My family, which consists of my dad, my mom, my sister, and two brothers, are the only family I have in Missouri. The rest of our family lives in Harlingen, which is in the boot of Texas, and since not many people have heard of it, the easiest way to describe where it's located is that it is near Corpus Christi. Since our hundreds of relatives can't come up and see us, we try to go down there once a year, and about two years ago was my most memorable trip.

We had just stopped at a gas station in Oklahoma; I can't recall what town it was, but I do remember my dad telling me that we were only an hour away from entering Texas. I remember having that gut ache of excitement of seeing Dallas at nighttime, because all the lights looked surreal. One building even had a light up globe about the size of a house that did light shows throughout the night. After leaving the gas station we weren't planning on stopping at another gas station for a few hours. We had gone all out, buying a few extra large soft drinks, a bundle of chips, and two large pizzas which my sister had balanced on her lap until they were cool enough to eat.

We were once again driving; I had sat in the middle seat in the front of our brand new Escalade. My dad had sat to my left, driving of course, and singing along to the song. My sister had sat to my right, texting away on her phone, and smiling to herself. My mom and grandma had sat in the back so they could control my two brothers; the rest of the truck was filled with our luggage.

We were crossing a four-lane interstate when it happened. I remember looking to my dad to ask if I could change the station, and then looking past him I see a large blue pick up truck with a white pint stripe racing past the stop sign and heading right towards us. I remember I opened my mouth to say something, but I blanked. I was clueless of what to say that would warn him in time. My mom must have seen the truck too, because in the cramped truck all I heard is her piercing scream, "ANGEL, LOOK OUT!" Then everything turned grey as the sound of splitting metal rang.

I woke up as was being carried out of the car by a policeman, I found out later that I had slammed my face into the dash, as I hadn't been wearing a seat belt since there was not one provided in the middle seat. The steal cup holders that had been just above my knees on the dash had split the skin on my legs, and they had made my dad climb out over me because they were afraid removing the steel from the flesh in my leg would cause me to bleed out.

Being carried out with gauze wrapped around my knees and thighs, I immediately heard police sirens and saw the flashing red and blue, and as they carried me to the stretcher, I saw an orange riding lawn mower had crashed through a wooden fence. I asked the lady beside me what had happened and she told me the tail of our truck had hit the man and we had spun while he had been mowing his lawn. She reassured me that he wasn't hurt badly as I had begun to panic and struggle against their hands.

While I was on the stretcher they told me that I would need stitches on both knees, one thigh, and in my scalp. In the crash, my grandma probably got the worst damages. She had thrown her head at the window at the impact, giving her a black eye and a nasty slice from upper lip to eyebrow, her wrist was shattered, and the glass had given her dozens of thin cuts along her face, neck, and bare right arm. Everyone else had been bruised and scraped and shaken, they stood on the sidewalk while my grandmother, the man from the riding lawn mower who had a strained hamstring and I were tended. The man who had crashed into us was tended by another ambulance that was at the other side of the street. I'm not sure, but I assumed then it was to keep my dad from ringing his neck. An officer told my dad that the man who caused the accident hadn't seen the stop sign as it was hidden behind the brush, and by the time he realized he was going to crash into us, it was too late.

I also vividly remember embarrassment. The interstate had been blocked because of the accident. Cars surrounded us, and several groups of people stood watching us, but of course, being a teenage girl I had only noticed the group of cute boys my age that must have come from the bowling alley just down the road. They stood watching only a few yards away as I was being stitched up, and there I was in my Snoopy pajama bottoms, and an "I'm With Stupid" T-shirt and my face covered in blood.

That year we did not go to Texas, needless to say, as we could not continue our trip in a totaled truck, and our luggage strewn around the street. We did get to ride in a police car on the way to a hotel, which to me, much to my mom's displeasure, was the highlight to that day.