Houston, but elsewhere it appears to be the State Vehicle. Here is the answer of a rancher from Dripping Springs when asked whether SUV’s were going to eventually replace pickup trucks:
“In order to carry everything you need, like your sacks of corn for deer feed, your dog kennel, your tow chain, your shovel, your circle saw, your hammer and nails for fixing the deer blind, your bedroll, your fishing rod and tackle boxes, and your tent, you generally need to get yourself a pickup. Sport-utility vehicles are getting to be stylish, but you don’t want to be throwing your chain saw or your deer carcass in one of them. And you tear up the upholstery trying to slide a trolling motor between the seats. You need that metal bed you get with a pickup, preferably with a fiberglass liner so that when you wear it out you can put another one pretty darn quick. Around town you can’t park on of those darned SUV’s, and out in the country you don’t want to be driving it through the mesquite ‘cause them thorns will tear that pretty finish right off. Then there’s the horses. They like to chew on chrome. If I drove one of them SUV’s out to do my feeding, our ole black horse would have the chrome stripped off in no time.”
(Loosely excerpted from “Making Texas Home” by Wells Tegue)
Suffice to say that pickups are here to stay in Texas for a while, anyways.
There is a certain amount of provincialism here in Texas. You’ve got your Texas natives, some going back generations, and then you’ve got your newcomers, myself included. Some of the Texas natives have a fairly rigid idea about how to identify a newcomer. I overheard a conversation in the Hill Country Pit BBQ restaurant in Johnson City that illustrates the point:
First guy:
“I heard Ralph telling Judd over at the feed store that he was a second-generation Texan and by God ought to get some preferential pricing.”
Second guy:
“Well I’ll be! Why his family only been here in Texas since 1938!”
They have a condition here in Texas called “Cedar Fever”. It is caused by allergic reaction to cedar pollen. Apparently it is a most uncomfortable affliction, and is dreaded by those who suffer from it. The news stations have extensive coverage of the cedar pollen levels. The ranch has an abundance of cedar trees, so I consider myself very fortunate that I do not get cedar fever.
Is there any word that is a true rhyme with Texas?
Texas is well known for its wildflowers. The bluebonnet became the State Flower in 1901. Roadsides everywhere are covered with a vast variety of wildflowers in the spring, something I look forward to seeing. The wildflowers are really wild, but they do get a little helping hand. TXDot (the Texas Department of Transportation) cares for more than 700,000 acres of roadside. They groom, mow, fertilize, plant shrubs and trees and generally tend to the natural roadside attractions. They also spread 60,000 pounds of wildflower seed each year.
Texas is the only state to permit a voter to cast their absentee ballot from outer space. Astronaut David Wolf became the first to do so when he was aboard the space station Mir in 1997. He did it via email.
The Lone Star State? It seems that in 1821 the first governor of the Mexican Province of Texas, Henry Smith, wore an overcoat with large brass buttons with the shape of a five-pointed star. Soon after his inauguration he had some important papers to sign. Feeling grandly governorial, he told his aides that Texas should have a state seal. So he took one of his buttons and applied it to the sealing wax. Ever since, Texas has been the Lone Star State and has the five-pointed star on its flag.
Riding, or driving if that is your preference, the byways of Texas you soon notice road signs with strange markings on them. You’re likely to spot things like RR 3232, FM 428, or CR 212. I was puzzled when I first saw them, and eventually asked around. “RR” stands for “Ranch Road”, the origin of which is perhaps understandable. “FM” stands for “Farm to Market”, which is a bit more obtuse. “CR”, the least unusual of the group, stands for “County Road”.
Then there’s the infamous “Texas Big Hair”.
“Anyone who has spent any time at all in the Lone Star State has seen, and possibly interacted with, the creature known as the Texas Big Hair. These women spend hours to attain the perfect altitude; their big hair techniques are as secret as family recipes and are often handed down from mother to daughter. Many non-Texans have tried to imitate the Texas Big Hair, but few have succeeded. An entire generation of heavy metal artists coveted the sheer majesty of the Texas Big Hair, but none was able to re-create it in all its glory.”
From “A Guide To Texas Etiquette – Or How To Get To
Heaven Or Hell Without Going Through Dallas-Fort Worth” by Kinky Friedman (who
insists that Texas Etiquette is not a contradiction in terms)
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Texas weather is interesting, as well. There are several geographic factors that affect our weather. The Gulf of Mexico is the predominant influence, bringing warm, moist air masses nearly year round. The Pacific Ocean influences us when there are strong westerly winds, bringing weather over the Sierra Madres in eastern Mexico. We are occasionally influenced by the same frigid Canadian air masses that bring real winter to most of the country. However, being so far south we usually only get a weakened version of it.
