Texas Bucket List

Texas Bucket List

The Texas Bucket List – Chapel on the Dunes in Port Aransas

by

Port Aransas – The sound of waves crashing on the shores of the Lone Star State is a sound that always puts the mind at ease. Feeling the warm sun on your face while smelling the salty sea air calms the senses, and it’s really the perfect place to find some peace of mind. And if you need to add a little divine guidance to this reflection, there’s a Chapel on the Dunes down here that can serve that purpose. “I don’t think you walk through that door and leave untouched,” said JB Smith.

Smith is a docent for the Chapel on the Dunes, and this gig is a great joy compared to her day job. “A distraction from my life as an attorney,” said Smith. “This is just a little bit more of an opportunity to bring humor and joy than I typically get to show in court.”

This small white chapel literally sitting on the dunes of Port A has been watching the sunrise over the gulf since 1937. “It did really well in Hurricane Harvey,” said Smith. “I remember one of the old windows behind me had a pane of glass missing. That’s about it.”

This small space that so many are sentimental about was the idea of Texas poet Aline Carter. “I love a hero’s story, and I can’t believe that I just stumbled into being able to share the mission of, I call her a Renaissance chick,” said Smith. “I do the Renaissance chick tour of the chapel. And I can’t believe that I’ve had the opportunity to share her passion for life. She was a truly amazing woman, one of those unsung heroes who gets a little lost in the hands of time.”

Born in San Antonio back in 1892, Aline was appointed poet laureate of the State of Texas in 1947. Her work required a quiet place to reflect, so in the 1930’s she commissioned the Chapel on the Dunes as part of the Works Progress Administration, or WPA. “She built this chapel and invited the children of the island to come for Bible stories,” said Smith. “And if you came, she served you ice cream and cake, at a time in the late ’30s through World War II when those supplies were difficult to come by and this would not have been an island where the families typically would’ve enjoyed the refrigeration to have ice cream on a regular basis. So she was doing something pretty special for the kids.”

Back in those days, the chapel looked a little bit different. “She painted a white chapel and that was what she wanted in the ’30s,” said Smith. “But I think that she would have just loved what her chapel has become.”

The frescos you’ll find here were painted by John Patrick Cobb back in 1978. “When he started this work. He described himself as a crummy guy, a guy full of dark spirits, and I sense the connection in these frescos is one of spirit,” recalled Smith. “When you look at the spirit in Daniel and the scales of justice and his dreams and Job over here beseeching his maker to explain his trials, I think very much the spirit is the connection with most of these works that he chose to put up here.”

Cobb’s work in the chapel serves as a representation of his own spiritual journey. “He had a spiritual conversion. He describes the Bible verse straight ahead as the verse that really commanded him in his work,” said Smith. “The verse is one that the world probably needs more today than ever, which is that ‘When we love one another, God lives in us and His love is complete in us.’ And Aline would’ve believed the exact same thing.”

Every part of the walls and ceiling has some sort of art on them, and most of them have a religious connection. “It starts with the Old Testament, a creation story over there,” explained Smith. “The Carters asked John to please leaf up Adam and make Eve a little less obvious. And then this is the father being commanded to sacrifice his son. And at different times of the day, the angel who’s holding dad’s arm with her right hand is more or less obvious. And then we come around to the New Testament here, and in the back it’s Revelations.”

But John did take a few liberties. “He’s got the Bay of Corpus Christi with an alligator, so it wasn’t strictly a religious presentation,” said Smith. “Over the altar is the apostles and they’re on the Bay of Corpus Christi. So he wasn’t strictly holding himself to a religious story.”

While not everything sticks to the scripture, people still come to this place for peace and Smith has had several instances of sort of divine guidance as when to go open the gates. “Somehow knowing people who need to come in the chapel,” said Smith. “I’ve probably just randomly greeted two or three people over the last two years who just needed a space. They just needed to be here. So I’ll just let them in and let them spend some time here. And to a person, they’ve said that that experience was just what they needed.”

While this chapel on the dune doesn’t dominate the seaside landscape of Port A, it still provides the perfect place to center oneself and apricate a little art. “I think it shows us all how we can do small things with great love,” said Smith. “Not many of us consider what will be our legacy other than the kids we raised and their families. But to me, this is such an amazing legacy that Aline Carter and her family share with everyone who comes here.”

 

The Texas Bucket List – Flying Horses Carousel in Brenham

by

When it comes to springtime in Brenham, baseball is usually the first thing on folk’s minds. But through the sounds of the game, you’ll hear another distinct tone that’s been coming from Fireman’s Park for nearly 100 years. “The carousel is a staple in Fireman’s Park,” said Crystal Locke, the Recreation Specialist for the carousel. “Here, you’re able to ride a piece of history. It is a fun job,” said Crystal.

