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Many families and individuals find themselves trapped at home or at school feeling the blues during the holiday season.  They are left with nothing to do during the break and cannot escape the fear of being bored.

Travel4U will be hosting its Winter Scavengers hunt on December 17, 2012 in Kingsville, TX.  The students and family members who are interested in this activity will meet in front of College Hall, also known as the Bell Tower on the Texas A&M University-Kingsville Campus.  The hunt will begin at 1:30 p.m. and will end in Corpus Christi at the beach next to the Lexington ship around 5:00 p.m. with pizza and drinks provided at the end.  The participants will be asked to use their own vehicles for modes of travel since there is no entree fee.  Those participating are asked to find the places located in Kingsville prior to driving to Corpus Christi. This will ensure that the groups are in Corpus towards the end of the scavenger hunt.    

A list was created that consists of places for those who will be partaking in the scavenger hunt; the destinations are located around the Kingsville and Corpus Christi area.  The rules are each group must go to the places on the list and take a picture using either their smart phone or a regular camera.  The participants must be in the picture to indicate that they actually found the item.  The first three groups with the most pictures will have their group number placed in a raffle for prizes; however, the other groups will still have a chance of winning items.  The prizes that will be raffled off are flash drives, alarm clocks, and  $10 gift cards to iTunes.

Travel4U advertised this event by hanging flyers around the TAMUK campus and around the local stores such as Walmart and H-E-B.  The partners met three times a week and discussed the plans on how to make an affordable and enjoyable trip.  This event is our resolution action plan to prevent the blues from ruining an individual’s holiday.  
As the editor in chief for Travel4U, I helped             create the flyers and review the information for this event.

Please visit our presentation for the event at Prezi:

http://prezi.com/jnyvxbi15jov/travel4u/?kw=view-jnyvxbi15jov&rc=ref-13818226


                                           The Lexington Ship in Corpus Christi, TX
 
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During the winter holidays, students are faced with the predicament of staying behind because they cannot find a way home. Whether they are miles away from their families or lacking the finances to get a ticket home, some students that stay are left with nothing to do. We have proposed to create a scavenger hunt for students in the Kingsville and Corpus Christi area.  We will send several groups of people on a search for a list of items that center around the Holiday season. We will start here at the Texas A&M University Kingsville campus at the Bell Tower and give the groups 4 to 5 hours to find as many items as possible. For transportation, the students could use one of their own personal vehicles or use the city bus.  Each group must take a picture with each item on the list to ensure that they completed the task. The groups will be asked to be back at the bell tower around a specific time and show us the pictures of the items found. There will be a prize for each team at the end of the scavenger hunt, even for the group that comes in last. This would be a great, fun activity to get students active and excited for the holidays. 


 
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Every year families gather to celebrate the many different holidays and cherish the moments they have together. Unfortunately, preparing the large dinner for the multiple guests and buying the presents for all those people can be frustrating. Other blues can include finding the time to travel to another family member’s house, decorating the house, and getting around flight delays. Everyone has their own story of holiday blues and mine will not be the last. During Christmas and Thanksgiving, it has always been a predicament to decide who’s house we will we be holding the holidays. Will we stay at grandma’s, auntie’s, or our house? My family is scattered in different parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. My grandparents live in San Antonio, Texas and my aunt and uncle live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  We try to switch it up every couple of years, but not everyone is satisfied with the decisions.  My aunt constantly nags that we never come up to see her and that we don’t put any effort to find time to come see her.  The truth is that we do not have the money to travel that far North, plus most of the family lives down South.  During some holidays we only get a few days off from school, especially for Thanksgiving. In this case, we do not have the time to stay with her for more than two days.  For New Years in 2008, we planned to travel to my aunt’s house; however, there was a snow storm that delayed our trip and we were not able to go. She was very understanding but was still upset she did not get to see us. 

Although the Holiday blues seem inescapable, there are many tips to help others get through the hardships.  What I would suggest to family members who live far away from each other would be to get a web camera so they could talk and see each other at the same time.  This way everyone will feel closer and get to see each other’s faces. Another thing would be to plan a plan-B if there is a chance of bad weather conditions, which may in turn delay the mode of transportation. To help regulate your spending habits only buy the things you need at first and start looking for gifts months before hand.  My advice is to ask other family members to bring a dish or presents to take off some of the load; do not take on the entire Holiday alone.  Holidays should not be about stressing over the burned turkey or worrying about what others think of the choice of decorations. One song that always makes my Christmas Blues go away is the Dinner Bell Carol that we performed in our High School Choir. This song completely describes the chaos that occurs during the Holidays and makes me laugh. 

 
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Beautiful Sunset
Watching the orange, blue and golden colors bounce off canyon walls during the setting sun made heaven seem at your feet. In the spring of 2009, I traveled to one of the largest known National Parks here in Texas. Big Bend, located in west Texas, is a great place to bring your family or friends. My family and I participated in all kind of activities, including hiking, biking, trail riding and rock climbing; it is truly my favorite place to travel. The weather was fairly comfortable ranging in the high 80s, and the nights were cool enough to wear a jacket and pants.  The cool nights in Big Bend were spectacular with millions of stars crowding the  evening sky. Looking at it in awe, I cherished the beauty I knew I couldn't find in the city. We were fortunate to get bungalows that were a few miles down the road to the park; however, we were told to always take a vehicle since the park is over 800,000 acres. While driving, we caught glimpses of the various wildlife in the park, including deer, road runners, coyotes, mountain lions, and many other birds, and insects.                                                             http://www.nps.gov/bibe/planyourvisit/things2do.htm



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Grapevine Trail
One of my favorite memories of Big Bend was being in two different countries at once at the Rio Grande River at Santa Elena. There was a serious drought in the year of 2009 and some areas of the Rio Grande were low, we could jump from one side to the other and say that we were in either Mexico or the United States.During one daring experience, I stood underneath a massive rock. Grapevine Trail is a hiking trail that leads to a boulder that has been wedged between two canyon walls.  The trail acquired its name from the vines that once covered the area; however, the increase in tourism wore the grapevines away. Another fun adventure in Big Bend was horse riding to a place called Pride Rock. This rock resembles a scene from the well known Disney Movie The Lion King, which happens to be my favorite Disney movie. The trail was 3 hours long and we had dinner at the top of a canyon and watched the sun set on the horizon.

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Windows Mountain, Chisos Basin
One of my sad, but memorable events that occurred on my trip in Big Bend was spreading my maternal grandpa’s ashes at the Windows Mountain at Chisos Basin. It is a valley that is very phenomenal in the evenings. The sun seems to set in  the middle of these two ridges and the valley floor lights up with spectacular colors. My grandpa loved to bring his camper to Big Bend and spend a week in the park during spring break. He would take my grandma with him in the afternoons and they would sit in the center of the two mountains, where they remained till dark. I was happy to see his ashes spread in a place he will always remember.
                                                                                                    http://www.nps.gov/bibe/planyourvisit/mountain_hikes.htm

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Green Gulch Trail
















In the past, Native Americans and Mexicans passed through Big  Bend in search of gold, silver, and fertile lands. There is still evidence on canyon walls of their stories and you can drive your car along portions of the
Comanche Trail, the same route that Comanche warriors once traveled on  raids into Mexico.There were also mines in the Chisos Mountains, and according to legend, the cave that looks like a little house is haunted by the ghost of the Indian slave who guarded the mines.  It’s called the Watchman's House off of Green Gulch Trail. Big Bend National Parks offers tourists the blissful, rocky landscape of west Texas and trails leading to a place of escape. http://www.nps.gov/bibe/index.htm