ROCKPORT, Texas — We’re learning first-hand what the Texas travel industry has been saying since, oh, seemingly forever.

The state is like “a whole other country.”

That’s how it goes. The idea is to tell visitors about the physical diversity of this huge state. Politically diverse? Not really, but that’s a subject for another time.

My wife — and our dog and cat — and I are halfway through a two-week journey through much of the eastern half of our huge state.

Texas comprises more than 260,000 square miles. We’re going to see most of its physical diversity by the time we arrive back home on the High Plains, which I refer to affectionately as the Texas Tundra.

We’ve traipsed across the treeless Caprock, camped out among the thick forests that surround Lake Texoma, motored through the Piney Woods of East Texas, endured the stifling humidity of the Golden Triangle and again just west of Houston.

Tonight we’re camped out along the bay that comes off the Gulf of Mexico. We’re about 30 miles northeast of Corpus Christi. Rockport’s a nice town, but we intend to enjoy the gulf water as much as is humanly possible.

The nice part about this latest stop on our intrastate journey is that it’s cool enough during the day that we can go without turning on the air conditioner in the fifth wheel we’ve hauled from Amarillo.

Does it get any better than that?

In a few days we’ll head toward the Hill Country, where we’ll see even more lovely countryside.

I doubt we’ll be able to go without the A/C but, what the heck, you can’t have everything.

We’ll be back home on the Tundra soon enough.

The journey across this vast state, however, has given us a treat we’ll carry with us for a very long time.