The Daytripper

The Daytripper is made possible by Rudy's real Texas barbecue. Shipping nationwide at Rudys.com Dell precision workstations, laptops and desktops designed to power the creativity of the storyteller. The city of Georgetown, where big ideas meets small town charm. Georgetown, the most beautiful town square in Texas. Texas Farm Bureau Insurance protection and peace of mind for Texans. Since 1952 Don Hewlett Chevrolet in Georgetown making Texas road trips possible for nearly 50 years. Don Hewlett Chevrolet, Texas True Built in Shiner, Texas. Built by hand Ranch hand truck accessories built to take a hit. What makes America, America? Well, it's the same thing that makes Texas, Texas. It's the natural beauty of our land, but also it's the people and our shared history and all across this country, there are places that make up the chapters of our collective story places of jaw-dropping beauty and inspiring history, pieces of hallowed ground that help us pause, learn and appreciate just how amazing America truly is. And many of those places are right here in Texas. It's a Texas National Parks Road trip New Caption They've been called America's best idea, and since the creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872, our National Park Service has gone on to protect and preserve over 400 sites across America. Some for their natural beauty. Others for their history. And as a nation, these are our most sacred places, many of which are in Texas. All right. Can you name the national parks in Texas? No - i cannot. - Yes you can, there's two of them! Oh, there's only two. Well, two natural national parks. Uh, Big bend, and palo duro No State Park - Dangit! - Guadalupe Mountains National Park. I knew that. Let's start over. ready, go! OK... The harder question. There are three national historic parks in Texas. Can you name those? backseat yall can answer too. like the wooly mammoth site...OK, national monument. But close. I'm going to get one of these eventually, will you, San Antonio missions? I was going to say that the LBJ Ranch and Palo Alto Battlefield. And I said that. Let's rewind the tape. Did he say it? Paladino probably brought on you, said Palo Duro about the same, saying, My crew travels Texas for a living and they're confused, which highlights a bigger point. We're often bad at deciphering the difference between park levels and Texas. Are state parks, county parks, city parks? It's confusing. But have you learned anything from this road trip It's that national parks are different. Anything that is in the national park system is like top level. It's like top billing. Yeah, there's national parks. But even the levels below the national parks, we got national monuments, Waco mommoth site. We got national seashores, Padre Island National Seashore, Fun National Recreation Areas, Lake Amistad, National Historic Sites fort Davis. And then one new and then we're going to today National Preserve - Big Thicket And I now you said you are anticipating that i'm very proud of you, - I read the agenda, i knew we were going there In total, there are 16 national park sites across Texas, and I figure we should start this road trip with our biggest and the first national park in Texas, Big Bend. And anyone who's been out here knows just how special this place is. Oh man, there's just this feeling you get when you drive into Big Bend. You know, you drive for so long and then you pass the park sign. Take a deep breath, folks. You made it out here. The world slows down and the distances seem to stretch to near infinity. Even the visitor center is another 30 miles down the road, but it's along this stretch where the body and soul make a transition as the civilized world fades in your rearview mirror and the desert world welcomes you in with open arms. Oh man, yeah, you just got to get a picture of all that. Big Bend is twelve hundred and 50 square miles of wilderness with mountains, desert and over 100 miles of river. And when you're out here, it feels there's something impressive beyond every cactus. one thing that people love about Big Bend National Park is that you can feel small here. you're no longer the commander of your environment. Around you is something big in the Big Bend. The rocks are big. The animals are big. The adventures that at times it seems even the word big is too small for this place. This hasn't changed in what, thousands of years? This view right here and there might even be a few spots that no human has ever walked before. That's fascinating. That's fascinating. We'll say those adventures for another day, as this well known path is coming to its famous finish. The Balanced Rock. That is a feat of nature, that's beautiful, that's great, man. This rock has been a special place for centuries of human visitors. Is it this awesome? I'm underneath a giant boulder. Wow. Look, I just hold it up with my bare hands. Like if you really want to feel small, will stand atop the south rim of big bends. chisos Mountains. Wow. These clouds, man. I see a lot of good views in Texas. This is this is my favorite. I think I agree. I mean, we're looking into two countries here. We've got Texas and Mexico. This is like one of the few places where you get so high you literally feel like you're looking at a map. It's like a little glimpse into heaven. And that's worth the trip every time. So we've visited lots of national parks, yall have a favorite? Guadalupe Peak was amazing. Yeah, that was a long hike, but it was so rewarding. You get to the top and you look out and you just see so far it's like you're on top of the world. It is. If you ever thought Texas was flat, well, then you ain't never been to this park. And the most bucket list worthy hike in all of our state is to summit Guadalupe Peak, sitting at 8451 feet in the sky. From arid desert landscapes to towering pine forests all the way to grassy valleys. Man, that's incredible. You're