The geography books tell me that there are supposedly four primary regions in Texas –
However, when I’ve mentioned these to the locals, they look at me strangely (“You’re not from around here, are you sonny?”). I believe that Texans fundamentally see their state as follows:
Check out the state topography in this map of Texas
It is such a large state that weather can be quite different in areas not so far apart. On any single day, the Panhandle can be frigid and snowing, while the Hill country is sunny and in the 60’s, while Brownsville swelters in the high 70’s. And this is in January!
Since I arrived here in September, we had the wettest fall in a great many years down here. Apparently I get a lot of the blame for this, having moved here from the Northwest. But fortunately, it seems to happen in bursts, rather than day after day, as I was accustomed to in Seattle. A two-hour afternoon rainstorm here in Texas would take two weeks in Seattle!
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On November 15th we had quite a storm down here. The forecast was for some thunderstorms. There was a upper level low pressure system spinning over New Mexico that was going to suck up the moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and bring us some rain and thunder, nothing too much to worry about, they said. They were both right and wrong.
I had a few thunder cells move past the ranch starting about 11 PM. They were not too bad, and they ended fairly quickly. Then at 2 AM, the floodgates opened. Much more lightning and thunder, combined with an absolute downpour. I’ve seen rain that heavy in the Midwest, but those storms ended after 30 minutes or so. This one continued unabated for about 3 hours. Then there was a period of relative calm and a few sprinkles.
By dawn I could see that the fields in the front of the ranch had some pretty deep and wide pools of standing water. The driveway was partially covered in one area. Well, I thought, that was a pretty impressive Texas storm!
Then the next one hit at around 9 AM. In daylight, I could see more clearly how heavy the rain was. Positively the hardest rain I have ever seen. It was an absolute deluge. At times the rain was so heavy that I couldn’t see more than 20 yards. As the cells moved past the ranch, I could track the thunder and lightning approaching. Moments later it was pounding the area around the ranch, then moving off to the north.
I had long ago turned off the computer, but I was sitting at the desk doing some bills. There had been a number of lightning strikes not too far away, and I was gazing out the window. An incredible bolt of lightning hit the ground about 100 yards away. It was the most clearly defined lightning strike I have ever seen in person. The top disappeared into the clouds while the bolt seemed to hang there in the air for a long time. As it dissipated, there were a number of small balls of light left behind along the whole length of where it had been. These strange little remnants quickly disappeared. I do not think they were “tracers” that my eyes created from the brilliant flash. My suspicion is that the lightning bolt atomized the rain and the little “balls” were the result. I’ll have to do some research to find out if this phenomenon is for real.
The closeness of the lightning strike also created a boom the likes of which I have never heard. Absolutely shook the house. And me.
The heavy rains continued for several hours. A river of water a couple inches deep was running across the entire property. The yard was inundated. The drain spouts for the roof were cascading gushers that overshot the rocks in the ground to prevent erosion. A goodly portion of the driveway disappeared under water.
By around noon, the rains slowed somewhat. It was still raining hard, but the gully-washing rain had tapered off for a while. In the relative calm, I was sitting reading in my easy chair. I heard another thunder cell approaching, and experienced the nerve-wracking anticipation as the lightning grew closer and the thunder grew louder.
In rapid succession, three things happened almost simultaneously. The light bulb in the kitchen ceiling flashed blue as it burnt out, a blinding flash of lightning struck and a hideously loud crack of thunder shook the house. It had not hit the house directly, but I am certain it was so close that some of the electric energy zapped the bulb in the kitchen. Now the anticipation was even more nerve-wracking. I stood in the middle of the house, as far from electrical devices as I could.
Moments later another flash/crash of lightning/thunder occurred. This time I saw where it hit. It was out in the yard, about 30 feet from the house. The noise of the explosion of thunder was incredibly loud, with that rippling, crackling sound you hear when the Blue Angels fly by really close and fast.
The storm moved by and I was spared any further close encounters with the power of Ma Nature’s wrath. But the heavy rains continued until around 2 PM.
During the afternoon lull in activity, I decided to hop in the truck and see if I could run into Dripping Springs to do a couple errands. I quickly found that I could not. There are three roads I could choose from to get back to civilization. They were all closed due to flash floods.
I tuned into the news at 5 PM. The first thing I discovered was that my area of the Hill Country had gotten the most rain. Estimates ranged from 10 inches to 12 inches. This rainfall happened in the space of around 14 hours. That’s a LOT of rain! In fact, it is a third of the annual rainfall for the area!
