Things to Know Before Visiting Texas

On this episode of TravelEssary, we're going to tell you all the things to know before visiting Texas!  If you have never visited Texas, what is something you are most interested in experiencing when you come? If you live in Texas, what's one thing you think visitors should know?

Transcript

We're the Essary family and we're exploring America one destination at a time on this episode . We're going to tell you all of the things that you should know before visiting Texas. Let's chat.  Welcome and thank you for joining us on this episode. As we talk about what you need to know about Texas, before you come visit. Now, this is going to be a exciting one. I cannot wait to jump off into everything about sexist. There is a lot. A lot to discuss. We're going to hit a lot of the highlights and just kind of let you know a generalization of what's to expect whenever you come to Texas.

And the first and foremost thing that has to be talked about is something that every Texan will tell you about. It is something that we hang our hats on. It is Texas pride. It is all about Texas. Whenever you come to Texas, you will see the Texas flag. Everywhere. You will see it. At football games. You'll see it. , sporting events, concerts, , You could see a traveling down the road  because we Texans are very prideful of our state of our rich history. 

We have a lot of pride in our state. 

Yes, we do. And I know we've talked about it on this podcast before probably a few times. But love it or hate it. We have our Texas pride. It is embedded. Into every Texas born Texan, we can't help it. It's just, it's a part of us. It's in our blood. We love the state that we come from so much. And yes, Texas has its flaws that it's not perfect because I'm not sure. That place exists. 

 But it's home and it's wonderful. , and it's great. It's so great. That Texas is becoming one of the number one fastest growing states in the country.  Because Texas is amazing. And if you want to hear how amazing it is, just ask a Texan.

And we Texans love. Everything about Texas. And , there's a few other things that you need to know whenever you come to Texas.  Especially, if you come to a concert, I haven't really been to a concert where they don't mention this. But deep in the heart of Texas by gene Autry has a little hand-clapping part that happens. The stars at night, Sean, big and bright clap, clap, clap, clap deep in the heart of Texas. If you don't know that phrase. Right. You need to learn it before you come to Texas, because it will definitely happen somewhere. And  you feel a whole lot better whenever you're a part of something. 

Cause you know, what's going on. Just giving you a heads up.  If you're a concert or something, but especially if you're at a rodeo, I think every rodeo that we've been to. They do the deep in the heart of Texas with our little clap. 

And you better know your clap. You better know when to hit that beat. You better know the words if you come to Texas, because if you don't, that's going to be the first sign that we know you're not from Texas. 

And we have other songs that are near and dear to our heart, like yellow rose of Texas. is definitely one of those songs that just kind of. It plays on the heart a little bit, whenever you're a true Texan. 

And you got  that state pride inside of you. So no, these songs, if you're on a road trip and you're traveling in.  Listen to them. They're really good songs. 

. And you can see our state pride in more than just the songs about Texas, because there are plenty of songs just specifically about Texas. If you go to, for instance, a hotel, almost any hotel and Texas, and they have a free breakfast where they serve waffles . A lot of them are going to have your Texas shaped waffle maker. 

And yes, a lot of homes in Texas have Texas shaped waffle makers. In fact, we have Texas shaped everything. If you want it in a Texas shape, don't worry. We have it. We have Texas shaped cutting boards in our homes. ,  have like three or four shirts alone that have Texas on them. We have hats that have Texas on them. 

We love Texas. Even people who have never left Texas their whole lives. And yes. We have friends and family. That live in central Texas that have never left the state of Texas. And I'm talking people in there. Thirties, forties, fifties never left the state of Texas. Because I guess they don't feel the need to leave. 

It's so big and so vast, but they have so much love for their state. That they have never even left.

Well, it's just because there's so much to do in Texas. , Let's really break this down. How big is Texas? Texas is the second largest state in the United States. Alaska is two and a half times. Larger than Texas, but if you just go to where people are live or where the truly inhabitable places or Texas by far is number 1, and if you really broke it down, if Texas was a country, A country all by itself. It ranks 40th. As the biggest

 It's massive. Texas has also has. Three top 500 cities by world population as Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas.  If it's just America by itself. Texas has six top 25 cities by population. Houston, which of course is the fourth. 