climbing, climbing, climbing, gaining altitude and then you hit the spot where it sort of levels out into this grassy, piney, almost meadow land. I mean, the ecosystem has totally changed. It's a hike where the joy is truly in the journey. But once you've committed to the summit, all you can do is keep climbing. And I do mean climbing trails right here, buddy. Oh, right. Yeah, right, right. That's all that. We've braved steep inclines, false summits and treacherous paths. And finally, the peak is in our sights. Yeah, the top of Texas, all to ourselves, Texas. You can see it's just like a watch tower for all of West Texas. You know, I've done a lot of things in this state and this goes up there with the best of them. So we've got deserts, and then you jump over here a mere twelve hundred miles away and look at what we're looking at. I mean, you're suddenly in the piney woods. Is this the same planet? It reminds me there there are tall trees in Texas. Yeah. This is how I know I'm in East Texas. Like, as soon as I see pine trees, that go to the clouds. And now we finally come to today's destination. The Big Thicket National Preserve different from a park. This was actually the first national preserve in America that protected this land. Just like a park, but with a few caveats because this place is so unique. Oh wow. This brings back some memories. So if you grew up in Southeast Texas, like I did, then you probably took numerous field trips to the Big Thicket. However, it wasn't till I was much older, you know, had a little bit more maturity that I began to realize like, what a special place this is. It's swampy, it's woodsy. It's got creeks, it's got rivers, streams, snakes, alligators. It's this incredible ecosystem, actually nine ecosystems, in fact. And if that wasn't enough. It's got carnivorous plants. You know what that means, Daniel? What does that mean? Plants that eat meat? Well, bug meat. Just don't go inside. Feed me, Seymour. And here, to help us navigate through the thicket is park ranger Max Harper. Explain to me just how big the big thick it is. I'm having trouble kind of get my head around it. Historically, this place would have been about four to 6 million acres, but today we preserve about 113,000 acres today. 113,000 acres. And that's this red border I see. Absolutely. So what you're going to see here, bigger land units all over the property out there, that was actually the original acquisition. And then the water corridors were added later. And that's where you see the river, the creek, the bayou, all this kind of connective tissue, if you will. OK. Why was the federal government interested in protecting all these little creeks, river corridors and piney woods? The general answer is our biodiversity. More plants and animals coexisting here in a relatively small area than potentially anywhere else in the entire North American continent, including even canada or Mexico. The Big Thicket has been called America's Ark. Think of it like the rainforest of North America, but with eight additional ecosystems, all in one little corner of Texas. Another thing is the culture and history here is really pretty rich as well. This is actually the first ever national preserve. It happened as a compromise. The government wanted a national park here, but East Texans said No way. We're giving up hunting and fishing on this land. And so they struck a deal. The big thicket became a preserve. It's protected like a park, but the public can still use the land and collect its bounty like they have for generations. As I mentioned before, the National Park Service isn't just about protecting America's nature, but also our culture and history. Which brings us to Texas. Is National Historical Parks Places protected not for their natural beauty, but for their historic significance? While you're at mission conception, oh, it's beautiful. The best preserved mission site here in the National Park here in San Antonio. So why so many missions packed into this region here? Yeah, we have five missions just three miles apart from each other in the late 1600s early 1700s. The San Antonio River is the only constant source of water here in this area. Water is very important in Texas. Right on the Spanish missionaries are sent here to do the colonization work of the Spanish Empire. They are here to make the American Indian of South Texas into Spanish citizens, and so they built immaculate churches in hopes of inspiring the natives to be law abiding Catholics. They're impressive today, but they would have been mind blowing on the frontier. Welcome to Mission San Jose, the largest mission in North America. We are considered the queen of the missions because of our size. Wow. And one time we had over 400 native people living here. I mean, as most of this original, Oh, I wish we're going on about 300 years here. So if we were original, our walls would be in great shape. OK, OK. We were restored in the 1930s by the Works Progress Administration. But one thing the wall does is it sort of blocks out the outside world and you can really sort of look 360 degrees and feel like maybe you've stepped on to the original mission. Absolutely. And that's what it's supposed to do during all four missions of the national park is a must. Within a few centuries, European countries were no longer fighting for control of the new world. The new world was fighting among itself, and on this ground in 1846 was the first battle of the Mexican-American war. So this is essentially dead center of the battlefield where we're at. Off to this side is the Mexican battle line marked off by those flag. That's what those are. And the blue cannons. Yeah, you can see the replica cannons. Those are a replica Mexican eight pound field guns. And over here on this side, you can kind of make out some cannons off in the distance as well. US six pounders. The battle here raged for over five hours