And that fun includes promoting Brenham’s historic carousel, which is an easy sell. “The golden ages of carousels were back from 1880 to 1930. And almost 4,000 carousels existed in the United States. And that number has dwindled to about 150,” explained Crystal. “We are one of five classic wooden carousels in the state of Texas, and the oldest.”

“Just part of growing up. I did it when I was a little kid, and it was obviously a big thrill. There was a pavilion here, and the baseball game was always going on. But to ride the horses was a big, big treat,” said Atwood Kenjura, a 4th generation Brenham resident.

“You don’t see these operating hardly anywhere anymore. And to find one in this good a condition and just to do what it is, it’s part of Brenham,” said resident Kyle Branham.

Since 1932, kids and kids at heart have been saddling up at this colorful carousel that was once put out to pasture.  At least that’s where it was found a few years earlier. “So in 1930, a gentleman by the name of Hugh Durden discovered our carousel in a pasture down the road in Clay, Texas, about 20 miles down the road,” said Crystal. “Just came upon it, sitting in a pasture. The carousel was part of a traveling carnival. And the traveling carnival, mind you, this is 1930s, so around the time of the Depression, and this traveling carnival couldn’t afford rent at the pasture. And so the carousel was abandoned in the field. Mr. Durden had this vision of how this carousel could serve our community and brought that back to board members for the Washington County Fair Association,” said Crystal.  “They had purchased the carousel for somewhere around $30, which is great, because he also mentioned how expensive it was to restore the horses.”

These carved caballos were originally created sometime between 1867 and 1901.  They’ve been galloping through time ever since.  Creating memories for kids throughout the generations. “Had a conversation with my grandma who was talking about how she rode the carousel as a little girl, and she was able to take her daughter and her granddaughter, and now great-granddaughter to ride the carousel,” said Crystal.

“To know that they’re riding some of these same horses that I’ve rode on my entire life, and even sitting on the bench with them when they’re little infants to now riding on the horses, you couldn’t ask for nothing better,” said resident Kyle Branham.

“I always wanted to go faster, of course. Luckily, they hadn’t done that,” said resident Atwood Kenjura.  “It’s the same speed, I think, today as it was back when 1950s.”

The best part about this piece of history is the price! It’ll only set you back one whole dollar to take a ride. “You can ride all you want for a dollar,” said Crystal. “I can’t tell you the last time the prices went up.”

“It’s a heck of a deal in this day and time,” said resident Atwood Kenjura.

“It might’ve always been a dollar. I don’t really know. Sometimes I feel like we snuck on, but it was whatever horse was open, you just jumped on it and then you stayed on as long as you could,” said resident Kyle Branham.

The memories this merry go round makes are cherished by all including my family. My oldest still savors spending time on this timeless attraction, as does my boy. But my youngest, she’ll never get off her high horse because to her this is pure joy. “To see the smile on the kids’ faces, I think that’s what it’s all about,” said resident Atwood Kenjura.

So, if life’s got you spinning your wheels, take a ride on the oldest carousel in the Lone Star State.  It’ll put you in a great place on The Texas Bucket List.

The Texas Bucket List – Mission-Aransas Reserve in Port Aransas

by

Port Aransas – If you’ve never stood on the shores of the coastal bend, you’ve never experienced one of the most serene places in the Lone Star State.  The smell of the salty sea filling your sinuses, the wind’s steady breeze keeping birds aloft, and the sounds of massive ships sailing out of the gulf are just some of the everyday occurrences that can transfix your inner sailor’s soul.

The Mission Aransas Reserve in Port Aransas is great place to start your ocean adventure because here, they’re doing their best to keep the coast as clean as can be. “We concentrate a lot of our work up in the bays and estuaries,” said Jace Tunnell, a marine biologist and Reserve Director at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute. “We look from everything from water quality to habitat assessments, to looking at sea level rise and erosion of land, things like that. And we look long-term.”

Tunnell was born down the road in Taft and spent his youth on these very waters. “Always grew up surfing at the beach,” said Tunnell. “And even today I spend a lot of my time at the beach.”

That’s because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. “My father was a marine scientist and he was at Texas A&M Corpus Christi for over 40 years, and he used to take us to the beach all the time, but it wasn’t the typical, ‘We’re going to go play in the sand, build sandcastles,’” said Tunnell. “It was like, ‘We’re collecting data. We’re driving down the national seashore, 60 miles, we’re counting every bird that’s down there. We’re counting how much tar is on the beach.’ It was always science driven.”

Tunnell does much of the same at the Mission Aransas reserve.  Here it’s all about protecting the Texas coast and that includes taking care of a few turtles at the Amos Rehabilitation Keep, or ARK for short. “So we’ve got three different species of sea turtles in here,” said Tunnell. “These right here we call our floaters, they’re green sea turtles, and they’ve all been hit by a boat.”

Even coastal birds are brought back to health at this center. “Our laughing gulls are very vocal,” said Tunnell. “You see why they get their name.”