Largest. Houston is massive, but you have San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Fort worth, and El Paso coming in at number 22.  , not only is it. Massive as far as land base, but also population base. And it is still growing. It is one of the fastest growing population-wise in the United States.  I actually watched this YouTube video a few days ago. 

And by the year,  2034, I think it was that they're estimating Texas to have the highest. State population in America. 

Now there have been some things out there of saying,  the entire world population could live inside of Texas. Well, unfortunately this is not true. Now the entire United States population. Good. Absolutely live inside of Texas and still have land despair.  So, if you could imagine taking . New York city. Los Angeles. San Diego, Chicago. Indianapolis. Miami. If you take all those big metropolitan areas and you bring them all to Texas. Everyone fits in here with plenty of space, plenty of elbow room. And that's one thing that Texas do. Like we like our elbow room. 

We do not like. To reach out and slap our neighbors,  outside their window. We like our space. We like having yards. We like having trees. 

 I follow a lot of travel. Groups and pages on Facebook and some of them are specifically Texas related travel. And people from other states will ask, Hey, I'm coming to Texas. What's the best road trip itinerary. I'm going to be there for three days. And I want to see all of Texas and I just kind of chuckled to myself three days and you're going to see all of Texas. You can't even see Dallas in three days, you can't even see Houston in three days. 

Like how are you going to see all of Texas  we have a lot of people from Australia that come and visit.  And they're always posting on one of my Facebook groups, which shout out to all of our Australian listeners, because I know you guys listen because it shows up on my stats every week. 

So. , yes, we love our Australian brothers and sisters. So if you're from Australia, No, that when you come to Texas, you cannot see it in three days. You really can't even see all of it in a week. Now, can you have a good time in such a short amount of time? Yes, you can have a good time in three to four days, but. Do not think you're going to do this big circle around Texas and just a few days. 

And Jeremy's going to tell you why.

Imagine this, if you will.

From one side of Texas to the other from east to west, from the Louisiana border. To just past El Paso into the New Mexico border. Take in one road. I tin.  East to west 878 miles. That's how long it is.

And in Texas, we don't gauge things by miles. We gauge it by what. We gauge it by time.

 It's over 11 hours. I think it's actually closer to 12 or 13 because from Houston to El Paso is right at 11 hours. So if you're going from border to border, it is closer to 12, 13 hours of driving with no stops.

And that's not even the longest route. The longest route is from parents in Texas to Brownsville area, traveling north to south on route 83. And that is 900 miles long. 14 hours nonstop driving.  So, if you think about driving from one side of Texas to the other side of Texas, It's going to take you a whole day just by itself. 

That's not stops us not looking at anything. That's not enjoying everything that we have to offer here. But that's just driving time. No for all those people that are not from Texas,  here's just a few little facts. 

 If you were to travel from Chicago. To New York city. Crossing four states to get from one side to the other. It only takes you 12 hours. It's only 790 miles. 

From El Paso to Los Angeles is 802 miles.  It is easier,  and faster for people in El Paso. To get to the west coast than it is for people in El Paso to get to the Gulf coast. Because in order to get to the Gulf coast, it's about 830 miles to get some  Beaumont, Texas.  Now. Amarillo, which is in the Plains area. To get from Amarillo to Cheyenne, Wyoming, which is the Capitol. Wyoming is 511 miles. 

But for people to get from Amarillo to Austin, Texas, which is Texas state Capitol. Is 491 miles.  In 20 more miles you can get from your own state Capitol. To a state Capitol that is. Three states away.  That's how big Texas is. 

Anytime we're traveling outside of Texas, especially when we're going to let's say Florida.  It usually takes us the whole first day of traveling just to get outside of Texas. We usually stop somewhere in Louisiana for the night, but we have a whole full day of driving just for us to get. To east, Texas and into Louisiana. And I feel like sometimes our vacation doesn't actually start until we've got out of Texas. 