Another thing I discovered was that a tornado had passed nearby in the morning, about 8 miles away in Henley. It wasn’t a bad one, but there was some minor damage. It had occurred right about the time I saw that incredible lightning bolt.
The current news being covered was in Austin. The city had not received too much rain during the day, but now getting its share of very rough weather. It was right at commute time, and an awful lot of people got home late or were forced to stay in a hotel for the night. The TV stations were covering systems coming through Austin that were right on the border of being tornadoes. In fact, a couple funnel clouds did materialize, and some buildings around the city were damaged.
There were flash floods all over the place. There were lots of roads with water running across the roadway. And unfortunately there were morons who chose to drive through these. Two people had already been swept away and killed during the afternoon. The Search and Rescue units were running from call to call working to get stranded motorists out of dire straights.
The footage they showed of the creeks, streams, drainage canals and rivers was nothing short of astounding. I was familiar with some of them, and they were usually either sedate little flows of water or dry beds. This was not the case on this day. Austin, like many other areas affected by intermittently heavy rains, has spent a lot of time and money trying to control the flow of the runoff water. The raging floods running through these streams and diversion channels were truly awe-inspiring. The Pedernales River, near where I live, was an absolute deluge.
Turns out this was possibly worse than the 1981 Memorial Day storm that wreaked havoc on the city of Austin. Since we had much more rain out here in the Hill country, I’d say it could be the worst. It took another full day for the water to drain off the ranch. It also took two days until the roads nearby opened up after the waters lowered.
Quite a storm!
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Since then, we’ve had a couple small bouts with cold weather here in central Texas. Around Thanksgiving we had the first one. We had a few mild days, humid and hot and 82. The next day it was around 72. The next day the high temperature was 38! Overnight lows for two nights were in the 30’s. Then we got back into more normal weather – highs in the 60’s and lows in the 40’s, with many days being mostly sunny. Fine winter bike riding weather!
In late December and early January we had about ten days of on and off frigid weather. A few nights were down in the high teens! This is darn cold for Texas!
One thing that I really enjoy is the length of the days down here in mid-winter. Seattle is so far north that winter daylight is terribly short. Here in Texas in late December, sunrise is shortly before 7:30, so it starts getting light a little after 7:00. Sunset is around 5:30, so it is light until almost 6:00. The longer days combined with mostly sunny weather is my kind of winter.
The full moon is spectacular here in early winter. The way it lights up the Hill Country is pretty amazing. One thing I need to research a little further is that unlike up in the PNW, the time that the moon rises and sets gets later far faster. I heard about this on the local NPR radio station, but I missed part of the report. It got me to thinking, though. It seems to me that here in North America we are blessed by the fact that the full moon happens during nighttime. If my astral thinking is correct, doesn’t this mean that on the opposite side of the earth that the full moon happens during the day? I’ll have to check that out.
I put in a bird-feeding platform, and stocked it with seed. It took the birds about 30 minutes to find it! The cast of bird characters that visit it include the following:
Roadrunners are a hoot to watch. When they run, they look exactly like they are depicted in the Roadrunner cartoon! Their bodies form a straight line from their heads, down their flat back and their long, straight tails and their feet almost a blur they go so fast. It is hilarious to watch them. However, they do not go “beep-beep”.
I am daily amazed at the number and variety of butterflies here. There are a gazillion! The monarch butterflies have long ago completed their migration to Mexico, but either there are stragglers or some choose to winter here. But there are also other butterflies of equal size, though most are smaller. The variety of coloration is staggering.
White-tailed deer are abundant. I see them nearly every morning and evening. I’ve seen a couple foxes, but they are very skittish and avoid contact with us humans. Or at least they avoid this human.
I was out in the middle of the property the other day and heard an unusual sound. After a bit of standing still and peeking around I saw a wild turkey! At first I wasn’t certain, since turkey vultures are very common here. But turkey vultures are silent, without the capability to speak. This turkey was making a sound somewhat like the classic “gobble”. I did a bit of research and found that Central Texas is indeed a wintering area for wild turkeys. In fact, west of here near Junction there is a state park on the South Llano River that has a huge stand of native pecan trees. This park is closed October through April to assure peace and quiet for the 600 – 700 wild turkeys that roost there over the winter.
The hummingbirds arrive back from their winter vacation in Mexico in late March or so. They come in huge numbers, too.
