Parks like Six Flags are better for sweating than cooling off, but Texas still has a great assortment of water parks. Schlitterbahn – if a non-Texan pronounces this correctly the first time, he’s German – is a Texas original, as is Hurricane Harbor.
Granted, if you’re elderly or young, definitely be concerned about heat stroke when you’re inside and the house is an oven. I maintain that a lot of the reasons people complain about the heat isn’t due to it being so hot – sometimes it is – but that there’s such a sharp contrast between inside and outside. If you’re maintaining your home at 70 degrees and step outside to 115, you’ll find it unbearable and scurry back inside. Use a fan instead.
The Hotter’N Hell Hundred has been a Texas tradition since 1982. Thousands of Texans gather near Wichita Falls in August to cycle one hundred miles in some of the most brutal heat the state has to offer. This may not help anyone beat the heat, but I can guarantee the temp afterward will always feel cooler.
Most of the year you might have your work friends, your childhood friends, your sports friends, and your gamer friends. Summers in Texas adds in different priorities. Now you’ve got your drinking friends, your swimming friends, and your stay-inside-all-day friends.
Easy lesson to learn if you forget the first time.
No, I don’t mean cowboy boots and flannel shirts. When even the nights are in the mid-to-high 80s, you’ll see Texans heading out on a Saturday night in cargo shorts and flip flops.
Honestly, it is so hot in Texas in July and August it’s almost funny. Mark Twain never really said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco,” but you can bet if famous literary figures had spent their days in the hill country instead of the parts of the US responsible for their inspiration, things would have turned out a little differently. Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” would become “To Buy a Ticket North.” Henry David Thoreau would have said, “I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion – unless that pumpkin wasn’t in the shade.” 