And then when we're coming back home and we see that welcome to Texas sign, we get really excited for about 30 seconds until we realize we have eight more hours or so of driving before we actually get home.  There's been so many vacations where we enter into Texas and , it's in the evening time. It's  two, three o'clock in the evening. 

And we're like, you know what? We're so close to home. Yeah. Let's let's go ahead and take off.  And then by the time we stopped for gas and we stopped , for dinner, ,  we might as well just pull over for the night. We might as well find a hotel somewhere because we still have at least three hours.  Until we even get back home. It will catch you off guard if you're not prepared for truly how far you are from your destination because of Texas. 

And another thing, If you haven't listened to our travel Dallas podcast episode yet, then you may not be aware of this, but in our larger cities like Houston, Austin, Dallas, especially.  It can take you hours just to get from one side of the other, even if you're staying on the same highway the whole time, like I 10 going through Houston, you're talking like two hours just to get from one side of the other, because I tend as nightmarish. But I digress. That inside of our larger cities alone, you're going to spend hours to get across them. So.  When I hear people say they want to visit all of the major cities. And  what itinerary should they do to do that in three or four days? 

I just, I can't, I don't know how to respond to that appropriately because. You're going to spend that whole time just driving. From one place to the other. One time. We did from where we live in central Texas, up to DFW, down to Austin, and then back to where we live in central Texas. 

So it was a little triangle that we did. And I felt like the entire tude, was it two days, three days.  . I felt like we did nothing but drive. And that's not even a far distance compared to one side of Texas to the other or from Dallas to Houston. It's not even comparable. Like our little triangle. In three days time that we did. It felt like we were in the car the entire three days. 

And that can definitely happen , if you don't plan correctly, if you don't take breaks or truly give Texas at the time that it needs. You know, I actually feel sorry for those people in the Houston area. Because for them to go to  Oklahoma or go skiing in Colorado or something.  Driving is almost impossible for them because they're going to be spending almost a day and a half just in Texas. By the time they put in all their stops and gas stations.  I guess that's why a lot of them fly up to those areas because it just takes so long. To drive and they're still inside their state. 

And another important thing to know when it comes to Texas roadways is because Texas is so vast. 

And in between our larger cities, it's extremely rural. There's not a lot of public transportation. Now when you're in the larger cities, San Antonio, DFW Houston, if you're in the city centers,  especially San Antonio, there are bus systems and , they're pretty decent and you can get bus passes. But only if you're staying in that one city, if you come to Texas and you want to leave a city center and you're going to be visiting multiple spots, You're going to want to rent a car. 

There's really no other way around it. If you try to Uber your place from city to city. It's probably not going to happen. And if it does, it's going to be extremely expensive. So if you're coming to Texas and you're going to visit more than one city rent you a car.

Because it's so vast, we have different regions such as we have deserts out west. We have the beaches around the coast. We have the planes up north. We have the hill country in the center. We have forest over  in the east and  you can be surrounded by. Tall, beautiful trees and then travel what hour and a half, two hours. 

And you're surrounded by little shrubs known as Mesquite trees. And the landscape just totally changes just overnight.  

 It's always interesting. When we go into east Texas,  I always know the trees are about to start getting bigger because Justin, our 17 year old, his allergies go crazy. I don't know what it is about those really tall trees they have in the east, , it always messes up his allergy. 

So I know once he starts sneezing and needing to take some Benadryl that we're about to start getting to tall tree country. And then the further west you go, you're talking about. El Paso. And not even that far, you don't even have to go that far. Yeah. Midland Odessa.  You get into west Texas and it is no trees.  It's little bitty, cactuses and shrubs, and  they have a lot of dust storms and sand storms. 

And those area that east Texas never has to even consider.  It's so vast. Which means our weather is also extremely varied. So before you come to Texas, Research the weather for where you're going to be and what time of the year it is.

