Wandering Man, Where abouts in the Southern part of the Republic are you located?
Aransas Pass, on the Gulf Coast, just north of Corpus Christi. We are South of Houston, South of San Antonio, but North of McAllen.
To our East is the beautiful Gulf of Mexico which helps keep us warm in the Winter, Cool in the Summer, and humid all year around. To the West we have flat land and brush as far as you can see.
Native Americans some centries back were the Karankawa. A tribe of nomadic people who were proud and tall often being 6'. They ate fish, oysters, and their enemies.
We'd have been out in bays in our the Kayak today looking for Redfish or Speckled Trout, except for a bit of surgery 3Reds underwent recently. So we went to the range and shot up a bunch of ammo, instead.
I lived 10 years in Houston back in the 70's. I took me forty minutes to commute to my job in smog and bumper to bumper traffic. We moved to AP, and it still took me 40 minutes to get to my job in Corpus Christi, but I was looking at Cotton farms, redwinged blackbirds, and flocks of Roseate Spoonbills. Seems those 40 minutes went buy much quicker down here than they did in Houston.
We're suffering a cold front right now. The temps dropped all the way down into the mid-50's. This after 80 degree weather two days ago. But we expect things to warm back up into the 70's by Monday.
WM