Cure for Cabin Fever

We have been advocates of increasing the time that children spend outdoors rather than staring at a phone screen.  Our interest in this subject was sparked by attending a live lecture based on the work of Children and Nature Network.   Alongside this, after publishing the book Unstructured Time, we became more observant of children as they encounter the outdoors. Always, its amazing what you see when you look.

So, on this gray day in January we decided that we were in need of some outdoor exposure, being concerned with the ills of cabin fever. Now, cabin fever is not terminal but it sure seems like sometimes it could lead to that.  We decided to take some of our own advice about the outdoors and head for the woods.

Since we're always interested in exploring new areas we decided to head for Lockhart State Park which is only about 30 minutes away.  Although this park is so close to where we live, we have never visited this park and so not only do we get to see some new outdoors, but we get to see what this park is like.

We first stopped for lunch in Martindale out of necessity and, from past experience, the memory of this lunch will not last long. Continuing on the road to Lockhart State Park we entered the park and signed up for day pass, picked up a map of the area and noted some of the articles modern day park visitors need as evidenced by stuff for sale.  For example, you can rent a fishing pole, or if not fishing, you can buy a pack of twelve marshmallow roasting sticks.  I can just imagine it.  Families driving all the way to the park for camping and picnicking and upon arriving, some one says  “oh, dang, we forgot the marshmallow sticks for roasting marshmallows tonight”.  An observant member of the party spots these, all packaged up, probably made in China and says “we are saved, here are some for sale”  Now, how accommodating is this from our State Park concessionaire?

There are several features to this park.  One is an extensive trail system which follows Clear Creek Fork through the park.  Another feature is a well organized camping area for trailers and tents, along with a nine hole golf course. In addition, there is a high hill in the park which has a large pavilion built by the CCC in about 1930. This pavilion and 3 dams on the Creek are all projects on the CCC 90 years ago period .   From the overall appearance, the whole park was a CCC project.  We decided right off that we were going to explore each of the areas, that is, everything except the golf course.

We started out at the dam near the beginning of the trail  running alongside the creek. Right away, we noted that this day will be one where most of ours senses come into play.  This became apparent when we stood at the base of this creek dam, with the never repeating sound of the water running over the dam, the woods with its smell of fallen leaves and nearly everything in view was a shade of gray. The only color being the cedar growing next to the creek. It was very quiet;  no sounds, smells or sights  of civilization. Parks are at their best on days like this when there are very few visitors.

Figure 1,  CCC built dam on the Clear Creek Fork (of Plum Creek)

Running downstream from this point is a trail that keeps to the side of the creekbed.  We took that as it looked like an easy walk of about a mile.  We knew we had to retrace our steps when we arrived at the end, because the crossing of the creek at that point would not accommodate those who are not accustomed to balancing on a thin ridge of rocks over the water.  This was good as we got to see everything along the trail twice, just like rereading a good book.

Along the way, we were encouraged to see a family coming back from their hiking the trail.  The father, mother, two young daughers and two small dogs on leashes looked tired and obviously enjoyed the hike, but did have some casualties.  Dad was carrying the smallest of the two children and the other child was carrying one of the dogs.  The child was merely tired, but the dog had run into the briars and had a thorn in his paw.  But, it was good to see this family as it was supportive of our position of getting kids in the outdoors.

The trail is on one side of the creek, the tent camping is on the other side of the creek, some distance away.  At one point, there was a threesome setting up their small pup tent.  This reminded us of camping on gray days in Maine and it prompted the question of whether we should buy a tent and give it a try again.  It took no time at all to get a response.  We moved on.

Here are some of the other views along the trail.

Figure 2, the lower dam on the creek

Figure 3, the woods alongside the trail

The woods in this area are unusual, that is to our eyes.  All the leaves on the ground were from Red oaks.  Unusual for us as 30 miles to the west, we have no red oaks.   Every so often there was a large block of green leafed trees, and we suspect they were viburnums---very large, maybe 40 feet tall.

After walking about a mile, we retraced our steps and then back in the car, we drove through the trailer area, being curious (nosy) on how people do travel trailer camping today.  This prompted a question of whether we should buy a travel trailer and make the rounds of parks.  This, too, prompted a quick response.   We moved on.

From here, we drove up the high promontory to the pavilion.  This is a unique spot and has the reputation that it was used as an Indian lookout.  That sure makes sense as one can see for many miles in all directions.  Lockhart is visible to the east at about 5 miles distant.

Figure 4, Pavilion on top of the hill.

It is now obviously coffee break time, so we left the park and drove to Lockhart to the Chevron station.  We paid our hello’s to Kathy Cowan and asked her to pass along our regards to Bud, the man from the Oil Patch we met months earlier.

About time to head for home, so we decided to take some back roads home.  We started back towards the state park on highway 20, turned right and poked slowly along this graveled road and come up on Toll Road 130.  That was logical as this toll road runs north/south and lies between Lockhart and home.  So, crossing over the toll road was a logical thing to do and continuing, through lots of twists and turns, we again encountered Highway 130.  This can’t be! We finally figured out that we had made a complete loop on the gravel road and returned to our point where we left highway 20.  Surprising even ourselves, we made it all the way home.

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