alt Hacker NewsI'm from Nevada, another state that people presume is all desert. (Really, it's all mountains.)
The only part of Texas I've driven is between Austin and S Antonio. It was perhaps the least-beautiful wilderness I've driven through. It really did just feel like desert and billboards - like if Walmart was a highway.
But I also presume Texas marketing itself as a less-regulated alternative (e.g. to California) is why it's easy to imagine Texas wanting infrastructure that Maine might not.
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Between Austin and San Antonio is so developed that it's considered by many to be a single "metro" area, DFW-style. There's very little not developed directly between the two.
Most people never bother to look at a map.
It takes 2 seconds to look at google satellite view of the area and see lots of desert with strips of green
https://maps.app.goo.gl/R8HuWBi66548Jq5BA
Of course you already know this but for everyone else it is called the Basin and Range province. You have desert areas and then a mountain range with much higher elevation with cooler temperatures and more precipitation which means trees and forests and green in color
Yeah, you drove through part of the Texas Triangle. Not really an area I would go to for sights
Ah yes, the vast, undeveloped wilderness of I-35 between Austin and San Antonio. Totally just unoccupied desert.
Nevada is a gem. Way too dry but incredibly beautiful with some truly unique features (ancient trees, hot springs, strange minerals, clear dark night skies). Eastern/central Texas is far less interesting.