Lake Somerville State Park

A mid-Texas resident by choice, I've decided to visit Texas parks. My husband and I have an RV in which we can travel in comfort. The goal is an average of one a month, seeking out what makes the park different from other parks. My plan: catch an employee and ask, "What makes your workplace unique?"

While I'm at the park, I plan to take about an hour and pick up trash. I'll take a picture of what I find and also note what might be different from ordinary trash finds. I pick up trash around my home streets once a month and know what I find there. I'm going to compare pictures of what I find in my travels to see if there are different cast-offs in each place.
 
My first step in this endeavor was to go to Lake Somerville State Park, Birch Creek Unit. When I stopped at the visitor's center, I was informed the building, built in 2006, is a green & sustainable building. Talk about finding the treasure immediately! Sustainable features of the Visitor's Center are:

*Rainfall harvester
*85 percent sustainable lumber
*75 percent fly ash concrete
*Natural day lighting design reduces need for electric lighting
*Salvaged oil pipe framing
*Environmentally friendly paint used
*Recycled blue jean denim insulation
*Native landscape

Yes, this is the visitor's center.

Lake Somerville State Park, Birch Creek Unit is a great place to hike or bike. It has nine hiking trails on the Lake Somerville Trailway. These trails total 13.11 miles long and connect the Birch Creek Unit with the Nails Creek Unit of Somerville State Park.

My trash pick-up was difficult since the area around the lake path (and beach) I searched had very little trash that was easily found. I had to look in bushes and still found very little. There was part of a Styrofoam item...probably a cooler. It was different from my home litter but may be a common find in parks.

And this was the trash I found around the lake. It was clean!

I'm looking forward to future trips to other Texas parks!