Journeying Geographer: Day 65: Texas Hill Country

Texas is huge. It's the second largest state in both area (Alaska is number one), and population (after California): nearly 270,000 square miles (almost three times the size of Oregon), and nearly 27 million people (almost seven times Oregon's population). At its maximum, it is nearly 800 miles wide and 800 miles long.

After seeing off my wife and daughter at Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston yesterday, I drove 224 miles farther west (increasing my trip total to 8,686 miles), but still haven't traveled halfway across the state. The landscape changed, though, becoming increasingly hilly and noticeably drier. Prickly pear cactus (some quite large), cedars (what we would call junipers), rugged hills, and limestone are dominant landscape features in the Texas Hill Country. My day's journey ended near Spring Branch, an unincorporated community just north of San Antonio. The dry weather came to an abrupt end in the evening, however, as a cold front combined with the remnants of a hurricane dumped over three inches of rain on the area and brought some thunder and lightning, as well as flash floods.

Prickly pear on a limestone outcrop.

No line at security at Bush airport. My wife and daughters were the only ones going through. It was eerily quiet in the entire airport (one of the busiest in the country) at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday. Apparently no one wanted to fly on election day!