But what really peaks people’s interest in this place is the trash. “So over this last year we’ve been collecting stuff off the beach from our beach surveys in preparation for an auction that we have once a year,” said Tunnell. “Tony Amos started doing trash about 25 years ago. He would drive along on Mustang Island, and every other day he was doing a survey. So he would count the trash, the types of trash that are out there. He’d also count the number of people, number of cars, dogs, helicopters, boats, anything on the beach he would count. But trash is one of the most important things he was collecting because you could see how trash changed over time.”

Tunnell’s research today seeks to accomplish the same goals that Amos was pursuing all those years ago. “We’ve done a lot of research looking at where is this coming from?” said Tunnell. “Is it people leaving all this trash out here? And it turns out that a lot of it is from the loop current that goes around Mexico, goes into the Gulf Stream around Florida, and then it creates these eddies that push anything in that current up towards the Texas coast.”

It makes sense that spending your days sorting through beached trash would lead to some interesting discoveries, and a washed up leg certainly counts as a fascinating find. “We found a leg. Yeah, I think the funny thing about this is that this was sort of partly buried in the sand when we found it,” sad Tunnell. “And I was like, ‘Oh my God, there’s a body over there.’ And I walked up and when I pulled it out I was like, ‘Oh, thank God it’s just a leg.’”

Finding a presumably prosthetic leg isn’t the craziest thing that Jace and his team have come across.  The trash treasure that gets the town talking are the dolls. “We find probably one or two dolls a month, but you put that over a five-year period, we’re finding hundreds of dolls,” said Tunnell. “I mean, some of them, you probably would have a hard time sleeping at night after you see pictures of them.”

Initially, they didn’t think anything about the terrifying toy trash but after seeing the response people had to the decimated dolls, things changed. “When we were doing our surveys, we would start taking pictures of the things that we were finding,” said Tunnell. “And so one time we found this head that was about this big, like a mannequin head, and we took a photo of that, and that was the first photo that we put in a long string of natural stuff that we’re finding. And I mean, people went crazy over this on our social media. They shared it and it might’ve been liked 600 times or something, which was a lot for us on our social media site. So we said, ‘You know what? We’re finding these things, people are obviously interested on them.’”

The dolls really get people talking due to the mystery surrounding them, and everyone seems to have their own theories. “People have a lot of theories about where these dolls have come from,” said Tunnell. “Some people think that they are haunted, and so if dolls come up, don’t touch them. Somebody’s throwing them out there with some kind of crazy spells on them. Some people think that there’s a 4,000-year-old girl who’s throwing these dolls out there, but I have my own theory about where they’re coming from. We know that a lot of countries don’t have good systems for where to put their waste. A lot of people are living on rivers. So some countries are just pushing their trash right out into the ocean or into a river that leads to the ocean, and so we’re probably just getting a lot of people’s trash.”

The reserve has capitalized on the loot and now raises funds from the crazy things they find on the shores of Texas through an auction called Trash to Treasure. “We do host an annual auction where all this stuff we find, we’re trying to raise money for the sea turtles,” said Tunnell. “In total, and this is all year long, we will collect a bunch of stuff, items go for $5, $10, for all this effort we make about $2,000.”

Now that the dolls have a following, they are the big-ticket items when it comes to the auction. “We would usually sell a couple of dolls at a time for… The bidding starts at $5 and they usually sold for $10,” said Tunnell. “But now that these dolls have been sold for the amount of money they have, we just sold one in the fall at an auction for a different organization that we donated a doll to for $250.”

While the figurines are an overboard oddity of the ocean, the awareness these diabolic dolls are bringing to the reserve is priceless and will help continue their mission of protecting a priceless piece of the Lone Star State. “Making sure that we’re doing everything that we can so that the next generation can enjoy the same nature that we did growing up is important, and everyone has a part in that,” said Tunnell.

 

 

The Texas Bucket List – Cowgirls and Cowboys in the West in Amarillo

by

Amarillo – If you’ve never seen the Panhandle Plains of Texas, you really are missing out on some of the most serene scenery in the Lone Star State. Palo Duro Canyon alone is worth the drive to this part of Texas. But right on the edge of the second largest canyon system in the United States, you’ll find Los Cedros Ranch, Home to some beautiful horses. “All of our horses, we let them free-range, so this is their ranch,” said Phyllis Nickum Golden. “We just get to come visit.”

Phyllis owns this 1000-acre ranch that happens to be her happy place. “Oh, it’s heaven,” said Phyllis. “It’s my ranch, my rules.”

Phyllis didn’t grow up on this piece of property, nor is she a native Texan. She made her way to Amarillo through her former career in the hospitality industry. “A man who I used to work for asked me if I’d come to Amarillo to take over four hotels that he bought,” said Phyllis. “And I said, ‘Where?’”