before the Sun went down and the army ceased fire. The Mexicans lost over 100 men that day. The U.S., only 4. the war itself, would continue for another year and a half, ending with the U.S. occupying Mexico City and securing over 500,000 square miles stretching to the Pacific Ocean. Manifest destiny was achieved. Do you think people will realize the importance of this war and how it just basically changed the entire trajectory of our country? I don't think so. It's it's starting to get a little bit better. I would hope that people just become aware of it's part of this larger conflict that, you know, ended up really changing to countries. Our National Park Service has a mastery of transporting folks to a different time. This couldn't be more true than back in West Texas at Fort Davis, one of America's many forts that help tame the wild frontier. And after the Civil War, many of them, including this one, were manned by the newly created regiments of Buffalo soldiers from about the late 1860s. Up until early 1880, Fort Davis was totally manned by black. Enlisted men basically perform the same duties that any soldier would have done. They they patrolled and make the campaign about the areas did a lot of construction built a lot of these buildings that you see at Fort Davis. So when it came to life at the fort, they really just more enlisted men they were. They were a soldier. They were here to do a duty by the 1880s, with the Indian wars over and the coming of the railroad frontier, forts like Fort Davis were no longer needed and began to close. For decades, this fort fell into complete disrepair. That is until the National Park Service stepped in to preserve it to make sure that important pieces of our American past are preserved for our American future. If you want to talk about big stories, more specifically big Texas sized personalities, then look no further than Texas born U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Chet, I told you was going to treat you in style. Yeah, no kidding. Anybody coming to the LBJ ranch, one of the first things President Johnson would have done would have said, Come on, we got to go see the ranch. And of course, he done it in a convertible Lincoln continental So what better way to show you the ranch as soon as anyone stepped on the ranch? The Texas showmanship and hospitality began at full force. But it wasn't just a vacation spot, as this ranch was and still is a working cattle ranch. Now this show barn was built in 1965. Oh, of course you see the way it's designed, because while we're giving you a tour and I'm showing you my prize-winning Herefords, we don't want to have to get out of the car design so that the Lincoln will go right down the middle. The land, the cows. The rugged cowboy spirit of Texas all help Johnson shape his political image as a strong, independent, ranch owning businessman far removed from the high society that dominated politics. But it was important for him for people to be able to see where he came from. But the main base of operations here was the Texas White House, where the family lived. This is where it all happened. Wow. This is where the world came to meet with the president. Very different from the Oval Office. That was exactly the point a place where Johnson could relax with you on his turf. But imagine being a world leader from a palace of Europe, you know, used to having your office and your meetings and all there. And you walk in here. But it was comfortable and they instantly were at ease. Yeah, there's there's just nothing showy about it, but I think that's so representative of those people, too. I love the fact that you look at these photos. I mean, these people are sitting right here on these cushions, in these chairs. And these are not just anyone. These are significant people, world leaders. It's a wonderful, lasting tribute to the Johnson Legacy, a place from which the Johnsons brought Texas to the world, all while letting the world visit Texas. We've taken a bit of a historic diversion. But let's get back to today's day trip in the Big Thicket National Preserve. So we're out here and our Hickory Creek savannah unit, it's one of the nine ecosystems we find in the preserve so tall pines exactly underbrush spot on a wet unit primarily populated by long leaf pine, which you see all around us here. But one of the most special things about this unit is it's a place where we find two out of the four carnivorous plants that can be found here in the desert. Yes, they've developed the ability to eat meat, so they are a carnivorous plant. my kind of plant - Yeah, yeah. These are the pitcher plants. They sort of this right here. Yeah, absolutely. So they have a kind of sweet nectar attractant in the plant. And that's actually a trick. And so those bugs go in there thinking, Oh, great, you know, I've got a nice orchid or a flower here, I'm going to get some good sweet nectar. And then when they get in there, it's a trap that that sweet nectar is kind of a sticky enzyme. It grabs that insect. It starts to break that insect down, and then they are basically slowly dissolved. The flies are being eaten alive is the way I interpret that nature is so brutal. Slowly dissolve. Yeah, wow. Yeah, you see. Oh, there we go. Oh, so we've got, you know, some exoskeleton left there looks like we've got, you know, some insect carcass and a very efficient death trap. Absolutely. Speaking of death traps, carnivorous plants aren't the only ones the National Park Service protects. But luckily for us, this one in Waco have been 65,000 years ago at a site where 16 Columbian mammoths making up a nursery herd were killed in one flash flood. This is the only place not only in Waco, Texas, not only in America, but the world that we've discovered this first off. Wrap your head around this one of the largest mammals ever roaming through Waco at the time of the Ice Age, and on one particularly