I am a Texan.

I realized tonight (as I found myself telling a couple from Alaska that they should procreate before they move back to Alaska, just so their offspring would be privileged to be a Texan) that I am just about as proud to be a native Texan as I am to be an American. Texans are proud that way. As well we should be. Texas is like a whole other country, after all. We have rolling hills, mountains, plains, caverns, canyons, coasts. Texas is probably the only state that could be self-sustaining if it had to be. I will miss the Lone Star State. You must admit no other state flag even comes close to the Texas flag. NOT EVEN CLOSE. I will miss seeing the occasional HUGE Texas flag flying big as day against the backdrop of the clearest blue sky. I wish I had a picture of that to take with me. What other state flower makes quite as wonderful a setting for pictures of babies as the bluebonnet? Where else can you find pasta and tortilla chips in the shape of the state? Do other states have whole stores in their malls devoted to state-related merchandise? What other state's citizens fly the state flag almost as readily as the US flag? And how cool is it that Texas is the only state in the union allowed to fly its state flag at equal height to the US flag!? We are Texas. We are proud.

And even though we are Virginia-bound, and my daughter will not remember her Texas home, she will always be our little Texan.