The solar eclipse totality was our dazzling first taste of Texas.
Pre-eclipse, at LBJ National Historic Park west of Austin, we started spotting traffic control signs suggesting, “arrive early, stay late.”
NASA and the Park Service had erected white tents on an old tarmac with plenty of park rangers and scientists providing traffic control and eagerly sharing scientific handouts, solar glasses, and ready answers to all questions eclipse.
Cloudy weather detoured some solar trackers to other locations, but our experience was fabulous. From a friend’s Austin condominium, we pulled a wagon-load of beach towels, drinks and appetizers onto a nearby golf course conveniently closed on Mondays.
The partially cloudy sky darkened to deep twilight, a phenomenon nearly as captivating as the dark disc ringed by solar flares.
Texas has eclipses as well as many citizens who believe in eclipses. Most, in fact.
My friend, who has served on a Texas school board for over 20 years, told us their district’s policy allows parents to “opt-out” their kids for anything that parents may deem controversial. Twenty-two students out of a district of 7,800 sat in classrooms while their classmates witnessed the eclipse outside.
We found Texas highways in April lushly carpeted in Texas blue bonnet lupine and Coreopsis linifolia.
Stephen Alvarez, a senior landscape architect with Caltrans, credits Texan Lady Bird Johnson with establishing the freeway wildflower program in 1985. She is celebrated as an early environmentalist as U.S. First Lady from 1963-69.
The wildflowers serve more than aesthetics. On my childhood road trips, I remember my parents stopping just to clean the windshield of insect roadkill. With my kids, we just told those stories because there were rarely bugs smashed on the windshield.
Today, despite a 9% per decade decline of insect biomass globally, our windshield data point indicates insects may be making something of a comeback in the southwest.
We enjoyed Texas bike paths everywhere – primarily flat and hot. Along the Rio Grande in El Paso we spied cardinal-relatives pyrrhuloxia in the willows, and lots of iconic road runners.
In Austin we cruised along the Colorado River (not the Colorado River) a stone’s throw from downtown. We pedaled over a busy highway on a lovely pedestrian/bike bridge in northeast Dallas.
Our bike rack camouflaged the California license plates, but our Prius stuck out like it never does in Santa Barbara. In fact, everything that isn’t a truck sticks out.
Texans seem to have a both/and relationship with environmental care and fossil fuels. Twenty percent of the state’s energy needs are supplied by solar and wind, but “you just don’t talk about it,” a friend explained. “Oil and gas funds everything, including the University of Texas.”
This seemed to hold in Galveston as well. After several days of incredible birding with Feather Fest on the barrier island and alligator-studded Bolivar Peninsula, we settled into a home exchange and biked atop the 10-mile-long seawall.
Every 50 feet or so were benches tiled with nature-oriented facts about watershed management, environmental threats to sand dunes, and the lifecycles of basking sharks, dolphins, oysters, blue crabs, and many more.
The last bench proclaimed: “Offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is a major source of oil and natural gas in the U.S. Rigs provide artificial habitat for many important commercial fishes.”
Texans are at least as prideful as Californians, but perhaps in a softer way. Many more Texans fly their state flags than Californians. I saw fewer Trump signs along the highway in their majority-red state than in our blue one.
As travelers, we found Texans courteous, helpful, and friendly. No one was too busy to answer a question or stop their car for our bikes to cross the street.
The only exception was a band member whose county jazz event we attended. When the urban cowboy with a pronghorn belt buckle and a solar eclipse smile learned we were from California, he smiled and cooed sweetly, “Why bless your heart.”
I am no rube and knew his delivery was intended to register somewhere between pity and insult. We decided not to download his latest album.
Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist
This article was published on May 13th, 2024 in Noozhawk – you can read it “in print” here.
Karen Telleen-Lawton is an eco-writer, sharing information and insights about economics and ecology, finances and the environment. Having recently retired from financial planning and advising, she spends more time exploring the outdoors — and reading and writing about it. The opinions expressed are her own.
KTL at CanyonVoices dot com