When she arrived, she found out ranching is such a way of life you can’t help but get a whiff of it in the whipping winds of the panhandle. “That’s the smell of money around here,” said Phyllis.

Now Phyllis has always had a love for horses and would always talk about her passion to people at the hotel.  Eventually, it took a Beatle to make her saddle up on this adventure. “Matter of fact, Paul McCartney gave me the idea for this,” said Phyllis. “Yeah, our hotel was the only one with private concierge. It was one of the top 100 in the nation for seven years. And Paul McCartney came through here and he was going down Route 66 with his then girlfriend, now wife, and he was coming out to the ranch to ride and he said, ‘You need to start a business like that.’ And that was 2008. And I sat on it for three years, just the thought.”

In 2011, she created Cowgirls and Cowboys in the West, a riding outfit that takes folks from all over the world through some of the most majestic Texas scenery you’ll find. “You talk about the Texas bucket list,” said Phyllis. “This is the world’s bucket list is to ride a horse in Texas.”

These incredible animals traverse the Texas terrain with ease. “Our horses are incredible,” said Phyllis. “They are sons and grandsons of American quarter horses. They’re working cattle horses. This is a cattle ranch, and we allow guests to come out here and experience what it’s like to ride a horse in Texas, but also experience the western way of life.”

But it’s not just the horses that deserve the credit for this incredibly relaxing and easy experience, it’s also the cowgirls leading the way. “Our horses are incredible, but the cowgirls make them feel so, so comfortable, and they take care of them too,” said Phyllis.

You won’t find one cowboy taking lead on this little adventure because, well… “Because girls rock,” said Phyllis. “Most of my wranglers are students at West Texas A&M University. And the deal is they can work here while they’re going to school. I will let them work so many hours, but not enough to get into their studies, so it doesn’t compromise their education at all. When they graduate, they’re expected to go get a big girl job. And it’s kind of sad because I love them. They’re like second daughters to me.”

These ladies in denim and leather aren’t all full-time cowgirls, in fact they come from all sorts of incredible backgrounds with a few common characteristics. “I have girls who are dancers, who are actors, who are veterinarians, who are dentists, who are business owners, who are accountants, who just do so many things, but the common thread that they have is that they love horses, and they love people, and they love the western way of life,” said Phyllis.

Phyllis cuts right to the chase as to why cowgirls are in charge at her ranch. “They’re very hospitable, number one,” said Phyllis. “They’re good eye candy, but they’re more tender with the horses. I notice the different nuances with male and female, and all of our horses are boys, so they’re Goldings. But women are just more gentle and tender. And when you’re riding a horse, you want to make sure that a horse does not have any kind of traumatic imprint.”

Of course, one has to point out that cowboys still make an appearance on her riding outfit’s name. “We had some guys who had to come out and do some heavy lifting, so I thought to honor them, we needed to put their name in there,” said Phyllis.

Whether you’re a cowboy or cowgirl or don’t consider yourself a cow person at all, getting to ride these magnificent horses is well worth a stop on The Texas Bucket List. “We love what we do,” said Phyllis. “We don’t need to do this business. We have others, but we just love showing people our home, our culture, our horses, and the west.”

 

The Texas Bucket List – Magic Worm Ranch in Plantersville

by

On the backroads of Plantersville, Texas, you’ll fittingly find a lush green garden planted by a passionate producer with the perfect name, Gary Green. Gary’s got one goal when it comes to his line of work. “We like helping people and our thing is about growing food and doing it in an innovative way,” Gary said.

With a variety of vegetables and flowers growing in his garden, it seems the vegetation in this part of Plantersville does really well, and the secret is in the soil, or at least what Gary adds to it. “Everything that a plant needs to grow to its full potential is in there,” said Gary pointing to a container filled with dirt.

You see Gary’s got a squiggly side hustle that involves dealing with dirt that’s been processed in a particular way. It goes through a worm. “Back in another life, I had a job where it wasn’t making much money, but I had an empty basement, so I said, okay, we’re in the fishing capital of the world. Everybody’s got to have worms if they’re going to go fishing so I thought I’d raise some worms,” Gary explained. “I found out that what the worms make is much more valuable than the worms, and what they make is worm castings. For those who are not familiar with worm castings, what is it? To put it bluntly, it’s worm poop,” said Gary.

While it’s technically number 2, worm castings are number 1 in Gary’s book when it comes to growing some great vegetables.  And that’s all he does at his Worm Ranch. “If you had a microscope or a magnifying glass, you would see little footballs. When the material goes through the worm, it coats it in what’s called polysaccharides and makes little footballs. That’s the worm poop,” Gary explained. “But that is the best castings in the United States right there. Worms are deaf, blind, they have no spine, but they are one of the most amazing creatures on the planet,” Gary said.

