I had heard a lot and watched many movies on how American students spend their Spring Break as a getaway from studies. I wouldn’t say our trip to South Padre Islands was like that, but it was close to what is portrayed in movies. This trip was one of those trips for which we did not plan much. A week before we went to South Padre, this plan didn’t even exist. Originally, we (Achyuth, Kartikey, Susanth, and I) had planned to go to Oklahoma (yep, sounds boring) for a day or two. But I guess all of Kartikey’s RA friends were going to South Padre Islands. He wanted to go to South Padre Islands but not with them (I am assuming that’s the reason he didn’t go with them). Anyway, Kartikey, Stephen, and Rohan decided that they wanted to go to South Padre. So, when Kartikey told me about his plan and asked me if I wanted to go with them, there was no way I was going to say no to it.
The plan to South Padre Islands was ready. The four of us were going to the South Padre Islands on the 9th of March for spring break. The night before we were leaving, we went to Walmart and stocked up on water and snacks. This trip was a long drive to the Southern shores of Texas. It was going to be a 9-hour drive traveling around 500 miles. We were not planning to leave early morning for this trip. We had initially thought of leaving around noon, but we got a bit late and started at 3 pm-ish. The journey was long but didn't feel that long with the right company. After some stops and some heavy traffic, we reached South Padre at midnight.
We checked into the Motel-6 where we planned on staying. The room that we booked was small. There were two smalls beds for the 4 of us. There was not much space to walk around in the room with the two tiny beds covering most of the room area. But I felt for the price we got it for, it was a good deal, especially because we were using that place for only sleeping. That night, we left at 1 a.m. from our room and went out to explore the island. Most of the areas were closed at this time, but we managed to find a beach spot, where we parked our car. It was a chilly night, and we hadn’t packed any warm clothes for this trip. Rohan and I decided to stay in the car, but Stephen and Kartikey thought it would be a good idea to go for a walk on the beach at night. Except, the cops came and told us that we weren’t allowed to hang out on the beach at night. By then, Kartikey and Stephen had walked way too far on the beach for me to call them back. With no mobile service on that beach, I decided to use my flashlight on the phone to get their attention. They finally understood (I guess) that we were flashing our lights to call them back. Rohan wasn’t too amused about them going so far on the beach because of the cops. In the end, we decided to call it a night, go to our rooms, and sleep.
The next morning, March 10, we had some bananas and bread for breakfast (because we’re too poor to spend money outside for breakfast). Since we had not planned anything before, we decided to go to the beach and find some fun activity. We went to the beach where there were hundreds of people doing hundreds of fun things. Some were playing volleyball, some in the water, some were dancing, and others enjoying the beach. We didn’t know what we should do, so we decided to hop in the water. And oh my god, the water was biting cold. I could barely stand in there for a long time. We had hoped for it to be a sunny day, but the weather was overcast that didn’t give us the beach vibes.
After playing in the water for some time, we went to a nice fancy restaurant to eat. Picking a restaurant was some work in itself. We ended up going to a restaurant called Parrot’s Eye which had some of the freshest seafood I have ever had. After a very filling lunch, we decided to get a beach ball for us to play volleyball at the beach. We went to the same beach again and started playing throw ball/ volleyball kind of thing. Soon a group of other people started joining us to play the game, and in no time, we were about 10-12 people playing volleyball on the beach. I think it was a long time after which I had enjoyed myself so much playing something. We spent the entire afternoon playing volleyball and doing juul. When it got dark, we went to our room to get ourselves washed and changed for our next adventure. We got McDonald's for dinner and went on a car ride to nowhere. We drove to the end of the island where the road ended and had our dinner.
We didn’t know what we were going to do again. Rohan and I talked to the motel-6 owner about places we could visit, and she was nice to tell us the different places we could go around there. Finally, we decided to go to a bar called Louie’s backyard. I did something here that I cannot tell in public. All I can say is that it involves my Indian DL and the discrepancies in date-of-birth format across countries. Once we got in, we had a really fun time at the bar. Big crowd, lots of dancing and lots of drinking. Finally, when the night was over, we were starving because we had not had dinner. So, we went to a nearby Whataburger, which was filled with drunk college students who were hungry, like us.
