Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

If your Christmas activities have become a ho-hum jingle-bell bore, maybe it is time to take your celebration to the next level—the lower level—of Longhorn Cavern.

Every year we do what we call our caroling in the cave, and what that is, is a Christmas party for our visitors.

Pam Plant is the event coordinator at Longhorn Cavern State Park in Burnet. She says everyone needs to leave any Scrooge-like tendencies at the door for this all ages holiday hoedown.

I mean, it’s Christmas. It’s time for us to let the kid in us come out.

Visitors participate in trivia games for prizes, until it is time to descend into the cavern singing the Twelve Days of Christmas.

We have various artists who will be coming out doing these concerts, and most of them will do the sing-a-long Christmas carols that the audience really loves. Toward the end of the caroling or concert segment, we hand out candles, and the guests come out of the cave singing silent night. Once they return back to the surface, we have a feast that awaits them. We’ll play some more games, give out our big door prizes, and then we end the whole evening with a reading of The Night Before Christmas.

The concerts at Longhorn Cavern State Park are December 17, 20 & 21. We have complete details, including cost and times at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

It all starts with the first catch…

Kids don’t start with large mouth bass, they start with crawdads. This is what I call a gateway species; it leads to greater nature appreciation in adults.

…but first, you have to go out to get one. Nathan Johnson is coauthor of new field guide, Texas Crawdads. He’s worried that kids today spend too much time indoors and are missing out on the fun of nature. A lifetime creek adventurer himself, catching crawfish seems the perfect way to open kids’ doors to the outside.

It’s more than just catching crawdads. They’re going out there and their adventuring. It’s discovery. When I was a kid, the geography of my life was defined by which creeks and woods were within bicycling range of my house. We’d considered those creeks our creeks and our woods and we’d explore.

And taking that sense of ownership a step further; he’s encouraged young folks to contribute to conservation efforts as well.

I talk to cub scouts and I tell them: you can make a difference, you can begin to record the crawfish of your state so that you can increase the awareness and the knowledge and the biodiversity. The work you do is just as important as the work that state biologist does with their inventories. All we gotta do is put it in their hands and say go.

You can leave a comment with your crawfish catching adventures on our website passporttotexas.org

That’s our show…with research and writing help from Sarah Loden… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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Texas Crawdads
http://www.texascrawdads.com

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Crawfish, crayfish, or crawdad to you…Procambarus clarki is actually just one of its kind.

If I say, “How many crawfish species from Texas can you name?” Most of the people only know one; and that’s the eating kind.

Despite its popularity at the boil, very little research on crawfish has existed…until now…Nathan Johnson is the enthusiast, activist, and coauthor behind a new field guide to Texas crawdads.

There’s about 40 species of crayfish in our state. Prairie Crawfish have never been described in literature outside of Collin County, TX. and wasn’t even discovered until, uh, the 90s when it was trapped in snake traps. They were doing a study of reptiles out in the prairie and these crawfish showed up, and they were like, “amazing!”

Raising awareness about the various species living in Texas, such as the Prairie Crawfish, and the unique niche they fill in our ecosystems; Johnson hopes that people will take more care to conserve them.

If you don’t know it exists, how do you know to be concerned? This book is a resource towards understanding crayfish, what habitats we might want to be concerned about, and which species we need to pay attention to because they’re so specialized or restricted in their range.

Learn more about Texas crawdads at passporttotexas.org

That’s our show…with research and writing help from Sarah Loden… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
_________________________________________________________

Texas Crawdads
http://www.texascrawdads.com

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Give a gift as big as the Texas outdoors to someone you love and receive the 2009 commemorative State Park Christmas ornament for yourself.

If you buy a state park pass gift certificate, you get an ornament for free And you get the gift card in the little pillow box so that you can give it as a gift. This is about our fourth year to do that, and it’s really popular.

Bryan Frazier is promotions coordinator for state parks, and says this special opportunity continues through December 31.

State Park gift certificates are sixty dollars. We’re really trying to encourage people to give these as gifts, and the free ornament really makes [it] a nice gift package for people.

Of course, you can keep the ornament for yourself. No one has to know. The certificates and the ornament are available only through Parks and Wildlife central reservations.

It’s the same reservation number that people call to make a reservation for a state park. It’s a little easier, a little more coordinated, to handle it all through one place for our fulfillment. And so we’re doing it again this year.

Now through December 31, when you buy a sixty-dollar state park pass gift certificate, you will receive the 2009 commemorative State Park Christmas ornament free to give to a friend or keep for yourself.

Find complete details at passporttotexas.org, including that central reservation number you’re going to need to call.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

The 2009 commemorative State Park Christmas ornament is as big as Texas—at least in spirit—and is available through the end of the month.

Each year it showcases something different that is particularly unique to what you can find when you go and visit our state parks.

Bryan Frazier is promotions coordinator for state parks. The newest ornament is gold-plated, diamond shaped, and has a fly rod gracefully arching over the top.

There’s a ring-tailed cat on the inside, there’s the windmill that’s at Brazos Bend State Park, there’s a magnolia flower, and a desert big horn sheep, and part of the mountain range of Big Bend Ranch in there.

And that’s only half of what’s included in this lovely, delicate decoration. If you’ve been collecting these ornaments, be advised you only have until the end of the month to get yours.

They’re $5.50 plus tax, and you can order them from our central reservation system. And a special promotion is going to happen starting December first and runs through December thirty-first, where if you buy a state park pass gift certificate you get the ornament for free.

There is also a nominal fee for shipping and handling.

We’ll tell you about the special promotion tomorrow.

Until then, go to passporttotexas.org for details on how to get your 2009 commemorative State Park Christmas ornament.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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