It all starts with a bucket, some dirt, and some worms, lots and lots of worms. Next, Gary showed me the earthworm domicile where hundreds of thousands of worms are housed. “This is it right here. There are actually eight towers of worms in here. 64 cans on each tower. There are 128,000 African Nightcrawlers housed in here, enjoying the luxury of life. It’s 70 to 75 year-round, 365, 24/7, so they lead a pretty good life in here,” Gary explained. “They’re doing their job. What goes in the front of the worm comes out of the back of the worm, and that’s what we’re after.”

Now when it comes time for the worms to wiggle their way out of the dirt, that’s when they get to go through the worm tunnel. Basically, a mesh tube that spins. Gary said the worms can’t go through the screen because they’re too fat and happy, but they wind up going out at the end and falling into that tub. But the castings go through the screen and fall into tubs down underneath.

These castings are what you’ll find in Gary’s garden. “So Shane, this is the Return to Eden. The Magic Garden. Here’s where you will see the magic of earthworm castings. This garden was saturated with worm castings into the compost to make the dirt, the soil, the best that it could be,” said Gary as we walked through his garden.

Of course, I had to taste the end product. So, I tried a snap pea straight from the garden.  Man, if vegetable tasted like that, I would eat a lot more vegetables. “The plant had the ability to take in all those nutrients to make it the best that it could be, and the castings made that happen,” Gary said. “That garden out there is one-twelfth of an acre. It will produce about four to 5,000 pounds of food this year. We can’t eat it all. We give a lot to the neighbors, but a lot of the food that we grow out there goes to the SOS Food Bank in Magnolia. We feed people. We also use the garden to show people how to grow food for their family.”

So, if seeing worms work their magic is on your bucket list, this worm ranch will rope you in, no saddle needed course. “How to garden without killing the soil, without hurting the environment and helping to make the planet a better place for us to live and a better place for their kids down the road; support global worming. Got to be careful how you say this. It’s not warming, it’s worming. Support global worming,” said Gary.

The Texas Bucket List – Fort Leaton in Presidio

by

Presidio – Here in the Lone Star State, the Big Bend region is beyond beautiful, and if you’ve never traveled through the Big Bend Ranch State Park, it too is breathtaking.

FM170 borders the southern end of the park, between Lajitas and Presidio and it’s one of my favorite roads in Texas. And as you make your way into Presidio, you’ll come across Fort Leaton, an adobe refuge that’s been sitting here since 1848.  “It’s unique to Texas, and I really dig that about it,” said Park Superintendent Tom Forwood.

Tom is a Philly born history fanatic who worked in Montana for 23 years before taking a job in Texas. “Just the landscape was my first impression of the place,” said Forwood. “I got out and I was like, ‘Wow’.”

No trees, no grass, lots of sun, and even more history. “This is a really cool spot from a historic perspective because this is what’s called the La Junta, which is kind of the joining or the coming together, and that is referring to the Rio Conchos coming out of Mexico and the Rio Grande coming down out of New Mexico into Texas, along the border,” Said Forwood. “And it’s really important because this is the two major river drainages of the Chihuahuan Desert meeting right here at Presidio. So, this is a place that humans have settled for probably thousands of years.”

Ben Leaton and his wife Juana Pedraza are credited with creating Fort Leaton in order to establish a trading post in the area. How they went about doing it is definitely a story out of the lawless Wild West.

“So, in 1848, he kind of established this,” said Forwood. “And a lot of it was pretty crooked, to be really honest. With a lot of these frontier folks that did well, they didn’t do well by being nice people. They did well by kind of rooking folks over wherever they could. He worked with kind of a corrupt official in the area, a local governor, to create some false land claims. And they actually kicked local, little small farmers out and such to build his property up. And then he built this fort on this kind of prominence that overlooked the river plain here. You have to think of it more like a fortified trading post than as an actual military fort. But with that said, because the military didn’t have a set fort in this region, this was a major place that they’d utilize. They basically paid a kind of station here for long periods of time, in some cases throughout.”

Sitting right across the river from Ojinaga, Mexico, the biggest town in this part of the world until you get to Odessa, the fort supported locals living on both sides of the border for several decades. “It’s really important to understand some of our connections to our southern neighbors,” said Forwood. “I mean, this is a real representation of how intertwined a lot of this border country is between Texas and Mexico. And there’s a lot of animosity now between some of that, which is kind of a bummer because this is a rich country with a lot of shared history, and people should understand there’s more to that story. There’s a lot of history between our two countries, and this is a really cool tie-in point where that culture still is infused on both sides of the border.”

The fort closed in 1884 and was abandoned in 1925.  The state acquired it in 1967 and rebuilt most of this massive adobe complex. “This is one of the older parts of the fort that’s intact,” said Forwood. “This is the servant’s quarters. There’s not a lot of creature comforts. The walls aren’t plastered. They aren’t painted or whitewashed as they would’ve done. It’s really trimmed down,” said Tom as we toured the fort.

