Arriving in Texas

It is big. It is huge. It is beyond hot when we arrive. My brains seem to melt under this heavy-weight, insufferable heat. Cowboy hats: now I get it! They're a vital necessity and not some country music singer's fancy, trademark accessory.

We cross the state border coming from Louisiana and the change is immediate. Gone is the bayou, the stifling humidity, the sense of being in true Dixie. Now it's the lone star, the desert-like heat. Most unexpectedly the ever-present "Watch for gators" signs that have been a constant presence since Florida, through Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana give way to a more frightening "Watch for snakes". It does make me uneasy to think about biting crawlies lurking in the grass.

But it's the great state of Texas and I couldn't be happier. It's the entire imagery of Texas that comes to mind once you find yourself crossing the border. It's Ewing-Dallas, the desert, the oil industry, the frontier, cowboys and saloons. And, of course, with such grim warning as the "Watch for snakes" sign, it's rattlesnakes that take up the imagery. Texas, indeed. And the self-evident notion that "everything is bigger in Texas" as the proud motto goes.

As soon as we get to Houston, what's the very first stop?

See what the trials and tribulations of a tesla-wife entail?