Anywhere in the summer is going to be hot. Just know Texas has hot summers. 

I don't care where you are. It's hot. All across Texas, especially if you're in the larger cities, all the concrete, and there's not a lot of breeze. It's hot, hot, hot, hot. If you come in this spring, especially if you're in central or east, Texas, we have a lot of tornadoes. We have a lot of health storms, . We have replaced mini cars and roofs in our lifetime because of hell storms and hail damage. So be prepared for that. 

If you come in the winter and you're going to be in the panhandle further up north, they actually get snow storms and they get more of the wintery weather than we do , in central or even south Texas. So depending on where you are and what time of the year, the weather can be very extreme. And it varies from region to region. 

One thing I want to point out is you will notice that she did not say fall. We don't really have full. It goes from summer. To winter and that's it. We might have a week or two where it's really nice weather and it drops down into the low eighties, the high seventies. And it's really nice, but there's no leaf changing. 

There's nothing like that. It's hot. And then it's cold.  Now in the fall months, September, October, November. If you're along the coast, you do have to be wary of hurricane season because the Gulf, you know, A lot of Houston Galveston areas, they can get hit by some of the hurricanes or be effected, but the rest of Texas fall is just. A word that we laugh about. Cause we know we don't even have like the pretty fall colors and stuff. 

, whenever our leaves change, they just go straight to brown and then they fall off. We don't get all of the beautiful colors. I think in east Texas, it's a little more than we get here in central Texas, but not much. 

And whenever she was talking about temperature, the temperatures are always different depending on what region you're in. , it's winter time and it's starting to get a little cool. If you're in west, Texas in the desert where there's no break or anything, you're going to get that cold breeze coming through. 

It's going to be colder and it's going to be more dry. If you go to east Texas, you're still going to get the coldness, but it's going to be a little bit more worth. There's a little bit more moisture to it. And then of course, if you go to the Plains where everything is open, that's where all the freezes that's where all the snow accumulation happens in. 

Texas is all up there in those areas. But also with heat, heat is different. Because in the desert, it's hot, but it's dry in central Texas. It's hot. Kind of drop. Sometimes you have a moisture, depending on what day it is, where the wind's blowing in. East Texas. We used to have reunions out there. We used to have here's camps out in the east Texas area and you would go and you would take a shower and you'd feel refreshed. And then you would step outside and immediately just be soaked from all the sweat because of how humid it was that you would literally have to like step back inside, dry yourself, off all over again. 

Maybe even have taken another shower before you step outside. It's a different heat from the different regions of America as well. 

And with each region of Texas, west, Texas, east, Texas, north, Texas, south, Texas, and central Texas. Food varies from region to region.  In west Texas. It will be very similar to what you'll get in New Mexico. And then east Texas is very similar to what you get in Louisiana. There's more Cajun food. You're going to find more alligator available on the menu. The closer you go to east, Texas, and then along the Gulf, you're going to have way more seafood. 

So it varies from region to region, but there are two things all across Texas that is pretty staple, pretty king. You're going to find everywhere. And as a proud Texan, I'm going to say, you're not going to find it. Anywhere else in the United States better. And that's barbecue. And Tex Mex. 

The state dish is Chile. Can Carney. And it was established in 1977. And it has a little note here that.  The dishes to be made with no beans.  No beings. Have you ever been Stewart? , you totally ruined it. But yes, Tex-Mex is definitely our staple. 

It is what we're known for. I'm not going to say other states don't have it. It's not as good, but it's definitely not as good TexMex. Originated in Texas. , it is a mixture of Mexican and Texas. Food and culture, and we thrive on our TexMex. No matter what color your skin is or what part of Texas you're from you like TexMex, you know how to cook TexMex, and you can tell the difference from TexMex when it comes from Texas. 

And when it comes from outside of Texas.

Yeah. We've actually been on vacation  and we went to a place and we were like,  Nope, this is definitely not it. This is not how you prepare this. 

