By Annabelle Podmore
When I was in eighth grade, my family decided to spend Spring Break road tripping around Texas. It was one of those crazy ideas my mom gets sometimes, where she insists that we need to be making more memories as a family, so why not?
The trip involved my mom, sister, aunt, uncle, my two cousins, and me. My uncle acted as our “tour guide,” since he had done a lot of driving around Texas in his life, and knows almost all about our beautiful state.
We set out on the first Sunday of Spring Break, and immediately pit-stopped at Dziuk’s meat market in Castroville, which was a necessity for beef jerky and other road-trip snacks. After that, we drove down to the Pecos River, where we met a couple named Kenneth and Marie, who were 14 months into their 22-month biking expedition from Argentina to Alaska! We took lots of pictures of their bicycles (which they assembled themselves), followed their Instagram, and then wished them well and kept on driving.
We stopped in Fort Davis for the night, where we rented a cabin with several bunk beds for all of us. I remember sitting in my bunk (I called the top one), eating caramel M&Ms for hours. Now whenever I eat caramel M&Ms, I think about that top bunk in the cabin at Fort Davis.
The next morning, my uncle had brought his own portable stove and dishes, and so we ate breakfast outside the cabin, despite it being a little cold for my taste. Then we geared up and went over to the Fort Davis National Historic Site. We hiked a little bit through the mountains, but mostly we looked at the buildings, and learned about the site’s history, when it was a frontier military post in the late 1800s. It may not sound like it, but it was actually super interesting.
Later that night, we drove up to the McDonald Observatory, to try and see a star show. Unfortunately, all their shows were booked, but we still managed to go inside the visitor’s center, which was like an interactive museum all about stars. I’ve always loved space, so going there was really cool to see. I almost bought everything in the gift shop, but my family dragged me away.
After another night at the cabin, we said goodbye and went to our next stop: The Davis Mountains. We found a campsite and pitched our tents. My uncle had actually just given me a one-person tent the previous Christmas (don’t worry, I asked for it!), so I was super excited to finally use it in nature. After getting a cool shirt and a pack of cards at the gift shop, I spent most of that day at the campsite.
My mom, sister, and cousin decided to take a hike, and since I’m not the sporty type, I stayed behind. It was a good thing I did, because they ended up getting lost and my uncle had to drive to pick them up three hours later. In the time they were gone, my aunt had taught me how to play guitar and poker (both of which I’ve forgotten by now).
We hiked up a mountain to watch the sunset that night, and when we got back to the campsite we made friends with a man and his dog, who were parked next to us in a trailer. We got to know him over s’mores, and then we went to bed. In the middle of the night, I woke up to the sound of rustling near my tent, but it didn’t bother me enough to wake me up further, so I went back to sleep. It turned out to be some wild hogs looking for food, but my uncle had gotten up and chased them away.
On our way back home the next day, we stopped in Marfa, TX, filming location of the 1956 movie “Giant.” I had never seen “Giant” before, but my mom made us watch it once we got home -all three hours of it! We got to walk through the hotel where a lot of the actors stayed while filming, and learned a little bit about the behind-the-scenes of the movie.
After Marfa, we made one last stop at Balmorhea State Park before heading home. They had a cold swimming hole, a vending machine, and a gift shop. I bought a T-shirt at the gift shop, took a blurry photo of the fish in the swimming hole, and thus concluded our Spring Break adventure. I learned a lot of interesting stuff about Texas, made lots of family memories (exactly like my mom wanted), and I would love to do it again someday.