The Pandemic Is Better Outside

Up until this year, the major historical events that have transpired in my lifetime have occurred as singularities; moments in time when the arc of history suddenly changed direction. Whether it was the fall of the Berlin Wall or the fall of the World Trade Center, the world that existed before these events was very different from the world that existed after them.

A world existed before this pandemic and there will be one after it as well, but what makes the time we are living in now so disorienting is that we find ourselves stuck in the during. We can feel nostalgic for the time before March when we were free to do all the things and see all the people we cannot now just as we can look forward to a time in the future when we can do those things and see those people again. But for now we are stuck in an undefined middle of interminable length.

For as challenging as these last six months have been, my family has been lucky. We have all remained healthy. Both my wife and I have been able to keep our jobs as architects and work from home. Despite the heroic efforts of all involved, the end of the school year may have been a bit of a mess but our kids were able to learn from home as well. 

That home is small and in the last six months we have come to know and use every square inch of it. We love our house, but I would be lying if I claimed we had not grown weary of always being inside of it.

Under normal circumstances, San Antonio provides plenty of opportunities to do things outside with our girls. We could head downtown to let our kids explore the urban adventure of Yanaguana Garden in Hemisfair Park. We could drive south of Lackland to the towering play structures of Pearsall Park. We could walk the short half-mile to our neighborhood park with its small playground and bike path. 

These experiences were some of the first casualties of COVID-19. In late March, the City of San Antonio closed the playgrounds at these and all other city parks along with basketball courts, outdoor exercise equipment, skate plazas, pools, and splash pads. We could still go for walks past empty shops and deserted restaurants, but with the temperatures rising we faced the prospect of a long summer stuck indoors. 

But we live in a place where there are alternatives to city parks. In Texas, we have state parks as well.

What began as a loose collection of historical sites at the turn of the twentieth century remained underfunded and underdeveloped until the 1930s. It was then that the Great Depression—or at least federal programs created in response to the Great Depression—allowed the state park system to flourish into something more similar to what exists today. It was then that unemployed men from around the country enrolled in a work relief program called the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). One of Franklin Roosevelt’s first and arguably most successful New Deal programs, the CCC put young men to work on land conservation and park development projects throughout the country. The lived spartan lives in camps operated by the United States Army. They were fed well, but over two-thirds of their wages were garnered and sent home to support their families. When the program ended following America’s entry into the Second World War, the CCC had planted more than three billion trees and constructed trails and shelters in over 800 national, state, and local parks. 

Over 50,000 CCC enrollees served in Texas and the fruits of their labor during that national crisis can still be enjoyed during this national crisis. Nearly a third of the Texas State Parks that exist today contain improvements made by the CCC. San Antonio is lucky to be surrounded by a number of these parks and over the summer my family and I visited them all.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department—the state agency responsible for managing state parks today—has expanded and updated its network of parks in the decades since the CCC disbanded. Following a brief shutdown of the park system in April, the parks reopened to the public with limited access to help minimize the potential spread of COVID-19. An online reservation system allows visitors to reserve a specific entry time into a specific park. 

Although weekend reservations would fill up quickly, I would schedule work appointments so that I could take my girls out early on Friday mornings. We would arrive just as a park opened so as to explore the park before the summer heat became too overwhelming. Given the limited capacity, we often feel like we had the entire park to ourselves.

I do not believe it is an overstatement to say that Texas State Parks saved our summer. Although 2020 will always be remembered all the horrible things that have happened, I hope my family will remember this summer at least in part as the one in which they discovered many of the unique landscapes that Texas has to offer.

There are well over a dozen state parks within an hour-or-so of San Antonio. Although each is unique and worth a visit, there are several that stand out as particularly noteworthy:

Blanco State Park may be small, but the dam built by the CCC provides a particularly lovely swimming hole shaded by tall cypress trees.

Garner State Park probably offers the greatest variety of activities. In addition to a "mountain" to climb (Old Baldy), there is the Frio River to splash around in, there are paddle boats to rent, and even a miniature golf course. Cabins and other shelters built by the CCC are available to rent if sleeping on the ground isn't your thing.

Speaking of cabins, the ones at Bastrop State Park are some of the best. The park’s twelve cabins represent some of the most remarkable CCC architecture in the state. The park was ravaged by a forest fire in 2011 but the cabins remain a destination in themselves.

Before the pandemic turned the world upside down, Guadalupe River State Park was our go-to park for the summer as it provides quick and easy river access. A shallow section of the river allows younger kids can splash around and play with river rocks while a series of "rapids" beckon more adventurous kids downstream.

Further afield than Guadalupe River State Park, both the park and the river is a little wilder is South Llano River State Park. Although the park is less developed, there are hiking trails and other amenities to enjoy as well.

Some truly impressive rock formations make Pedernales Falls State Park a fun area to explore with just the right amount of danger to make the adventure memorable. Less precarious areas of the river are also available for swimming.

As its name implies, Enchanted Rock State Natural Area features an impressively large, maintain-like rock. Even with its capacity limited, this park can feel crowded due to the fact that most visitors take the same trail up to the top of the rock.

An odd geologic condition produces swamp-like conditions at Palmetto State Park. The park features an impressive collection of CCC buildings including an open-air pavilion and a water tower.

CCC enrollees assigned to Longhorn Cavern State Park had the undesirable task of removing 2.5 tons of debris and guano from the water-formed underground cavern. Visitors descend over and under a series of natural bridges before descending into the mouth of the cave itself.

In addition to the parks around San Antonio, we also made pilgrimages to more distant parks that speak to the incredible variety of landscapes made available by our state parks:

Early on in the summer we drove to Mustang Island State Park in search of not-too-crowded access to the beach. Our reservation was for 8:00 AM and for the first few hours we had the beach to ourselves.

Although the canyon featured in Palo Duro Canyon State Park is the second-largest in the United States, it will always pale in comparison to the Grand Canyon. Still, views from the rim are impressive as are the cabins built into the canyon wall by the CCC.

Although not as large as White Sands National Park in New Mexico or Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado, the active quartz dunes of Monahans Sandhills State Park look more like Tatooine than Texas. In addition to exploring the dunes on foot, it is possible to sled down them as well.

Located in far northeast Texas, Caddo Lake State Park provides access to a landscape like no other. Exploring the flooded cypress swamp in a canoe is an experience not easily forgotten.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. There are a total of ninety-five managed by the Parks and Wildlife Department and each provides a unique opportunity to safely escape quarantine and reconnect with the natural world outside. As Governor Pat Neff predicted in 1925 just a few years after establishing the board that would oversee the development of state parks, these spaces represent a place where Texans “Might go and forget the anxiety and strife and vexation of life's daily grind.” 

The anxiety and strife and vexation we are currently experiencing may be unique in its origin—neither Governor Neff, President Roosevelt, nor the thousands of CCC enrollees who labored here could have imagined these parks would someday help my family survive a global pandemic—but the fact remains that these spaces continue to improve the lives of all those who visit them.

I have no way of knowing how my girls will remember this summer. They may remember it as a time when they could not go to the pool or visit their friends. They may remember it as a time when their parents let them watch more TV than they ever had before. But I hope that at least some of their memories are of the times they ventured out into some of the unique natural wonders their home state has to offer. 

I also hope they will want to continue to explore those places even after we have discovered what awaits us when we have finally made it through the during and into the after.