And then of course, Texas is known for its barbecue and shout out to all of our Australian listeners. Again, I actually saw someone from Australia post the other day and. He gave big props to us Texans and said that he's been to a lot of the states in the south and Texas was by far his favorite place. For barbecue. 

Now there are other good barbecue places but it varies so different. For instance, when we went to South Carolina,  And I ordered something with barbecue, which we may or may not have mentioned this on another podcast. But it was sweet. It was sweet. Barbecue. And that's just not Texas barbecue. 

And while it was.  Good. It's just,  barbecue varies so differently depending on what  state you're in. Texas is known for smokey and savory. And brisket is keying in Texas. You will not find better brisket than you have here in Texas. 

And we'll do other things a little bit different. I was talking to one of the best pro fishermen that came down and did a tournament in our area. And he was talking about catfish. He was just talking about how, , it's prepared and the battery and everything. And  we use more of a corn mill mix in our batter. Where our Northern brothers over there in New York, they use Bisquick.

Oh, wow. I would think that would make it dense and heavy and visit not.  So he said that it was a little bit more dense, but it gives it  that sweetness to it because that's what this glitz for. And he suggested , my dad do it the next time that him and his brothers get together to do the fish fry. 

And I was like, , dad, if you pull up biscuits, you might I kicked out of the family for using that.

We do like for things to stay the same when it comes to food. I have to remind myself when I'm traveling, not to order things that are staples in our Texas regions, because I find myself getting very disappointed. Like I've learned not to order Cajun food outside of east, Texas, or Louisiana, because I find myself disappointed. 

 Let's take breakfast burritos, for example, anywhere in Texas that you get a breakfast burrito, I mean, there are places that do it better than others, but it's going to be very similar across the board of what you order. You're going to get. A good breakfast burrito and you're going to get that spicy breakfast salsa that come with it. But when you order a breakfast burrito in other places, I don't know how to explain it, but it's not the same. 

The spices aren't the same. The sauce is not the same. The tortilla is not the same. I guess because a breakfast burrito might be one of those texts mix things that I don't know if it originated in Texas or not, but we just do it very different. And so things that our staples here in Texas. I don't order outside of Texas anymore. 

That way one, I can enjoy other regions, popular dishes and too, I'm not disappointed when it doesn't taste like home.

And I think that has a lot to do with the pride of Texas and the rich history that we have.  If we go back all the way down to our founding fathers, , Texas has had six flags fly over the state. 

We've had Spain. Farther flag in the 15 hundreds, we had the fridge come around. 1680s, Mexico flew their flag over the state of Texas from 1821 to 1835. Texas became its own country at 1836. I suppose. The thing that we're most proud about as being our own country. And then of course, we joined the United States of America as the 28th state in December 29. 1845.  And then we have the Confederate flag fly over in 1861 during the civil war. 

And then we were brought back into the United States. So.

There's a lot that that happened in the history. Of Texas. That makes us prideful for the things that are going on. 

So I just want to mention a few things   number one is the state sport. And I didn't know if you know this or not. The state sport was adopted in 1997 and it is the rodeo. 

I didn't know that was considered a sport. I mean.

It's fun. It has an arena, I guess. So it is a sport. We do really love our rodeos.  Well it's because of the first rodeo in the entire world was held on July 4th, 1883 here in Texas. Cool.

It was in Pecos, Texas, 

and it's been running strong for more than a century. 

That's really amazing that. Just boost my Texas pride 

now the Houston livestock show and rodeo holds the title of the largest rodeo in the world with over 2 million attendance each year.  Another thing that's axes definitely celebrates. And if you come down. During football season on a Friday night, or you come and you catch any kind of colleges , that play football is the most celebrated sport in the state. 

I think that's obvious from the show Friday night lights. 

