Three days over Christmas 2025: a loop out of Houston and back through Victoria, Goliad, Corpus Christi, and Port Lavaca, chasing down some of the heaviest history in Texas and a few things that are just plain weird. Quiet roads, empty plazas, one doomed gas station, and a lot of drone batteries. Here are the stops in the order the map runs them.
Trip Route Map
The Stops
Easter Island Heads – Victoria, TX
Five concrete moai, one Victoria eccentric with a pile of library books, and two 7-ton statues that vanished into thin air between our visits. Somebody in South Texas knows something.
DeLeon City Plaza – Victoria, TX
Victoria's town square since 1824, with a gazebo, an amphitheater, a statue of the founding De León family, and, as a bonus, public restrooms.
Fannin Battleground State Historic Site – Victoria, TX
The prairie where Fannin's 350 men were surrounded, fought for two days, and surrendered on a promise that wasn't kept. The battle happened here; the grave is nine miles away in Goliad.
Presidio La Bahia – Goliad, TX
Nine flags, six wars, one massacre, a chapel in continuous use since the 1700s, and the birthplace of the man behind Cinco de Mayo. The most fought-over fort in Texas will even let you spend the night inside the walls.
Fannin Memorial Monument: The Texas Mass Grave Almost Nobody Stops For – Goliad, TX
Everybody remembers the Alamo. The bigger mass grave is at Goliad, under a shaft of pink granite that only exists because some Boy Scouts found bones in the dirt. Most days you'll have it to yourself.
Goliad County Courthouse – Goliad, TX
An 1894 Second Empire courthouse with a disputed architect, a twin in Lockhart, and a beautiful old oak on the north lawn with a genuinely ugly résumé.
USS Lexington, The Blue Ghost – Corpus Christi, TX
An 872-foot WWII carrier the Japanese reported sunk four times and never managed to keep down, now a floating museum in Corpus Christi Bay. Five self-guided tour routes, 20-plus aircraft, escape rooms, and the best drone subject on the coast.
Whataburger by the Bay: The Two-Story Mothership – Corpus Christi, TX
The only two-story Whataburger on Earth, built in the chain's hometown for its 50th birthday, with an elevator, a bay-view balcony, and the same burger tasting better upstairs.
Cole Park Pier – Corpus Christi, TX
A long, rebuilt fishing pier reaching into Corpus Christi Bay off Ocean Drive. Free to walk, shaded at the far end, and an easy stop for the whole car.
Halfmoon Reef Lighthouse – Port Lavaca, TX
A lighthouse that spent 84 years standing in the middle of Matagorda Bay on screw piles, survived the Civil War and a career as a dredging office, and now lives in a parking lot. Ten minutes, well spent.
Buc-ee’s Store No. 12: The Baby Buc-ee’s Turning Into a 7-Eleven – Port Lavaca, TX
Before Buc-ee's went mega, it built gas stations like this one: Store No. 12, open 24 hours for 26 years, now becoming a 7-Eleven. We caught its last Christmas.
Bayfront Peninsula Park & Fishing Pier – Port Lavaca, TX
A windy pier, a playground, a bayfront veterans memorial, and a flock of seagulls all facing the same direction like they agreed on it beforehand. Mind the gifts from overhead.
The Ones That Got a Wave, Not a Post
Around the edges we also caught Tivoli’s water tower, the Texas A&M Corpus Christi campus, the Ocean Drive mansions, and Lydia Ann Lighthouse from across the water at Aransas Pass. Sea fog and marina wind grounded the drone at Mustang Island State Park, so that one is still on the list.
And a note on all that Goliad history: the massacre there and the fall of the Alamo spurred swift retribution. On April 21, 1836, at the Battle of San Jacinto, the Texian army broke Santa Anna’s force in 18 minutes, coming on with “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!” A lot of this loop is spent standing on the ground where that memory was made.
All told, the run from Houston and back was a bit over 500 miles in three days: a lone moai, a doomed Buc-ee’s, the only two-story Whataburger anywhere, a fort that’s flown nine flags, and the biggest mass grave of the Texas Revolution. Not a bad way to spend a Christmas. Stay tuned for the next detour.