- NARRATOR: The Texas Parks and Wildlife Television Series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding is provided by Toyota.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Toyota--Let's Go Places.

Coming up on Texas Parks & Wildlife... - There aren't very many people that walk across this state with their belongings on their back.

This is my way of learning what Texas is like.

- Even though you can be sitting in the campground with 50 other campers, you only need to walk 100 yards, and you're going to be all alone in the woods.

- I haven't run the numbers lately, but I'm guessing we're pushing 200,000 acres.

[theme music] ♪ ♪ - NARRATOR: Texas Parks & Wildlife, a television series for all outdoors.

[traffic passing] - DAVE: A lot of people stop when they see me on the road.

"Why are you walking?"

They offer me a ride, and I have to turn them down.

One guy says, "You mean you're doing this on purpose?"

It's not a race, it's not a program.

It's more like a lifestyle.

This is just what I wanna be doing.

- NARRATOR: Dave Roberts is out for a walk.

He has been for months.

- DAVE: I'm a little more than three months since I left New Orleans.

- NARRATOR: Dave is walking to New Mexico, taking in miles of Texas along the way.

- DAVE: That looks like a watermelon from here.

Palmetto is my 26th state park.

I've gone about 2,200 miles since New Orleans, so I'm more than halfway through the state of Texas.

One guy says, "Well, you know, there's a bus.

"You can just take a bus to El Paso."

He didn't get it.

I think I'd rather walk.

[upbeat music] [footsteps] I don't wanna just sit at home and play card games on the computer and raid the refrigerator every 10 minutes and get fat and lazy.

I wanna be outdoors, I wanna breathe unfiltered air.

I want the weather to affect me.

I wanna meet people I've never met.

I wanna go places I've never been.

And that's the lifestyle that I've chosen for myself.

Since I left New Orleans, I've used up five pairs of shoes.

And I'm ready for my sixth, so I'll get a pair in one of these towns.

[playful music] This is the kind I normally get right here, but they don't have my size.

They look like they'll work.

Ten bucks, [laughs] I'm buying $10 shoes.

Okay, now I need to get a new pair of insoles.

They last about 400 miles per pair.

They were getting a little thin on the bottom.

[register beeps] I just didn't wanna feel the road under my feet and so I bought a new pair of shoes.

- STORE CLERK: Be safe.

- DAVE: Thank you.

They're comfortable, they work, and I'm happy as a clam.

- NARRATOR: Using up shoes traversing Texas on foot may sound extreme, but this is just one in a series of outdoor adventures for Dave.

[upbeat guitar music] - I'm weaving across America.

I didn't start out with that in mind, just happened one step at a time.

It all started hiking Appalachian Trail.

[upbeat guitar music] I was just gonna hike the trail and go home.

But it was such an awesome experience, I didn't want it to stop.

When I got to Maine, I rode my bicycle to Florida and then I hiked the Florida Trail, and so I find I'm zig-zagging across the country.

Somewhere in Florida, I got the idea that, I think I'll paddle down the Mississippi River, so how do I get to Minnesota?

I'll ride my bike.

Hiking, biking and paddling.

This summer, I paddle down the Mississippi River.

So I had to get from New Orleans to New Mexico, so how do you get there?

Well, you walk across Texas.

[truck passes] And so that's what I'm doing.

I'm visiting state parks, and right now I'm in Lockhart, Texas.

This is my 27th one, I think.

I told some of my friends, "Ah, I'm gonna walk across Texas," and they said, "Why Texas?"

You know, they think Texas is just desert.

I said, "Well, I looked at the website, "and it looks to me like there's a lot more than just desert out there."

[birds chirping] - Past your campsite, there's more trails... - DAVE: Visiting state parks has made my trip much more interesting.

- You're all set.

- Okay, thank you very much.

I've met some of the most warmhearted people I've ever met in Louisiana and Texas.

I made a spreadsheet.

At 15 miles a day, how many state parks can I do?

That came out to 23 state parks.

When I got to Tyler, I was a week and a half ahead of schedule.

I was doing 23 miles a day, not 15.