I'm not going to say that we're the best, but it is one of those pride things where we liked. We think that we're the best. Um, we'll argue with anyone who says that we're not.  But football is definitely one of those things. It's those staples that. Towns cities. But maybe that's cities, towns, especially your smaller towns will shut down for a Friday night game. That actually reminds me, you know, how they say everything's bigger in Texas. This is how much bigger everything is in Texas combined with how much we love our football on homecoming. For some reason we still do those ridiculous moms. 

Some of these girls come up in there with moms so big they're larger than them. And they have to have people help them carry them because they're so massive. If you've never seen at Texas mom. I get onto Google right now and Google that Texas, M U M mam. And you're your mind is going to be blown. It's like, we never evolved from the eighties or something. It's ridiculous. But  it's a part of our culture.

I want to say it was last year. 

It may be even this year, but someone did post on one of the social medias, one of the largest mums that I've ever seen. They actually had to get a little wagon to carry behind them. To carry the train that it had on it. Because they couldn't carry it themselves. But I've also heard that some schools have done away with mums because they found them distracting.

I would love for them to try to make our small towns around here to do away with moms, because I think some of these girls  they would start a riot. 

 Another thing that you want to be aware of. If you come to Texas, is we do have an open carry law. So I have heard stories. I've never seen it firsthand. But I have heard stories of people  come visit Texas for the first time. And they'll see our Cowboys walking around with, you know, like there. They're little arm holsters. 

What does that call the little shoulder holster things. It's just the regular holster. I don't know what's going with their little holsters and , the guns like tucked up underneath her arm.  And they have just completely panicked and called the cops and were just in hysterics because this man was walking around with a gun. 

Yes. You will find a lot of Cowboys and cowboy hats and holsters, and they will be walking around with their guns. In fact, sometimes you'll see men in suits that have guns , too. It depends on where you're at because certain venues do not allow any kind of weapons, not even like pocket knives . But for, you know, The majority of where you go in Texas, we do have the open carry law.

And I don't know about you, but that actually makes me feel pretty safe.  Because even in our churches, like half the women are packing in their purse.  And it makes me feel safe , you know, people are crazy these days. Knowing that, , there's all these mass shooters or people just losing their mind that there are going to be so many people in Texas that have your back. 

And if you see one of those. Cowboy hat, gun tote. And man, he's probably gonna greet you with words like howdy and y'all and yes, ma'am. And yes, we do use all of those words. I know I have said that before in another podcast, but I just want to.  Express how much we use our Texas Lange, our Southern slang. 

I think. A lot of it is kind of Southern. I think most people in the south use the words y'all and fix into and.

Over yonder.  Things like that, but how do we, I've only ever heard in Texas, , I say howdy to my own family. Like we say, howdy. You know that it's just, it's.  I don't even know how to explain it, but it is a normal word in our vocabulary, but when we're outside of Texas, I never hear people use the word. 

Howdy. 

 It's one of those rodeo ranch, hand things where  it's respect, , it's they're greeting, but whenever they use ma'am and sir. That's a respect factor. they don't know you, but yet,  , they're still being respectful  

they'll tip their hats still. , most of the time and don't be shocked by this. Okay. They don't mean you any harm and , they're definitely not giving you the bird, but if you're traveling down the road, especially at a smaller town or a smaller community and someone waves at you, it's just them being friendly. 

It's just them waving at you. They don't mean you any kind of harm or anything. And it's just them being nice because we still have that. Although I don't think we're technically a part of the south. , we still have that Southern hospitality. We still have , that cowboy. Era inside of us that, you know, we're just being friendly and nice. 

That's just what we do.  There's actually a lot of things that we as Texans do. That some of the rest of the United States and the world, , see as rude. And one of the ones is  you'll get a little finger away when you're driving. Sometimes it's two fingers. 

Sometimes it's three fingers. No, one's throwing up gang signs. No, one's being threatening. It's just a little, Hey, how you doing? Have a nice day. And we do that to people that were passing, especially down rural roads or suburban roads where you're driving slower and another thing, , like Jeremy said that the yes ma'am and the 

no, sir. Which apparently, , the further north you go, when you call someone ma'am it can be deemed. As disrespectful. My mother-in-law was telling me one time she was on the phone with someone , from, I don't even remember what state she told me, but , it was somewhere up north. And she said, yes, ma'am. 

