Parks

Big Bend is a diverse landscape of Chihuahuan desert, mountains born of volcanos, and a river that has carved three canyons through ancient limestone.

Guadalupe Mountains is the state's "other' national park, home to Texas' tallest peak, rough canyons and sweeping valleys - and it's just down the road from Carlsbad Caverns.

From October through March at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, it's all about the Whooping Crane.

Goose Island - a small state park of just 321 acres - has two faces: a mainland forest of live oak, red bay and yaupon holly and an oyster shell island in Aransas Bay. Among its claims to fame is one of the oldest trees in Texas.

The unspoiled white sand beaches of Padre Island National Seashore stretch 70 miles along the South Texas coast. Behind the them lie tall dunes speckled with flowers, a vast coastal prairie and grassy, tidal flats that front on the Laguna Madre. In the summer, waves of endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtles come ashore to lay their eggs.

Mustang Island State Park is the smaller cousin to thePadre Island National Seashore just a few miles down the road. In addition to about five miles of Gulf of Mexico beachfront, it borders on an extensive bayfront that attracts a wide variety of birds.

Choke Canyon State park lies on the shores of the 26,000-acre Choke Canyon Reservoir, created by a dam on the Frio River.

Goliad State Park is nestled in the woodlands of a bend of the San Antonio River, but its focal point is the white tower of a restored Spanish mission and the presidio down the road that once defended it.

Lake Livingston State Park hugs the shores of one of the state's largest lakes - 83,000 acres of water accumulated behind a dam on the Trinity River. The lake's broad stretch of open water looks more like a bay, surrounded by a typical East Texas landscape of loblolly pines and water oak.

The East Texas Pineywoods of Martin Dies Jr. State Park rest on the shoulder of the B.A. Steinhagen Reservoir and the creeks, sloughs and marshes that surround it. Its landscape varies from cypress bayous dripping in Spanish moss to majestic pine forests.