So far, I've done Village Creek, Martin Dies, Mission Tejas, Martin Creek, Tyler, Daingerfield, Bob Sandlin, Cooper, Bonham, Eisenhower, Ray Roberts, Richardson, Possum Kingdom, Mineral Wells, Dinosaur Valley, [laughs] Cleburne, Whitney, Meridian, Mother Neff, Colorado Bend, um, Inks Lake, Enchanted Rock, McKinney Falls, Bastrop, Buescher, Palmetto, and Lockhart.

And I have 13 to go.

Something like that.

[slow instrumental music] That's my tent.

This is my sleeping pad.

This my food.

That's the heavy one.

My sleeping bag.

And this is my dry clothing.

And that's it.

This is the fourth tent I've had in two years.

One was lost, one was stolen, one was melted in a dryer, and now I have this one.

My budget is 20 dollars a day.

For a lot of people, getting by isn't really enough.

The attitude is more important than the gear.

Put all my stuff in it, and then I'm ready to have lunch and take a walk.

I don't have a knife, so I cut my cheese with my teeth and I put on my salsa.

I was having three of these for lunch a day, and realized that I was still hungry, and so now I have four.

[laughs] [crickets chirp] I have a saying, if everything goes according to plan, you're not having an adventure yet [laughs].

It's really blowing.

- NARRATOR: Two months and one pair of shoes later, Dave is in far west Texas.

- This is quite a headwind we got here today.

- NARRATOR: He's back on the road after a medical time out.

- I had a pain in my chest, went to the doctor, and he suggested I go for further checkups, so I went home to do that.

- NARRATOR: The diagnosis?

Heart burn.

- There's nothing wrong with me.

Physically, I'm in good shape, but I need to change my diet, and I'm glad I did that.

- NARRATOR: Dave picked up where he left off in Del Rio.

After days crossing desert, he is outside Fort Davis.

- Now I feel assured, if I'm out in the middle of nowhere a thousand miles from the nearest hospital, that I'm okay.

I feel confident to just go and do it at my age.

I'm 72.

[truck passing] My biggest concern, going from here to El Paso, is getting enough water.

- After the pecan orchards, there's really not much water... till Van Horn.

- NARRATOR: Where towns are scarce, Dave eats dehydrated meals his daughter mails, and what food he can find to fit his budget and backpack.

[jazzy music] Two boxes of cereal.

That's three days.

These are gonna be my dinners.

Sandwich bags.

My pack weighs 13 pounds, plus food and water.

Four days worth of food, that's 10 pounds right there.

This is heavy too, but you gotta eat [laughs].

- CLERK: That's gonna be $28.92.

- DAVE: That's not bad.

- There you go.

I wish you good luck.

- DAVE: Thanks a lot.

Here I go.

Ooh, this is heavy now.

- NARRATOR: Not surprisingly, Dave skips convenience for primitive camping.

[footsteps, wind] - In a way, I'm out here to escape... the hubbub and the business of the modern world.

I can live in that world, but I prefer this.

It's actually beautiful.

You get to see forever up here.

Took me an hour and a half to get up here, [laughs] but it was worth it.

[somber instrumental music] Twenty to twenty-five years ago, I had a dream.

In my dream, I died and I went to heaven.

Saint Peter looks at me, and he looks down at his book, and he looks at me again, and he says, "Why didn't you take advantage of what they had to offer down there?"

End of dream.

That's why I woke up and I said, "Wow, that's pretty powerful."

So not long after that, I quit my job, and I decided that I was going to spend the rest of my life volunteering.

So I joined the Peace Corps.

- NARRATOR: A mountaintop seems like the perfect place to contemplate the next adventure.

- My next adventure is to hike the Continental Divide Trail, which goes from Mexico to Canada.

The Triple Crown is the Appalachian Trail, the Continental Divide Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail.

I've already done the AT, planning to do the CDT this summer, and if I can do the Pacific Crest Trail, then that's the Triple Crown.

Nobody that I know has ever done the Triple Crown entirely after the age of 70, so that'll be my claim to fame, for what it's worth [laughs].

