Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

You love the outdoors and think camping is great fun—but not when it’s miserably hot outside. You’re not alone. Cool weather camping is a popular activity in Texas.

Our State park Guide, Bryan Frazier, says while a sleeping bag made for winter camping is an important piece of gear…

Maybe more importantly you want a sleeping pad to go under you between you and the ground. The ground can actually rob you of heat during the night—it’s called radiant heat loss. And the pad will be a barrier between you and the cold ground and will make a dramatic difference keeping you nice and cozy in your tent, even thought it’s cool outside.

Better than nothing, but most of the pads, even if they’re foam, they’ll have some air trapped in there, and that dead air space will actually serve as a better insulation barrier.

Thanks, Bryan.

Reserve your campsite online when you log onto the Texas Parks and Wildlife Website.

That’s our show for today…with funding provided by Chevrolet…building dependable, reliable trucks for more than 90 years.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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This is Passport to Texas

When you visit Lake Mineral Wells SP, recreational opportunities from hiking to horseback riding await you—because as our SP Guide Bryan Frazier says: it is a complete park.

63—By complete park we mean, it has a lot of different recreational opportunities. No matter what people are interested in doing outdoors…there’s great camping, you’ve got more than 70 developed campsites, you’ve got lots of primitive campsites, you’ve got screened shelters, but you’ve also got a 650 acre lake that’s great for fishing from everything from sunfish to catfish to bass. You’ve got beautiful scenery with big limestone hills. You’ve got rappelling and rock climbing; it’s one of the few places you can do—certainly in North Texas—with legitimate rock-climbing opportunities, and it’s very, very popular for that. And it’s just one of those picturesque parks—it even has a group dining hall. So, people can go there and spend a day trip. It’s very accessible from the Fort Worth area—it’s actually right on the edge of the city of Mineral Wells. Or, you can spend several days. Camp. Hike. It’s 38-hundred acres, so it’s a nice big park. More than sixteen miles of hiking and biking trails…it really is one of those park experiences that someone can spend as much time as they wanted to and not do the same thing twice.

Thanks Bryan.

That’s our show for today…with funding provided by Chevrolet…building dependable, reliable trucks for more than 90 years.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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This is Passport to Texas

Did someone say camping? Camping just got better at Lake Whitney State park…but it isn’t the only thing that’s great there… as our State park Guide Bryan Frazier explains.

54—Lake Whitney SP made the news recently because of some improved camping that we have there. We have more than 40 full hookup campsites, with water, electricity and sewage. It’s great for RVers who want to come through there, and it’s the only park on the lake with full hookup capacity. And the lake is 23-thousand surface acres. So, it’s well-known for its bass fishing; it’s a great smallmouth bass lake, and white bass, and striped bass, and so it’s a fisherman’s destination. But, a lot of other things going on there with the hiking trails that we have, and the camping. The scenery that we have in that North Texas area is just beautiful. And the lake is incredibly deep, which makes for biodiversity in fish populations there. Birding is fantastic at Lake Whitney Sp. And those improvements have Really been in the works for several years on our camping oops, and I think people will really be delighted to see what’s going on at Lake Whitney.

Thanks Bryan.

That’s our show for today…with funding provided by Chevrolet…building dependable, reliable trucks for more than 90 years.

We record our series at the Production Block Studios in Austin, Texas, and Joel Block engineers our program.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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This is Passport to Texas

Cleburne State Park has an image problem—people don’t know it’s there. Yet it has so much to offer outdoor enthusiasts. Bryan Frazier, our SP guide, says whether you hike, bike, camp, or fish—you can enjoy all these activities at Cleburne SP.

It may get overlooked by some people, but its just down HWY 67 from the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex area. And I’ll say—it just might have as good, and maybe the best—trails that we have in our park system. They’re wide. They’re great for bikers and for those who just want to hike, And you can take a leisurely hike, or you can take a pretty intense walk through incredible scenery. You’re up almost in the North Texas Hill Country area. You’ve still got limestone outcroppings in here; you’ve got a nice lake that’s about 130 acres, so it’s good fishing. You’ve got great camping with full hook-ups: water, electric and sewer. And also at Cleburne, we’ve got some real interesting developments going on to make that park better. We’ve had brand new group bunk houses that hold up to 44 people. Total renovations of the dining hall that can be rented. And a new store and bathhouse are being built right on the lake, and a new beach access area right on the lake. So some real nice improvements to use those tax dollars and to use those voter approved, and legislative appropriated monies from past bienniums, that it shows up on the ground in ways that when people get to the park they can see that their park experience is going to be better.

Thanks Bryan.

That’s our show for today…with funding provided by Chevrolet…building dependable, reliable trucks for more than 90 years.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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This is Passport to Texas

Dinosaur Valley State Park is a unique destination with some of the most well-preserved dinosaur tracks anywhere. Our State park guide, Bryan Frazier, is here to tell us more.

And you’ve got three distinct species of dinosaurs that can be seen; and the whole scene unfolds where one looks to be chasing the other one.

It’s a spectacular sight when you can see all the tracks. When the river’s low, you can walk around and see them from just a few feet away. They’re very visible. And kids love it.

But also, from a recreation standpoint, there’s more than 40 campsites at Dinosaur Valley with electric and water hook-up. You’ve got miles and miles of great hike and bike trails that are up above the Paluxy riverbed, and some really incredible scenery, making it a worthy destination for an outing like none other that you can have in our state park system.

And on a personal note…

The superintendent at Dinosaur Valley, Billy Paul Baker, he’s known and loved by so many people and countless thousands who visited that park…he passed away from a recent and intense battle with cancer…and so we just wanted to say thanks for all the years of service to a fine man who ran a very find park.

Thanks Bryan.

That’s our show for today…with funding provided by Chevrolet…building dependable, reliable trucks for more than 90 years.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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