After our late-night dinner, we went to our room to be fresh for the next day. The next morning, the two of us were hungover from the night before. We had some bread and bananas for breakfast again (no money). We went to Denny's for lunch, and then from there we went to the same beach we went to the previous day. It took us some time to decide where we all wanted to go since Kartikey and I wanted to go snorkeling, whereas Rohan and Stephen wanted to go to a music concert. The concert was too expensive and the day being nice and sunny, we canceled both the plans and decided to go to the same beach as before.
Surprisingly, there was an event going on at the beach with dance and music. Lil Nas X, the singer of Old Town Road, was there to perform at the event. However, he left in like 5 minutes because he got upset that the DJ on the beach started playing someone else’s song (or that is what I assume happened). The beach had a dance and wet T-shirt competition going on, which was fun to watch. We spent our afternoon on the beach playing volleyball, swimming in the water, and watching the event.
As it started getting darker, we had to think about our evening activity. We went to a restaurant called D’Pizza Joint where we had some delicious pizza and wings for dinner. We drove around for a while to find places we could go. When we could not find any (affordable) places we could visit, we decided to go to Louie’s backyard again. But even that place was overcrowded that day. They had also significantly increased their entry fee that was a bit out of our budget. We were divided on our plans once again. While Kartikey and I wanted to chill at the beach at night, Rohan and Stephen wanted to go into the bar despite the high entry fee. I did not mind spending extra bucks for the entry fee, but I had hurt my leg from that afternoon, so I wasn’t too keen on spending the night standing or dancing.
After some discussion, we ended up splitting into two groups. Kartikey and I went to the beach where we relaxed for a while. Stephen and Rohan went to the bar. Soon after we were at the beach, we got a call from them to pick them so they could join us at the beach. I believe the bar wasn’t too fun without us (hehe). We picked them up, and Rohan went to a store to buy a cigar. The cigar took some time to light up, after which we puffed and relaxed at the beach. I wanted this peaceful time because college had become hectic at that time, and I needed some time off to shut my brain. I looked beyond the sea, past the horizon, watched the moon rise as I breathed the fresh sea breeze that the sea had to offer us, and savored the moment.
For the third time, we went to our tiny motel room for the night. By then, we had received the news that many colleges around the United States were closing down due to coronavirus. Some of the universities part of the UT system too announced that they were closing for a while. UTA hadn’t announced it till then. That was a topic of discussion that night in the room. We knew that the coronavirus was spreading fast with many sports leagues around the world canceled. Therefore, we were eagerly waiting for UTA to announce their closing too. I was waiting for this news because I had many assignments due when the spring break ended, and I hadn’t started working on a single one. Throughout the trip, the thought of completing my homework played in my head. Therefore, I was waiting for UTA to shut down for at least a week.
The next morning, we were packing our bags to leave for Arlington. I remember being on the bed scrolling through my phone when I received a notification from Outlook about an email from the president of UTA. I sensed UTA had done what everyone was hoping. I opened the email, and I read the email out loud. Yippee! The mail read, “The UTA has extended spring break for another week.” Oh, the relief! We all celebrated for a while on this news. It made the road trip back home a lot better.
We were leaving South Padre on a high. We checked out of our "lovely" small room at Motel-6. Stopped at McDonald's for a brunch and then continued our journey. We were not too far out of South Padre when Stephen started feeling a bit sick. We waited for a while on the roadside while he got better and continued again. I was ecstatic. I had enjoyed my time in South Padre Islands, and I did not have to worry about my school assignments as soon as I reached home. It was a win-win.
I cannot end this blog without mentioning a final incident on the road trip. While we were going back to Arlington, Kartikey was pulled over by the cops for over speeding. Again! Now I do not know how fast he was driving, but I felt it was a bit harsh on him to get a $300 speeding ticket. But after that ticket, he didn’t drive again on that trip. It was just Rohan and I on the front seats trying to make the most of our road trip back. The back seat was a bummer. Stephen was sick, and Kartikey was upset about the speeding ticket. So not a lot of chatter from the back seat. We finally reached home around 10 p.m. I was content that we had successfully enjoyed another trip without any troubles.
A few days after coming back to Arlington, I had a cold and cough. It was probably because of the time when we jumped into the cold seawater. But at that time, it was a bit of a coronavirus scare because of the pandemic. We also heard news about a couple having coronavirus on their trip to South Padre which made us a bit paranoid.
But I would still rate this trip over the trip to Big Bend as I am fonder of the beaches than the mountains. This trip felt more like a vacation and not like a survival journey as in Big Bend. Both trips had their moments and were adventurous in their sense.
© 2020 - 2021 Shubham Arya