Water, Houston, Cats

I just got back from a quick Spring Break trip to Texas and here is what I've learned:

• Be it ever so humble there seriously is no place like home. I could have had the best time anyone has ever had and I will always be glad to see the valley.
• Texas is FLAT. It drove me crazy not to have any point of reference. After driving around for a bit and passing the same things a couple times I got a feel for how the freeways run and I think that I eventually would be able to use that to get my bearings but there's something unsettleing about not having anything taller than a water tower around you. I felt so exposed and unprotected...like a hurricane or tornado could rip through and destroy everything...
• Humidity not only makes hot days hotter but it also makes cool days cooler. It was sixty and I was freezing. I couldn't warm up. And then I got off the plane in SLC and it was 40 and sunny and I had to take my sweatshirt off. I hate humidity. I perfer the dry heat and dry cold of my desert home. One more reason I'm more like a cactus and less like a rose bush (shoot)
• I've felt that as of late there has been a nationwide movement/awakening to the harm we are doing to our A) health/waistlines B) enviroment. I've gotten the feeling that Americans everywhere are trying to live and eat more healthily and reduce their carbon footprint. I didn't see evidence of either of mentalities reaching the Texan mind. The impression I got was that it's not worth eating if it's not fried and the bigger/nicer the car the better (also there was no functional public transit).
• Texans think they are the coolest people they know. Americans think the same thing of themselves but Texans for some reason think that they invited the idea of being proud of where they are from. They're proud of being proud. To me the reasons they are proud of being a Texan are the same reasons I'm proud to be an American. So why don't they just act like the rest of us?
• Thunderstorms move fast in Texas.
• From an out-of-towners face value look it appears that Houston is made up of strip malls that only contain furniture stores, doughnut shops and 24 hour adult entertainment stores. I don't know if a closer look would prove me wrong.
• Houston is very green. I was suprised. And maybe a littel jealous.
• Yelling "Spring Break 2008" randomly makes yourself and other people around you think you're having an awesome time.
• I love my cousin Kim and I laugh at how we're alike (and not). She's probably the closest thing to a big sister that I have.

So that's what I came away from Texas with. Oh plus two pairs of sunglasses and two shirts. And a piece of crinkled paper from the Bishop's Palace.

"And everybody knows it hurts to grow up, and everybody does." -- Ben Folds