After walking the same six streets over and over again in our south Texas park for the past six months, I’m loving being back to our walking/biking/hiking trails here at home in Sask, Canada.
There’s just something about the trees getting ready to leaf out, the fresh air, the river, the variety of trails, and the familiarity of home that makes my morning walks here at home so peaceful, meaningful, enjoyable, and special.
Do you have a place that’s your happiest?
Neither hubs nor I have ever been involved in a spring break celebration, so we thought that a Sunday visit to South Padre Island during spring break might be a good way to wrap up our weekend of welcoming spring 2026.
Out of curiosity, the morning that we planned on leaving, I decided to consult professor Google as to what we might expect in terms of crowds. I’m so happy I did that.
Sunday, March 24 this year just happened to be the apex of the Texas Spring Break and this is what we should expect: possibly fifty thousand high school and college students in full and noisy party mode, heavy traffic (including complete jams) for both South Padre Island and the causeway going to and from the island, two hours or more waits for food, and zero parking at the main venues.
We decided to nix the trip and spend our last day of celebrating spring by watching nature programs on TV in the comfort our A/C’d living room, with snacks available immediately, and silence on demand as soon as we decided to mute the TV and have a nap.
The header photo for this post came up in Google Images when I looked for Claytons Spring Break Celebrations 2026. Claytons is one of our favourite stops for food and entertainment.
This photo was all that either of us needed for a “hard no!”
I guess we’ll complete life with never experiencing spring break.
I’m perfectly OK with that.
On the second day of our celebration of spring weekend 2026, we attended the 35th annual RGV Big Bloom Home and Garden Show at the McAllen Convention Centre.
Even though this was the 35th year of the show, it was the first time we’d heard of it.
With over 200 vendors, this event featured literally everything from bedknobs to broomsticks and everything in between.
It was a wonderfully apt way to welcome spring.
Now that we know about this event, we’ll definitely attend again next year. It was a couple of well spent hours that truly brought home the feeling of spring.
Because the official first day of spring fell on a Friday, hubs and I decided to spend the weekend welcoming the new season by doing new things.
On Friday, we visited the Veterans War Memorial of Texas in McAllen, TX.
Hubs and I have passed this park many times over the years, but have never stopped to take it in.
The 3.5 acre site was opened in 1990 and pays tribute to the 1.4 million Americans who were killed or missing in action in every conflict the nation has been involved in.
There are 160 tall granite panels, each engraved with a plethora of historical information. To read it all, one would have to spend several hours there. Because it was a hot day, we browsed and read a bit from each plaza and I took photos of every block, so we could read them later.
Each plaza is made up of several granite panels arranged in a circle and has its own theme.
At the centre of the site is a 104 ft tall granite monolith. It’s named the American Spire of Honour.
This was well worth the stop and we’ll definitely visit again on a cooler day.
Spring weather in deep south Texas basically happens all winter long.
One hint that spring is sneaking up on us here is the flush of white blossoms on our back yard orange tree.
Soon, we’ll be heading back to our home in Canada, where spring will become glaringly apparent by about mid April to early May.
There will likely still be snow when we arrive home in a couple of weeks. The nice thing about driving home vs flying is that we have time to acclimatize on the way north.
Jumping (via a flight) from the current mid 30° C (mid 90° F) temperatures in South Texas to our near or below freezing temps at home in Saskatchewan, Canada, would be too much of a shock to our systems.
The sight and scent of these purple blossom clusters always take me back to our early marriage and our first home. The property was bordered by a lilac hedge.
Radically Retired 