Austin has bats. It is actually the largest urban bat colony in North America. The Congress Avenue Bridge, which spans the Lower Colorado River south of downtown Austin is the host to these furry, winged creatures. Repairs made to the bridge in the early 1980’s created crevices and nooks that were very appealing to the bats, so they came by the thousands, from late March to early November. There are enough of them that the TV stations often show them on their weather radar when they fly out just before sunset. For a while, Austin-ites were up in arms about these little creatures. But then it was pointed out that they consume huge numbers of mosquitoes every single night. Austin turned them into a tourist attraction.
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The job situation has been a bit of a struggle. Companies here are not laying people off, but they also are not hiring. I’ve met with a number of companies. By and large they all say, “Wow, we could really use someone with your experience, but we don’t have any openings right now!” I firmly believe something will turn up. The news reports are saying that there are a number of signals that businesses are starting to notice the beginnings of an upturn. Orders are slowly picking up in volume and size. The situation at Enron seems too far away in Houston to affect us.
I’ve been working on transforming the writings I did over the summer into a book. I’m kind of combining the travels and bike riding with my experiences in the software industry. The first draft of the book is complete and I am now working on the painful and tedious editing process. I hope to find an agent who will work with me to see if we can interest a publisher in producing a saleable book. I’ll keep you updated.
In the meantime I’ve been spending my time doing a number of activities. I’ve been doing some volunteer work in and around Austin. For instance, I volunteered to help with a fund drive for the local NPR station. It was the first time I was an “operator standing by”! It was kind of fun, actually.
I think that once you do some volunteer work in an area like this, you get put onto the “sucker” list. I got a call the Tuesday before Thanksgiving from a group that was providing holiday meals for the poor, of which there are many. They were short one driver to ferry people to the community center. So I agreed.
It was interesting. I was assigned a Hispanic kid to help with directions and communication, since most of the folks I gave rides to spoke less than adequate English and my Spanish skills are woefully inadequate. I inadvertently got a tour of some of the poorer areas of Austin. Like most cities, these areas are within blocks of prosperous areas, but are a different world. I met some real nice folks, though!
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I was long overdue for a camping trip, so the day after Thanksgiving I left for Brownsville. It was great to be out on the road! I’ll say it again - Although it is wonderful to have a home once more, I could set out on another three-month trip in a heartbeat! I went down past San Antonio and continued south towards Corpus Crispi. I then headed southwest on Highway 77 towards Brownsville. This stretch of roadway goes across a large marshy area for around 35 miles. In Louisiana they would call it a bayou. Here they call it a marsh. Not quite as poetic…
Brownsville is an interesting community. It is a snowbird destination, where retirees head for the winter. In large numbers! It has perhaps the best weather in the US during winter. Southern to central Arizona is great also, but it can get colder at night there. In Brownsville during December and January the average daytime high is 75. Overnight lows are usually in the high 50’s. Of course, during the summer it is positively sweltering!
Thanksgiving holiday is a very popular camping time here in Texas, so the state parks were all full. I found an RV place outside Brownsville. I was the youngest person there by a good 15 years or so. Nice folks, though it took a while to convince them I was not interested in the evening square dance or the bingo game later on.
I had planned originally to go and visit Big Bend State Park, rumored to be one of the finest in Texas. Due to my shortened weekend, that will need to be on another visit. Probably just as well, since the state parks are pretty crowded during the holiday.
Saturday I hopped on the bike and went for a great ride. The temperature reached 84 by early afternoon! I went up Highway 83 through McAllen and on towards Rio Grande City. I made a stop at Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park, which is right on the river, with Mexico on the other side.
I rode through the wonderful weather and scenery up to Laredo. Found a great Mexican restaurant where I had a great meal, though as is common down here, it was a little too hot for my American taste buds. I headed east out of Laredo and across the Neuces Plains, which are flat but very pretty. I was approaching Hebbronville when a sign announced I was entering Jim Hogg County. What a great name!
I wound my way through various fairly empty ranch roads, getting lost several times. Eventually I made it back to Brownsville and the camper. I once again politely declined the offers from the nice folks for square dancing and bingo. They also tried to tempt me with visions of a rousing game of shuffleboard, but I was wise to their wily tricks.
The next day I took a leisurely drive north back to home on the back roads. It was Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, so I wanted to avoid the interstates and the accompanying morons. It was a wonderful drive, actually. I encountered very varied terrain, lots of small towns where people actually waved at you. I had some good BBQ for lunch in a tiny place in a town named Beeville.
All in all, it was great to get out in the camper again. Next time, I want to go directly to Big Bend SP and see what all the fuss is about!
Until next time…
Jonathin