To me, this is just really special.

Being up here in God's country and being able to see the sunset from a setting like this.

That's part of the reward, it's part of it.

I'd climb quite a few mountains to see something like that.

This is my front yard [laughs].

[inspirational instrumental music] ♪ ♪ When I get up in the morning, I just get up, pack up, and go.

My Texas adventure was awesome.

I feel like I belong.

It's not like you're just out there.

I didn't feel alone at all, because there's so many people that are interested in what I'm doing.

- Travel safe.

- DAVE: Thank you, Texas.

Looking to see where I'm gonna be going today.

There's a lot of nothing out there.

If you are looking for something to do during your time, don't do what I'm doing.

Look deep in yourself, and find out what is the thing that you can do that nobody else can do.

And do it.

[inspirational instrumental music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Celebrating a century of Texas State Parks.

[wind blows] - Folks that come out here to South Llano River State Park, the main draw is probably the river, which is why it gets its namesake.

Spring fed, year-round flow!

And then we also have the unique feature of rising up into the Edwards Plateau.

We go from about 1,700 feet and then rise up another 400 feet!

And throughout that you have canyons, and bluffs that provide some of the best pictures of the Hill Country you are ever going to see!

[water riffle] - ANGLER: Fish on, oh, a Guad!

[hummingbirds flutter] - Ya, I haven't seen this many in one place before.

They're hovering around the feeder trying to find a hole to put their little beak in!

[birds chirping] - South Llano River has four bird blinds.

They all have a water feature.

- BIRDER: There's a bunting!

- SHERRY: And so, you can always count on seeing a lot of bird activity.

- There's the jay over on the feeder again!

- BIRDER: Oh yeah!

- BIRDER: Oh man!

Tons of birds!!

[paddles splashing] - SCOTT: For the kids, there's a number of opportunities where you can hop in the tube, float for two, two and a half hours down the South Llano River and get back out and do it again.

- Definitely the hidden gem out there.

It's got a small little shoot area, the current's not too fast.

Great for children that are like 12 and under, that want to float a river that's not too hectic.

I consider it really safe for children, so that's pretty much why we really come here!

- HOLLY PLATZ: You don't often think about the kind of bugs that live in the river.

- KID: Get em!

- HOLLY: Sweep it against the plants, and then dump it into your bucket, ok. - KID: The bug!

- DAD: You got a bug!

We caught something!

- It's neat for the kids to get out and play in the water, as well as find out about the different bugs that live in the water!

Look at this!

- I got a beetle!

- HOLLY: Any activity they're in nature, and they're discovering things!

Hold it real flat there you go!

It's priceless though really to see them all get excited about everything!

[water splashes] - SCOTT: The entire park is great for hiking and biking trails!

Any time you want to hop on your mountain bike, you have over 25 miles of trails!

I like to mountain bike back here because there's not a lot of other people back here!

[bike rumble on trail] Twenty-one hundred acres is a lot land to go play around on a mountain bike.

It's nice that as soon as you get back here in the back country with your bike, you really don't hear anything but birds and the wind!

[grill sizzles] - DAD: You all ready to eat!

- It's not a big park, you know, you're not going to have party crowds out here.

And it's a very family-oriented park!

You know, and it's quiet too!

[fire crackles] - SCOTT: We are an international dark sky park.

- RANGER: Those little spots are moons!

- SCOTT: If we're having a star party, people can come, we have interpretative ranger that will show you all the constellations of the sky!

[bird sings] [bee buzzing] [wind blows] We go to our parks, there's that primitive feel!

And even though you can be sitting in the campground with 50 other campers, you only walk a hundred yards and you're going to be all alone in the woods!

[water riffle] And that's what makes it special, because there is space to be had out here.

[gentle wind blows] [waves crashing] - WELDON: This is the Packery Channel.

We're on the North side.

It's my favorite spot.

[waves crashing] To me, this was one of the most natural places I can be, you know, in the ocean, in the water at the beach.

[waves crashing] I feel like this is such a luxury.

I don't know how many times I just give thanks.