Other parts of the fort were a little more extravagant. “As we come in here, you’re going to get a really different impression,” said Forwood. “This is actually probably one of the nicer rooms in the whole fort because this is the formal parlor. And the formal parlor is where you’re going to basically have your greeting dignitaries, business associates, less intimate folks. So, people that aren’t like part of your family are good friends. And it’s kind of meant to impress. So, you walk in, you’ve got chandeliers, you’ve got the only working fireplace left in the fort, too, by the way. And they would’ve kept the whitewash up a lot better than most of the fort. So, it’s to give you, for lack of a better term, opulence in that day and age, especially in a frontier area.”

In order to get goods all the way to west Texas back in 1848, you couldn’t just load up the truck to take things to the fort, instead they used something much, much bigger. “When the fort first started, a lot of the stagecoach operation wasn’t really set up in this part of the West,” said Forwood.” So, how people got things around were on these huge oxcarts that the Spanish had brought in the 1500s called carreta, and this is actually a small one. The wheels would go anywhere from like this one, at about six feet, to nine feet high.”

Being able to see what it took to establish and survive in this part of the Lone Star State really makes you appreciate the modern conveniences we have today.  The folks that made life work back then and even today truly are one of kind. “I think it’s an important stop on this part of the state,” said Forwood.  “And it’s part of the country too, to be honest. People, not just Texans and beyond, because this is a part of the state everybody should see at least once,” said Tom.

 

The Texas Bucket List – Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch in San Antonio

by

In the sprawling hills of Central Texas, you never know what you might happen upon. Especially if you find your way into the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch just west of New Braunfels. Chances are you’ll have a giraffe get in your way. “Giraffes are my favorite, well, one of my favorites,” said Tiffany Soechting.

Tiffany has been a part of this wildlife ranch since its early days, when she first started working here in 1985. “Growing up, I always wanted to be a veterinarian,” Tiffany said.

Today she’s part of the family that’s owned this piece of land since 1884. “The ranch is established on Texas land heritage property. At the time of its designation, was used by the same family for over a hundred years for agriculture and now we’re at a right at 138 years,” Tiffany explained.

But the days of grazing by typical Texas animals are long gone.  “They wanted to use the land for something more than just a cattle and goat operation,” Tiffany said.

Situated on 450 acres, you’ll find one heck of herd roaming these hills and none of it is domestic. “The perfect combination to take that ranch and develop something that you could do conservation minded things and have animals from all over the world,” Tiffany explained. “When you come to the wildlife ranch, you’re basically the one in the cage as you drive through in your vehicle.”

With 500 animals on hand, you’ll never know what kind of curious creature you’ll find lounging in these lush landscapes.  “Some of the species, like scimitar horned oryx, totally extinct in the wild. And most people would never interact with them, but by coming and driving through and seeing them, and then they hear a story about how endangered they are, they can make a connection,” Tiffany said. “Half of our species have some level of endangerment, so it’s kind of a win-win.”

Even the Rhinos seem right at home. Originally from South Africa but they did not come from the wild setting in South Africa due to illegal hunting. There are a lot of facilities in Africa that are trying to help save those that are left because they’re highly endangered and being poached. “[The] largest expense from those facilities in Africa is security, spend thousands and thousands of dollars just on security keeping poachers away,” Tiffany said. “We’re proud that we have the space and we’re able to build the facilities that we could help in that program. There’s five different kinds of rhinos, two of them are African, blacks and whites. They got their name because somebody misunderstood somebody else,” Tiffany explained. “So, because obviously they’re not white, [they are] little grayish. So, when the Dutch came to Africa, they called them Went Rhinos, which means square. Their lips are square. And then the English came, thought the Dutch were saying white, and they were like, well, I guess they call him white.” The rhinos were unbelievably soft!

If you prefer longer and leaner animals, getting to know the giraffes is a great way to spend your day.   While feeding the giraffes, I learned that they have the longest tongue I’ve ever seen. “The pigment of their tongue being that dark, in the wild, they spend a lot of times—and they’ll eat acacia trees that have these huge lung thorns. Because their tongue is prehensile and they can use it to grab the leaves off of the trees and the coloration, the pigment of it that darker is because their tongue is out of their mouth so much in the wild that it helps with sunburn,” Tiffany explained.

Sticking your neck out to feed this big fella can be quite entertaining. If this hands-on approach isn’t on your level, you can always see a tower of them in the park. “Right now we have 17,” Tiffany said. “It’s a lot of giraffes. I think one of the largest herds in the nation.”

You will also come across some ostriches, and they don’t like to be ostracized. They’re not shy animals when it comes to food.  “We like to say they’re Texas friendly,” Tiffany said.

These awkward yet awe inspiring moments is what the Natural Bridge Wildlife Refuge wants people to experience.  A chance to get close to a few crazy looking critters and get to know them a little better. “It creates more of a bond. All those species have a high level of endangerment and you can read it in a book, you can read it in a magazine, and know that there’s a problem, but when you come and you have a personal experience with one of them, it creates a higher level of concern. All those species are better off when more people have that personal bond with them.”