And the lady was so offended and said, I'm not old. Don't call me. Ma'am. Well, we call everyone ma'am  I'd call my 15 year old daughter. Ma'am I'll say no. Ma'am you know, so it's for us, it's just, it's a polite thing. 

There are different things that we do here that can be misconstrued as disrespect. So before you get all bent out of shape when you're coming to Texas, take a second and think, okay. That's just the Texas way. That's actually them being super friendly. 

Another things that we do is.  If you're on, say a two lane highway and there's a shoulder and you're driving maybe a little bit fast or even the speed limit and someone in front of you is.  Holding you up as someone that's kind of stopping you from doing your thing. If they pull over on the shoulder of the road, they're inviting you to pass them. 

They're trying to give you as much room as possible to pass them. And we actually have a pass law here in the state of Texas, that if someone does that, it's not them being mean or rude or,  south emergency they're actually just trying to be nice and get out of your way so you can continue on. And. We just try to be as nice as possible. 

You're in Texas.

I don't know how many times that I was coming out of a grocery store. And I had a baby on my hip and bags in my hands. And men and women both would come up to me even recently, just the other day, come up to me and be like, Hey, can I help you carry your bags? Can I do something for you? And I always just tell them, no, no, this is not my first child. 

I've got it. But thank you because it's again, just being polite. No one's being nosy or anything like that. We try to watch out for our neighbors here. We try to watch out for each other. 

And last but not least. We have to tell you about Texas. Wildlife. There are things in Texas that can kill you or seriously injure you.  And that is from  border to border east to west, north to south. We have things everywhere in between that can. Honestly hurt you. Uh, one of those things is alligators. It's not in all of Texas. 

We have alligators in east, Texas, and they're making their way towards north and central Texas, but we have alligators. 

And we have scorpions. So Scorpion's is kind of regional. I don't know if they fight them in the east as much as we do and central Texas and in west Texas. But there are scorpions and we have several different kinds of scorpions. The further west you go, the bigger and more dangerous those scorpion gets here in central Texas. 

We fight bark scorpions. In fact, we get several in our home every year. We have to have our house sprayed every summer because they come out of the woodworks.  I've actually been stung. While sleeping in my bed before our oldest daughter has been stung while sleeping in her bed before my one-year-old picked up a scorpion one time and put it in his mouth. 

And I think it was half dead. So it didn't stink him, but it wasn't fully dead because it was moving and I'm just very thankful  it did not stink him. Something you have to look out for when you're on hiking trails. If you're going to pick up a rock or move a log  be careful because there's probably a scorpion underneath that. Another thing that you have to look out for when you're on the trails or moving things. Especially in the summertime is snakes.

No, I cannot stand snakes at all.  In my opinion, the only good snake is a dead snake, but our state snake that was adopted.  Is the rattlesnake   it is venomous and it will kill you. The babies are , Way more venomous than the adults, because they don't know how to control it, but we have coral snakes. We have water Moskin. 

So if you're out on a lake and you're fishing and you see a snake  roll up to you. They're also known as cotton mouths. , just slap it with your fishing pole and it'll go away and you'll be fine.  There's actually a few stories of, if you ask people that do a lot of boating or kayaking  in Texas. You're going to have several people who will tell you a stories of when the snakes came into their boats. my dad actually told us one time of , a snake that fell out of the tree into their boat. And then I've heard of people that had the water moccasins that climbed into their kayak or their canoe from the water. And yes, that is something that we have to be wary of. I don't care what river or lake you're in, in Texas, you have to watch out for snakes and any body of water in Texas. 

Another thing that we have in Texas, that's very dangerous. Is a type of spider called the brown recluse. Now they're not exclusive to Texas. But they are vast in Texas. Again, this is something that is all over Texas. The brown recluse is, and I've actually had a friend of, I know a few people that have been bitten by brown recluses, but a friend of mine got bit on her arm and  her skin started rotting away and she had to get treatments and , it was bad. 

