Texas Hold 'Em

Yee haw!

Well, that's what I should have yelled out when I spotted the sign declaring my entrance into Texas via roadtrip with a friend. Instead, I tried to take a picture with her digital camera, which turned out terrible because of the time delay.

After a loooooong drive to the Lonestar State, I got to spend one and a half days in the land of cowboys before getting in the car to return home.

Here is my take on Texas:

1. It's a really nice place, though the abundance of flatland gave me serious mountain-yearning pangs. How can you tell I've live on the west coast my whole life?!

2. Dallas is more of cosmopolitan city than I thought! Impressive stores and a load of hip places for people to have drinks, enjoy a bit of dancing.

3. It's got to be the only state where people actually say, "You're welcome!" when you say, "Thank you!"

4. The Texas folk and inhabitants of the small towns in between (FYI: don't drink too much water on a roadtrip) did not seem to understand my L.A. garb too much. I got a lot of stares for wearing leggings.

5. The population is really mixed, much to my surprise. I was picturing beauty queens and cowboys, but it's more like a homo sapien Noah's Ark.

6. There are churches on every street corner and God is always trying to teach you things from the Bible via billboard.

7. The damn state is so damn humid.

8. Dallas' young crowd is quite fashion saavy. My friend's friend was rocking some seriously hot patent red leather heels, Louboutin-style. Some (straight) guy at valet even said, "Those are nice pumps." (That's verbatim, too.)

I'm down for another visit to Texas, but next time I'm flying.

Giddy up and amen to that!