My Beloved's 1st Bucket List adventure required me to lodge in the very small town of Gonzales, Texas.  I'd be thinking this town was indicative of many of the small towns in Texas, so will devote a post to it alone.
Built around the classic town square (named, Confederate Square) Gonzales was rich with history and sad with economic decline.  I was greatly entertained by the stories shared by some of the older folks I met there: it seems that Gonzales had the first, the First, mind you, skirmish with the Mexicans in 1835, 6 months before the Alamo happened.
It was a fact they were all quite proud of.
The town's motto is 'Come and Take It'.  It seems the Mexicans, who 'owned' Texas at that time, had loaned a small cannon to the white settlers, to ward off Indians.  Comanches, I was informed, who didn't scalp anyone, but were notorious horse thieves.
As more and more white settlers moved in, the Mexican residential army got a tad nervous about these folks using the loaned cannon against them, so they asked for it back.
The response from the (rather ill mannered settlers) was "Come and take it!"  The settlers won the small battle, a fact that was mentioned with great pride.
The town commemorates the Alamo with a lovely mural of Susanna Dickinson and her baby; the story being that Susanna and her infant were the only ones allowed to flee unharmed from the Alamo. 

 
The town is rather sad; harsh economics playing out it's role.  Two dinner restaurants, three hotels and four 2nd hand stores glow amidst empty storefronts.  It appears that Gonzales is a dying town. 
One 2nd had store stood out: the Emporium.  A 2 story building, with shaky flooring, with downright soft footing in areas, peeling walls (interior and exterior) and a ceiling that is giving up the ghost.  One needs to walk carefully around various buckets that caught drips. Still, it was worth the impending danger to roam a place that was stacked high and sort of, kind of, organized chaos of .... stuff.

Upstairs was furniture, women's clothing (and every piece included sequins) and saddles.  The proprietor and his wife were gracious, pleasant and eager to chat, even after I admitted that I wasn't going to buy a thing.  After a happy 20 minutes of learning the history of the town, I was politely asked: 'what brings you to Texas?'
As I'd already heard that 'the damn, 'scuse me ma'am, techie liberal Californians have corrupted and ruined Austin'  I was ready with my answer.  I stated that ever since my husband had heard that Hillary was running for president, he wanted to move to Texas.
Right answer, at least to prevent me from getting kicked out of the place.  We spent another merry hour, mainly with the proprietor raking all 'damn, 'scuse me ma'am, Democrats, Californians and techie liberals' over the coals.
I have to admit, I found myself much more open minded than my host,  but it was his house, so to speak, and I certainly wasn't going to be changing his mind about anything.
It was an interesting education.  Strong opinions run right, as well as left, and in each small Texas town we stopped in, opinions were definitely bent to a strong right-wing direction.   No real surprise there.
Its a different culture, Texas....