[waves crashing] - SHAWN: It's like a small surf community out here.

It's a place you can come and just kind of relax and just get away from everyday, struggles or problems that you might deal with.

You can come out here and be yourself.

It's a real friendly crowd.

[waves crashing] It's good for any age.

There's people out here that are 70 years old and all the way from kids out here that are, five years old.

And you just come out here and, have some fun and catch some waves.

[waves crashing] -LEAH: For me surfing is, is a way that I connect with nature.

and with myself.

It's really important to connect body mind spirit.

There's something about surfing that really does that for me.

And I think for a lot of people.

[waves crashing] - Out here, we're all equal.

We're all doing the same thing.

We're after the same goals.

There's nothing, it's you and nature and, and your freedom.

And it doesn't matter what color you are or how much money is in your bank account or anything.

You're out here with people of all walks of life.

Just killing it.

[waves crashing] [waves crashing] -WELDON: This is my escape into nature and to connect and you leave all your baggage at the beach.

And you just let that stuff go.

[waves crashing] It's kind of like a Texas Point Break.

[laughing] [dramatic music] - When we think of Texas, we think of wide open spaces.

We think of vast forests.

We think of mountains off in the distance.

We think of the Milky Way coming out at night [crickets chirping] and we're losing our sense of place as we see that landscape change.

And the simple fact is that Texas, the state of Texas is losing working lands faster than any other state in the nation.

We're seeing land converted from open space to urban uses and suburban uses and commercial uses faster than we ever have in history.

- NARRATOR: Less than five percent of the land in Texas is public property, open for everyone to enjoy.

Ted Hollingsworth runs the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's Land Conservation Program.

He considers it a calling to find new property to preserve.

- TED: Our mission really is, you know, those children that we see that are here probably from some urban area and some of 'em are maybe seeing an alligator for the first time.

And that's really important and I get that.

- Look at him.

- But my personal bias is that I wanna make sure that alligator has a place to live and it has enough space that it can grow to be 12 or 13 or 14 feet long.

And one of the ways that we can really help offset this loss of land and loss of conservation is by land acquisition.

When I became the director of the Land Conservation Program, not only did we not get appropriated a single dime in state money for land acquisition but we were specifically given no authority to use state money to acquire land.

Which meant that if you wrote me a check for a million dollars and you said, "Ted, please add land to Brazos Bend State Park," it was worthless.

[upbeat music] - NARRATOR: Thankfully, things have changed.

In the past 20 years, more state and federal money has been freed up to buy land and it's now the law in Texas that several million dollars from the sporting goods sales tax is set aside every year for land acquisition.

- TED: Fortunately, things have changed a lot in the last 20 years.

There's more funding available.

There's more state funds available to match the federal funds.

We have more opportunities than ever.

- NARRATOR: Ted Hollingsworth has seized those opportunities, helping to ensure 90% of Texans are now within an hour's drive of public outdoor spaces.

- TED: Maybe my favorite would be Palo Pinto Mountains State Park.

Powderhorn, of course you know, had a lot of partners and a lot of players.

We were blessed to add 304 acres to this park a couple of years ago.

- So this land acquisition that we have out here is gonna allow us to expand not just campsites, not just group sites, but also expand the diversity of what we have to offer.

- In the 18 years, 17 years that I've been director of the program, we've averaged right at 10,000 acres a year added to the department's lands: wildlife management areas, coastal management areas, state parks.

I haven't run the numbers lately but I'm guessing we're pushing 200,000 acres.

My wife spent her entire career as a first-grade teacher, as an elementary school teacher.

What's important to her is that children, you know, get away from these things and have a relationship, understand their place in the world.

What's important to me is that we preserve the place in the world so that her children have access to it.

So it really means a lot to us to be able to see these places and especially see the children come and have that out-of-the-classroom experience.

[birds chirp] [birds chirp] [birds chirp] [birds chirp] [birds chirp] [birds chirp] [birds chirp] [birds chirp] [birds chirp] [birds chirp] [birds chirp] - NARRATOR: This series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding is provided by Toyota.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Toyota--Let's Go Places.