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Mexico Vs. America, who will win Texas?

Friday, April 15th – Padre Island to South Padre Island and back, Texas – Day 64

Initially the plan was to have a chill day at the beach. Sit back, do nothing, and hang out. We woke up and the weather was cloudy with hints of rain, windy and humid. We were debating about staying or making the trip down to South Padre Island, a three-hour drive south, so we packed up just in case. 


We went to the visitor centre and got junior ranger packages. The ranger recommended we go see the National Historic site, the Palo Alto Battlefield, if we drove south. We found out about what the Texans call “30 for 3”. For three months, February, March, and April, everyday there are 30 mile per hour winds coming off the Gulf of Mexico. The time to come to Texas is between September to January. This is the wind we’ve been experiencing. We decided to go and have a driving day when the weather wasn’t nice. 

We drove two hours south. The drive featured, huge farms, smaller cattle farms, and many more oil processing plants. It still surprises me how green Texas is; I thought it would be more yellow with shrub and cacti filled quasi desert. As we moved south, we saw more of this but there was still so much green vegetation. 

 We reached Palo Alto in two hours. The visitor centre, where we received another set of junior ranger books, was interesting. It featured information about the Mexico-American war. Palo Alto was one battle in this war. Texas was part of Mexico, but they declared independence due to neglect on the part of Mexico and Mexico’s laws against slavery (which settlers from the Southern United States had a fondness for). Mexico tried to take it back by force but General Santa Anna decided to split his army in three and then the Mexicans were caught napping (literally) when the Texans attacked at 3 in the afternoon. Santa Anna was captured and ordered everyone else back to Mexico. 

Texas became an independent state but wanted protection and security from the United States. Mexico who still claimed Texas treated this as an act of war. At the same time, President Polk had promised to expand the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Polk welcomed Texas and war was the result. The amount of territory taken from Mexico is a bit shocking. This territory taken from Mexico is outlined in the picture below. 


 We took a walk to the battlefield. The scenery is what I thought all of Texas would look like, yellow grasses, big blooming cacti that had beautiful, colourful flowers and shrub. The weather was sunny and there was an intense dry heat. The Americans won the battle of Palo Alto. They had better guns and exploding shells that were devastating to Mexican calvary that were limited because they attacked over marshy ground. Mostly it was an artillery battle; they fired back and forth for most of a day, with a small attack that did not work well, before the Mexicans moved back to fortify another position. 


 After a snake spotting, we got back in the car to drive to South Padre Island, another 40 minutes away. We arrived and went to a park with a statue of Jesus Christ, but we didn’t realize that there was an entrance fee. We didn’t want to pay. Stop two was a sandcastle display with these massive sand sculptures. We took a walk around the sculptures and the sea wall nearby before we decided to go to the beach. 


The weather had turned out pretty well, so we swam, built sand castles, Gen introduced volleyball to the kids, and ate chickpea stew (which wasn’t well received by the kids the second time around either). After some misbehaviour from John and Charlotte, we showered off and went back to the park we were at originally. 


Gen wanted to see the Jesus Christ statue on Easter so she walked in for free and we waited outside. South Padre Island looks like a lot of other beach resort towns. Restaurants, bars, varied amusement activities like mini golf and the like, fishing opportunities, shops and condos/resorts were everywhere. Plenty of people rented golf carts to get around the town. It would be a nice destination to get an Airbnb in the winter and come down. 


 Back in the car, we put a movie on for the kids and drove the three hours back to Padre Island. I snuck into a proper campsite in the National Park for a shower. When we arrived back, we were surprised by how much busier the beach became during the day. There were still plenty of day trippers packing up to leave and the traffic on the beach was surprising (not a lot but more than I would have thought). Another damp night in the trailer awaited.

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