[al_c]

I NEED land! How far out are we talking to get into Land?

What of the samller cities? Anything with a decent population but not as big as the D/FW and Houston areas?

You might want to try some of the smaller towns around Houston, San Antonio and Austin. You might want to try Victoria, or somewhere around there.

[The South Texan]

I agree with you about Victoria. I had not been through Victoria (since you take the bypass if you are going to Houston from Corpus) in a while and I was surprised with all that city has to offer. It has a population of 70,000 and has everything a big city has such as a nice shopping mall with nice department stores, other stores like Toys R Us, Best Buy. Restraunts like Red Lobster, Chilis, Bennigans, etc. Plus it is only two hours from Houston, so if you and the family want to go catch the Astros or the new Houston Texans NFL team next fall, you can do it as a day trip. San Antonio is only 1 1/2 hours away too and has a ton to offer not to mention the hill country is only stone's throw away too.