The Texas Bucket List – Davy Crockett National Forest

by

Whenever you find yourself in East Texas, you never really want to peel back the preverbal pine curtain.  Instead, you want to get lost in it.

Texas is home to four National Forests and in between Crockett and Lufkin, you’ll find the Davy Crockett National Forest.  “This area serves the public I think in so many different ways,” said Jimmy Tyree.

Jimmy is the District Ranger for the Davy Crockett Davy Crockett National Forest and doesn’t beat around the bush when it comes to his favorite forest in Texas. “Oh, it’s Davy Crockett. A little bit small, 160,000 acres, but does a lot of work,” said Jimmy.

At the center point of the Davy Crockett National Forest, you’ll find the Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area.  Built by the Civilian Conversation Corps in 1936, it’s a great place to set up camp. “[There] really is not a bad campsite in the whole place,” said Jimmy.

The sights, the smells, and the sounds are what set this park apart. “A lot of people enjoy the quietness and the birds,” said Jimmy.

Simply sitting back and letting the songbirds serenade you is something that’s good for the soul. “Well, nobody gets a chance to be quiet anymore. Not enough people are quiet. There’s something to be said about that,” said Jimmy.

This place is so peaceful that no matter what the season, people like to come here. “We are full almost year-round, even in the summertime when it can be brutal. People are still coming out here enjoying it and that says a lot,” said Jimmy.

Before this park of the National Park became such a safe haven for trees that can touch the top of the Texas sky, it was surprisingly home to a sawmill.  “1902 to about 1920, the Central Coal and Coke Company logged here. And then in 1930, the Texas legislature at that time identified this area as something they wanted to go ahead and put into the National Forest system. And then in 1936 is when Roosevelt actually designated the Davy Crockett National Forest,” said Jimmy.

“So, these are the ruins from the old sawmill from 1902 to 1920 and this whole area had at that time, up to 30,000 people. You wouldn’t know it now,” explained Jimmy while walking around the ruins that have forest surrounding them now. “Nowadays the population’s probably less than 500 for both areas. The amount of timber that was produced from this mill back then is just amazing. And one of the biggest, at that time, this mill was one of the biggest in the nation,” said Jimmy.

I can’t get over the fact that so much of the old factory is still there, from formed foundations to massive metal pieces sticking out of stone columns.  “Artifacts are always being discovered, different things. It isn’t a very active site as far as anytime anything happens here, anytime any work is done, we always have an archeologist on site monitoring it, because something is usually always dug up,” explained Jimmy. “A lot of folks look at the pictures from the 19 hundreds, 1920s, 1930s, and they don’t recognize that this is the same place because back then you could see miles, there were zero trees. They had cut everything down.”

It’s amazing to see what can grow in a hundred years. To this day, logging is still a vital part of the national park.  “We’re still able to provide a tremendous amount of timber. In fact, the output here in the southeast region, we’re one of the tops of the nation even though we’re down in the southeast. A lot of folks think of the big timber production being up in the northwest, Pacific Northwest, but we actually compete with them down here very strongly,” said Jimmy. “The quickness that the timber grows here is nothing like I’ve experienced in other places. This area is very unique in that respect.”

American poet Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.”  Well what tall Texan doesn’t want to be just a little bit taller. So, take a little time to breathe in the pine or maybe search for the hide and seek champion of the world, because I don’t have to go out on a limb to say that this is well worth a stop on The Texas Bucket List. “It’s a little jewel for this area. It absolutely is,” said Jimmy.

The Texas Bucket List – Hummer House in Christoval

by

San Angelo –When it comes to birding across the Lone Star State, the Rio Grande Valley is usually the place folks fly the coop for.  Being on the search for a certain songbird brings all sorts of seekers to south Texas all with binoculars in hand.  But if you’re looking for an easier way to see some flashy feathered creatures, a trip to The Hummer House near San Angelo should be high on your list.

Dan Brown and his wife Kathy own The Hummer House and on the day we visited it happened to be Dan’s 91st birthday! “Life is an attitude. You got a choice. Mine is mowing forward,” said Dan with a big smile.

Now mowing isn’t first most on Dan’s mind on most days because if he did that, he’d scare away the birds. The Hummer House is Dan’s happy place. This small, quiet spot in Christoval sits on the south Concho River and has been in his family for 100 years. It offers people a place to peek in on Hummingbirds, Cardinals, and the occasional, Black-crested Titmouse, all in an air-conditioned room with some huge windows for observation. “If you sit down and watch birds, you focus your mind on something that’s nature and not yourself or other people, so it’s a form of relaxation, bird watching. Call it what you want to, but it is nature and enjoying it.”

