Who knew business school concepts can also be applicable to nature?
In business school, we learn about the concepts of prioritization and time pressure and how they apply to a corporate setting. In both situations, there is a stimulus that creates a reaction to help the person better do their job or better make decisions. At Brazos Bend State Park, Kaylee and I learned the hard way that these two concepts can be applied to the world of outdoor adventure.
I hope you read Kaylee’s blog about our Houston area trip as a whole (it was the preface for these next three entries). But if you didn’t, Brazos Bend was the first of a two-day, three state park journey we took in our final days of being in College Station during Coronavirus quarantine. We drove down on Thursday, May 7 and arrived later than planned (seems to be a theme for us). This would set the tone for the rest of the time at Brazos Bend.
Immediately, we knew we hadn’t been to a park like Brazos Bend State Park. The way the trees looked, how the terrain sprawled out, and of course the marshland. We were excited to get to explore.
We started as most of our state parks visits do, with a nice sack lunch. We even made a little friend, a squirrel Kaylee decided to name Clyde. Our first spot to check out was a pond we were eating next to. It had a small fishing pier that Kaylee wanted to go look at. This is where we saw the first of two alligators. This one was sunbathing and at a bit of a distance, not too interesting but still a gator all the same. We took a trail around the pond to the other side where the parks and wildlife had set up an observation tower that hovered over the marshes. Being flat, we were able to see for miles all of the swampland that surrounded the area. We got a few ring pictures (nervously since the wooden railing was super thin) and continued around the lake. This is where we saw alligator #2. It was a bit bigger than the first, however, the cooler part about it was it was on the move and it was closer. It swam parallel to the bank about 20 feet from where Kaylee and I were on the trail. To see a wild alligator in action was something us two kids from north and central Texas were not used to.
Brazos Bend has the unique distinction to have an observatory on its grounds. The George Observatory is actually owned and run by the Houston Museum of Natural Science, and it operates year round on Saturdays to give views of space. Though we visited on a Thursday, we still went to see the massive telescopes and walk down the trail labeled with the solar system. There was another ‘Point of Interest’ in the same area as the George Observatory, it was an old cistern. This cistern is evidence that there used to be a homestead nearby in the mid-19th century. On the way back to the car, we happened to stumble upon another feature we found intriguing, a sundial. We followed the instructions and tried it out ourselves to see if the overcast sky would give us any clue on what time it was.
This is where our Mays Business School concepts became a factor. At this point in our visit, we had a little over 2 hours until the parks closed at 5. We had to make some cuts on trails to walk and sights to see. I heavily advocated for one of the sights that I thought would be best. It also was the longest trail system in the park, but if we hustled we could make it work and get out of the park by curfew at 5. We hopped in the car and headed down the trail to Yellowstone Landing.
The Yellowstone was a steam engine riverboat that operated in the late 1800s. It stopped many times at the very spot on the Brazos River that the park has as an overlook area. We had to maintain a brisk pace to ensure that we would make it back before the gates closed. This meant no stopping for pictures (other than one couple picture we took in front of a great oak with an impressive branch system), no taking in the views, and most of all, no slow and relaxing stroll through nature. The trails that lead up to Yellowstone Landing total around 2.5 miles one way. Kaylee and I finally got there at 3:45, an hour and 15 minutes until closing time. This was probably the most frustrating thing about the visit, we didn’t get to fully grasp the majesty that the muddy Brazos offered there at Yellowstone Landing. The landing trail was set on a three tiered bank that sloped down to the riverbank. Old red clay cliffs were dug into over millions of years to make the sight we captured in less than 10 minutes of rushed, frantic enjoyment.
The walk on the way back was even worse. Time kept blowing by and our progress down the trail seemed to lag on. We were speed walking (heel, toe, heel, toe) at a pace that Captain Raymond Holt would be proud of (Brooklyn Nine-Nine reference; if you haven’t seen it you should). There came a point, with over half a mile to go, that we had to lengthen our strides and break into a jog. It was 4:40 and we still had to drive all the way out from one end of the park to the other after making it back to the car itself. Out of breath, we got back to the car, fired it up, and started to make our way towards the park headquarters and exit. As we were driving, we noticed multiple other vehicles parked and driving in the opposite direction we were, deeper into the park. I thought that maybe they weren’t too concerned about being locked inside the state park for the night… We kept driving… the more parking lots we passed the more cars and people we saw… Realization struck. We pulled into the last available parking lot where at least 10 more cars were and looked at the park hours. It was the most irritating thing to read “Park Hours: 8am-10pm.” We had assumed that since coronavirus had all of the parks closing at 5pm, it hadn’t yet changed. I guess you can say it is technically our fault that we didn’t know that and cut out some attractions and didn’t get to fully enjoy Yellowstone Landing and ended up in a wild run to get out of the park. But do not say that to our faces.
Still a little irked, we decided to make the most of the extra time and got to hit up another ‘Point of Interest’ on the trails map. It was a small wildlife viewing platform that directed your gaze to a prairie type of landscape. After all we had been through, it just wasn’t that impressive, so we decided to cut our losses and go get some dinner. Brazos Bend was a very neat place to us since we aren’t used to that type of land. We saw many things we thought were interesting as well. We decided to place it on our “Will Visit Again” list and set our sights on the coast.
Galveston, here we come!
Comments