IDEA - why don't we call it South West Texas?? I suppose we could, except the Rio Grande River did not cooperate and left SW Texas down in Mexico (Coahuila and Chihuahua).
I come from the "real" South Texas, the Lower Rio Grande Valley, and even for us Laredo was not close. But nothing in Texas is close to anywhere else in Texas.
BTW, Laredo is actually east of Abilene (a pinch), and way, way south of San Antone, which is considered south Texas. And even Abilene is only a third of the way from Dallas to El Paso. In fact Abilene is 100 miles closer to Louisiana than it is to El Paso.