Filling feeders is still on Dan’s to do list and during the migrating season, from April to September, you’d be amazed how much they handout to the hummingbirds. “We feed about 1500 pounds of sugar every year to these little hummingbirds. One feeder at a time,” Kathy says.

But there is another big draw at the Hummer House, the painted bunting. This is a beautiful bird that nests here on the ranch.  “There’s probably more painted buntings here than any localized place in the United States,” says Charles Floyd. Charles Floyd has been friends with Dan for 20 years and the former science teacher is a federally permitted master bander.  “We have banded roughly 55,000 individual birds here at this location,” said Charles. “We have banded 162 different kinds of birds, that species of birds that are different.”

While the research is important, the most enjoyable part for anyone that happens upon the Hummer House is simply sitting and staring at the birds. This is the perfect way to de-stress and be at one with nature. If you ever find yourself in need of some birdwatching and peace, a stop at The Hummer House is well worth a stop on The Texas Bucket List!

The Texas Bucket List – Ellen Trout Zoo in Lufkin

by

When it comes to the animals at the Ellen Trout Zoo in Lufkin, things can get pretty wild. And when a TV crew shows up to see what all the fuss is about, the peacocks are the first to make sure they get their 15 minutes of fame.  Before we could even start our interview, the Zoo’s peacock started peacocking around our cameras making sure their massive feather fans were in the background of shots, much to the shagreen of zoo director Gordon Henley.

Gordon is the wild but not so crazy guy whose lead the charge at the Ellen Trout Zoo for a very long time. “Well, we have about a thousand animals from all around the world, from tropical and warm temperate areas. We don’t have anything that’s from the north that can’t take our heat,” said Gordon. “We have a lot of birds, mammals, reptiles.”

In between the proud peacock calls, Gordon let the cat out of the bag when it comes to why the zoo in Lufkin is so popular.  “I think it’s the variety that we have to offer. A lot of people are surprised when they see the quality of the zoo here and just enjoy it. Let us help them connect with the natural world,” said Gordon.

Now Gordon isn’t the type of person to put a feather in his cap, but he should get the lion’s share of the accolades for the success the Ellen Trout Zoo has had over the years. Gordon has been the director of this zoo for an astounding 46 years! “It’s not like work. I like what I do, so I get paid to do what I like and that’s… can’t beat that,” said Gordon. “That’s all I ever wanted to do from 5 years old to now.”

Over the years, Gordon has gotten to see a lot of change.  “It’s exciting. It enables us to offer more to our guests and participate in more conservation programs. It’s just very nice to see it grow,” said Gordon. “We get tremendous support from the city and the community. The two, the city and the community working together is what makes it happen.”

Surrounded by trees on The Ellen Trout Zoo is thanks to local businessman who had a vision for this place back in the 1960’s. “It was the concept of Walter Trout, who, at the time, was president of Lufkin Foundry and Machine Company, and he thought that Lufkin should have a zoo for kids so that they didn’t have to go to Houston or Dallas to see the animals,” explained Gordon. “During that process, one of his friends got a hippopotamus from the Dallas Zoo and they brought it to Lufkin and gave it to him as a Christmas present in 1965.”

I guess someone really did want a hippopotamus for Christmas! And this big guy even came with a Christmas card. “Merry Christmas, Walter. May all your troubles be big. That was a catalyst that really kicked it off,” said Gordon.

Today you’ll find a couple of hippos at the zoo. “One of the things about hippos, in a way, they’re like crocodiles because you can sit right there, and you can’t tell how big that animal is. All you see is that,” explained Gordon while showcasing the hippos. “That’s called an aquatic profile and that’s the same thing with crocodiles and alligators. Their nose is up, their eyes are up, and their ears are up, and the rest of them can be submerged so they can see, smell, hear and breathe without exposing the rest of their body.”

“It’s a better method of actually being able to see the animals than on programs or in books. You can’t appreciate the size of some things if you can’t see it. And there’s also smells and sounds and a lot of other subtle characters of these animals that you can see and appreciate,” said Gordon.

From big to small, Gordon knows every animal here and they seem to know him too.  Only Gordon could get a jaguar just enjoying his day to jump down and say hello. “They recognize the sounds and some voices of people that are around them all the time,” said Gordon.

Gordon said working with people and the community is his favorite part of the job.  “This community is really what drives the zoo. We are about 35,000 population and they all support the zoo,” said Gordon.

Seeing school kids getting a firsthand look at these curious creatures is what means the most to Gordon.   Being in the middle of the piney woods, many of these little ones won’t get a chance to go to a big city zoo, so Gordon brings the world to them and helps create a memory that lasts a lifetime. “It’s just fun to watch kids like that and to know we’re trying to offer them something, a connection to wildlife so that they may not ever be a zoologist or may not ever work in a zoo, but they’ll have an appreciation for the animals that inhabit this planet. And if we can do that, then we’ve done something.”