It was nasty and extremely painful. So if you don't know what a brown recluse looks like. Look that up before coming to Texas. So you'll know what you're getting into. And when you're in the.  They're more populous areas, more than metropolitan areas. You're not going to see as many snakes or as many brown recluses or even scorpions, but they are still there. 

You're not going to have to worry about them in your hotel room. Like we do in our houses, out in the rural areas, but if you're on a park trail or something like that, and a metropolitan area, you do want to watch out for those things. 

And talking about rule Texas  also be prepared to hear coyotes. If you're out camping at  one of the parks or you're out at a lake, or you're just in rural, Texas somewhere. You will hear coyotes all around you and they love chickens. They love dogs. They love to hurt the rabbits and even bring down deer.  And they can destroy.  Livestock in a blink of an eye, they can get  the sheep and the goats that we have around here and totally destroy. Uh, flock overnight. 

So  counties are definitely one of those things that they don't mess with humans very often. But they definitely destroy some of the livestock that's around the area. 

And one thing at night that you also want to be aware of is sexist has more bat species than any other us state.  If you're in the south Congress bridge in Austin, it's home to the largest urban bat colony.

In the country. So.  If you start hearing a lot of noises, you go to Friday night football games. You go to outdoor activities at night, just be prepared. You might see a better too.

And if the battle was to fall out of the sky or come down and get caught in your hair or something. Be very cautious with them. Don't mess with them. Don't touch them because they do carry rabies here in sexist. So leave the bats alone, let them fly around. Catch the mosquitoes and the bugs. They're doing us a favor. 

I promise.   And the last thing that you want to be pretty weary of is if you're on the coast, be careful with sharks. Especially if you're out there in the spring and the summertime, we're known to get some shark sightings and some sharp attacks along the Gulf coast. So keep your eye open, just like you would, if you were in Florida.. Keep your eye out for sharks in the water.

 And for all you beloved Coca-Cola fans.  Well, I hate to break it to you. Dr. Pepper was invented in Waco, Texas in 1885 and began selling across the country in 1904. Now you can still find your Coca-Cola and your Pepsi products here, but the most desired, soft drink insects is, is going to be Dr. 

Pepper.  There's a Dr. Pepper museum in Waco, where it was invented that you can still go and see how they used to bottle it and make it back in the day. And I don't know if you knew this or not, but the Dr. Pepper formula is so secret that it's actually split in half and it's in two different banks in Texas.

Because it's that amazing. 

You got to take care of the secret.

Texas also has the  largest convenience store. Bucky's end new Braunfels covers 66,000 square feet. That has everything from souvenirs, the homemade. , delicacies. And they have the America's best restroom award.

Texas is big.  Texas is amazing. Texas is diverse. It's vast.  There's a lot of people who don't like Texas. Like guess what? There's even more people who do like Texas. And again, we're not a perfect state. We have our flaws.  But we are pretty darn amazing.  It's pretty amazing here. So just keep in mind. 

If you come to Texas. Give yourself ample time to visit. And don't expect to see everything all at once. And another thing that I hear a lot, if people say I want to see the true Texas, when I come to Texas, I want to experience the true Texas.  I don't really understand what they mean by that, because anywhere in Texas is the true Texas. 

, there's so many different regions and it's so vast that it's true for that part of Texas. There's no two parts of Texas that are the same. 

We love to show off our great state. Because we have so many things that we love about Texas, and we want you to experience. Those things as well. If you can't tell by all of our podcast episodes, But this is going to wrap up our season of Texas and we hope you guys have enjoyed it. It probably won't be the last thing ever. At best talking about Texas, because we are from Texas and  📍 you can tell by this episode, it's very dear to , our heart. But join us next week. 

We're actually going to start season two. And if you want to see what we're going to be talking about on season two, then stay tuned.