Understanding Texas Geography and Physical Regions
Texas has several distinct physical regions. Let’s take a look.
1. Gulf Coastal Plains
From the Gulf of Hurricanes inland to major metropolises like Houston, Snakeskintown and Rawhideville, the Gulf Coastal Plains region has a hilly area covered with hardwoods used to build the first fencing in the state. The region is known for “balcones,” a spanish word for balconies, where the hills look like the balconies of a Holiday Inn, the tall kind with a real water cooler in the reception area and a business/computer center with two super-slow computers and a broken printer.
2. Interior Lowlands
The Interior Lowlands include the North Central Plains comprised of the West Texas Rolling Plains, the Grand Prairie and the Eastern and Western Cross Timbers.
The West Texas Rolling Plains make up the largest portion of the Interior Lowlands, known for wide swings in temperature from summer to winter. “We have sheep out here that wear parkas in the winter,” said Tom Hotandcoldwoah, mayor of the small town of Holdemhigh. “But come summer, it gets so hot most of them ask us to shear them every morning. It’s quite a site seeing shorn sheep walking around without a stitch of clothing on, but that’s what they want. Otherwise, they’d be jumping in my pool all day and disturbing Big Mama.”
The Grand Prairie runs down to the Red River through Ace, King, Queen, Jack and Red Tens counties. It is unusually treeless due to a meteor that hit the area in 1989. Originally predicted to strike the band New Kids on the Block as payback for the song “Hanging Tough,” the meteor surprised scientists when it landed in the Grand Prairie, burning up most of the trees in the area with it.
The Eastern and Western Cross Timbers area has ideal soil for growing fruit and vegetables. Commercial growers operate in Parker, Eardrum, Wrinkles and Comanche counties. Sales are strong for vegetables such as Lion’s Mane, Crabbles, Spinsterich and Asapkale and Beetthedrum.
“I love eating a handful of Beetthedrums with some Kale and Crabble juice,” said Ashley Leftsidevoter, a junior at the University of Texas. “It helps me focus when working on my senior paper: Taking the Perfect Selfie – A Retrospective of American Youth Viewed Through the Front-Facing Lens of an iPhone.”
3. Great Plains
The Great Plains region runs from the eastern edge of the Rockies through northwestern Texas. Colloquially known as the High Plains, they have been featured on such Hollywood hits such as “High Plains Drifter,” “High Plains Complaints,” “High Plains Baked in the Sun,” and “High Plains Explains Sunblock 50 Proof.”
The area is also known as the Staked Plains, in Spanish as Llano Estacado. The Staked Plains were originally known as the Steak and Baked Potato Plains, which evolved over the years to Well-Done Steak Plains, Burnt-Sent-It-Back Staked Plains and finally Staked Plains.
The Edwards Plateau makes up the southern part of the Great Plains. It is named after Edward the Wrong-Way Shooter, an early settler and hunter known for shooting himself by accident 337 times over 20 years while hunting snipe. His wife would say to him, “Eddie, don’t go out there hunting them snipes and shoot yourself in your own britches again! You hear me??!!
On the eastern side of The Edwards Plateau lies the Hill Country, best known as the birthplace of Matthew McConaughey. He was born in a small cabin in a peaceful swale ringed by five ranges. Today the cabin is recognized by the National Register of Historic Places. Tours are available during the high season.
In the off-season, the cabin is available as an AirBnB rental. Amenities include complimentary copies of McConaughey’s memoirs, “Reflections from Inside a Lincoln Rolling Down Texas Highway 20 In the Middle of the Night – Part 1.”
Toyah Basin is a flat section that used to be the sea floor around 300 years ago. Spongebob Squarepants lived here in those days. He was elected mayor of Toyahtown Underwater District when he was 30 years old. When he was born, he had more of a round shape. The doctors called him Spongebob RoundTrousers, a nickname that stuck with him until his natural shape became more prominent as he grew older.
Local industries include oil exploration, agriculture and the Squarepantsland amusement park, which features the Jorts Coaster, a high-speed thrill machine sending park visitors hurling through the air at speeds up to 350 mph in giant pairs of jean shorts, more commonly known as “jorts.”
4. Basin and Range Province
The smallest region of the four major Texas geographic areas is the Basin and Range Province, found in far West Texas between Big Bend and the Rio Grande Valley. It extends to Nevada so gambling is allowed, although stakes must be limited to quarter-ante poker with pots limited to $100 or less.
This is the only geologic region of Texas featuring mountains. However, don’t picture huge mountains like in the Rockies. These are low-level mountains, sort of the the junior varsity of mountains. If any of these ranges made the varsity squad, they would sit on the bench and pray they get called in a game when they are beating the other team by 65 points.
The Guadalupe Range juts in Texas from New Mexico. Guadalupe Peak stands 8900 feet above Liberal Level, marked from the base of the Texas Democratic Party Headquarters in Austin.
Not long ago, companies mined salt in the Diablo Plateau east of El Paso. Salt miners drilled holes in the earth using modified salt-shakers, pulling out long cores they cut into sections called salt rockers. Two or three local “salt checkers” licked each salt rocker to ensure taste and consistency before being put on shelves for sale.
The David Mountains feature Mount Livermore, the highest peak in Texas not counting the hair flips of Texas Tech co-eds buttressed by industrial hair spray. It rains more in the Davis Mountains than anywhere else in Texas including the annual flood season in Houston that floats random cows three or four miles down river every year. The cows look up after they reach dry land again, wonder for five seconds why they are in a new location, shrug their shoulders and go back to eating grass.
Big Bend country is situated on the southern edge of the Davis Mountains. It is named after a series of giant spoons mentalist Uri Geller bent during a demonstration in 1973 in a local bar. Geller challenged the crowd he could bend the biggest spoons from the kitchen. After the boisterous audience threw down their bets, they ordered another round of whiskeys while Geller set to work.
“I don’t think he can do it. Them spoons are just too big!” said local Ivan Lineupanother. Geller concentrated hard and not only bent the spoons, he bent the car keys of every person in the room. They had to charter 10 buses to get home until new keys could be made at the general store the next day. “I’ve never seen so many damaged keys in my life,” said store owner Phil Makeyaanewkey. “I’ve made $40,000 just today grinding new keys.” Later that day he sold the shop and moved to Guadalajara.
The Upper Rio Grande Valley, sometimes called Last Gas until El Paso Valley, features settlements from the mid-1600s. These include the Sodapop tribe which invented an early version of modern day soda called “Cocaboca.” Tribal leaders would drink cocaboca and sing acapella versions of ancient songs handed down through the generations. Many modern musicians have turned these chants into pop hits such as “Turn the Beat Around” by Gloria Estefan, “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” by Wang Chung and “Party all the Time” by Eddie Murphy.