bad day, they all died together right here. Then remember, we're between the Brazos and boske River, and thousands and tons of water up river can come down here. These mothers were trying to protect those babies. They knew that a flood was coming and that water sweeps those babies away. Right? But the thing about it is they swept them into a story that we can tell people today. Right? Yeah, really amazing. That's amazing. So you think we found all the mammoths in the site? No, not at all. Not at all. And so the work will continue for generations to come, with each new discovery uncovering both answers and questions to this mammoth sized story. National parks are an amazing place to have an encounter with wildlife, not just extinct wildlife, but I can't think of any encounter more special than waking up at dawn to watch a baby sea turtle release on Padre Island National Seashore. Our Texas turtle, the Kemp's Ridley, is the most endangered sea turtle species on Earth, so to help its numbers grow, Rangers and staff patrol the beach for nests and move any found eggs to a hatching facility where they can care for them until it's time for their release, which is the part we get to watch. They release the baby sea turtles and they are making a mad dash for the ocean. We definitely have some that are faster than other ones. Then we have lazy, Oh, there's the first one in the ocean bay they made it. I mean, you can imagine what this ride feels like. They're going down the sandy beach and then this wave boom crashes into them, sweeps them up and then sweeps them into the ocean. It's sort of like, Oh yeah, this is what these flippers were made for helping a species recover from near extinction. I mean, it doesn't get much better than that. Well, if we're going to have an encounter in the big thicket, then we need to really get out in it. So when you think of the big thicket, you think a big thicket full of trees. one of the best parts of this preserve or all of its waterways. And so Max is going to take us to one of his favorite spots just off the neches river. At first glance, this looks like any other river, but just upstream, it turns into something different. A labyrinth of trees and flowing water. Max, where are we? I feel like we dropped into the middle of nowhere. Yeah, it looks like we've arrived at the jungle of paddling routes. No kidding. So where we are is the Cooks Lake scatterman Lake paddling route. This is one of our most popular paddling routes here in the preserve its bayou, its river. And it's this wonderful cut of kind of Cypress Tupelo SLoUgh that we're paddling through right now. Give me the definition of a slough So a slough is going to be very similar to a swamp. But the simple way to think about it, the difference in a swamp or a slough is a slough actually has flow. So even if that water seems quite stagnant, it seems like swampy area. There indeed is a flow there. Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, look at this web. Yeah. So what kind of what kind of spider? Those are Golden Orb Weaver webs. - nanner' spiders! Yeah. Oh, those are. They're all over this branch! And how many species out here could kill me? Oh, wow. You know, I guess technically there are several things. I mean, venomous snake, alligator, you know, freak accident with a, you know, certain 200 pound turtle, I guess could happen. But I guess those are alligator snapping turtles are nasty though They get to be huge. Yeah. But you know, most of our wildlife, I might even say all of our wildlife really doesn't want to be bothered and doesn't want to bother you. Wildlife aside, I'm amazed at these trees, Cypress, Tupelo and others. But these right here are incredible. Yeah, these trees are probably several hundred years old, and most of the heartwood in these trees has rotted out. But yet that cambium layer, that growth layer is still surviving and keeping those trees alive. it's not necessarily normal. That's crazy. The whole it's all hollowed out, and it's over hundred years old trees living in water like lily pads. I mean, nature is awesome. Max, I mean, you get to spend so much time out here. It's what's the most rewarding part of what you do. I mean, the greatest honor for me is really getting to serve the people and share this outdoor space that you know, I count my lucky stars. I get to be a part of anybody I can share that with. And, you know, I can try to inspire. You know, that that's really what the most important piece and the most valuable piece of the job is to me. That's absolutely awesome, man. Hey, thanks for sharing. Yes, sir. Hey. Oh, thank you. And so from the East Texas pines to the mountains of the Wild West, our national parks are special places guarded in stewarded for our benefit and the benefit of generations to come. Nowhere in America will you find lands more precious and stories more important. And I think the best way to become part of the ever growing American story is to get out and explore them. So I will see all y'all out on the road or the trail or the slough vaya con dios, amigos howdy yall! follow along with my adventures at chetTripper on Instagram and at the Day Tripper TV on Facebook and YouTube, or head to the daytripper.com for travel guides, past episodes and info on our mobile app and team DayTripper. The DayTripper is made possible by. Rudy's real Texas barbecue. Shipping nationwide at rudys.com Dell precision workstations, laptops and desktops designed to power the creativity of the storyteller. The city of Georgetown, where big ideas meets small town charm. Georgetown, the most beautiful town square in Texas. texas Farm Bureau, Insurance, Protection and peace of mind for Texans since 1952, Don hewlett Chevrolet in Georgetown, making Texas road trips possible for nearly 50 years. Don Hewlett, Chevrolet Texas. Built in Shiner, Texas, built by hand, ranch hand truck. Accessories built to take a hit.