A to Z April Challenge: T is for Texas

I was born, raised, and spent the first thirty-nine years of my life in South Carolina. David was born in Georgia, but his family moved to South Carolina when he was eight years old, where he lived until we moved out here to Texas in September 2004. We had our babies there and had several hundred years of family history that we left back there.

Texas...the place that we live now and sometimes call "home"...has a lot of interesting things to offer. One of my favorite things about Texas is the wildflowers. Ladybird Johnson was really big on flowers, too, and because of her the roadsides are loaded with Texas wildflowers today. People drive for hours to find that just right patch or field of bluebonnets in the spring in which to plop their babies and dogs and get the perfect picture to share with family.

Texas has other things to offer, too. Like Paris, complete with its own cowboy hat-wearing version of the Eiffel Tower. Little frame churches are all over the place, but if you find a really pretty one, take its picture quickly because fires have claimed several since we've been here. Here is one of the little churches that was located in the Spanish Camp area of Wharton County.

Texas is a big state and has big businesses that often share the same fields, like cotton and oil or gas wells.

Big weather keeps the area hopping and very much aware of the need to be prepared for anything. We can have four feet of water standing as far as the eyes can see, but still be under a burn ban and an alleged drought. There have been at least two floods in our area since we moved here. One was during our first Thanksgiving here in 2004 and another was in the spring of 2009. The first one had people having to be rescued by boat from the low-lying areas of town. The second one had parts of our neighborhood under water. Here is a photo of the park that is in sight of our house.






Hurricanes and tropical storms are no strangers to this area either. We knew from Hurricane Hugo back in South Carolina in 1989 how powerful these storms can get, even hundreds of miles inland. We're approximately fifty miles from the coast. In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita came to call on the Gulf Coast. Katrina sent the folks to Texas, and Rita chased us all out, natives and newbies alike. We were told to leave, so we did. During the evacuation, we visited Paris. We spent the majority of the time in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but made a day trip from there to Coffeyville, Kansas. That was an incredibly interesting place!

Texas has a wonderful assortment of critters, big ones and little ones. Birds, bats, snakes, butterflies, alligators, deer all sorts of interesting creatures. You saw one of the snakes yesterday. Today, you get to see an alligator and a butterfly.

Out in west Texas, there are beautiful, towering mountains that I've never been to. Considering that mountains, regardless of their beauty, scare me to death, I may never see them in person. Big Bend has some truly amazing scenery. My camera would surely be happy there!