Photos to enjoy in Quarantine

Its 2020 and it looks like we will be in quarantine for the remainder of the year. We have managed to enjoy a lot of local nature sights and sounds, socially distanced of course. Enjoy!

One of the interesting developments during Covid is that most of the parks have been open at only a limited capacity. That means that once they get full for the day the doors close. The parks in Texas get pretty crowded during the summer, especially if it has someplace to swim. One thing I have noticed is that the parks are just far more enjoyable with less people. There is less trash, less crowds, less fighting for leg room near the river. I understand the desire to have parks open and available for as many people that want to enjoy them as possible. However, there is a carrying capacity of a place. What happens when our enjoyment of a place turns into a negative thing? Should there be limits to how many can enter a park per day?

One of the most perfect examples of crowd control is Jacobs well (pictured here). A park that regularly has 60 people allowed to swim in this small area every 2 hours. Now during Covid that number was lowered to 20. It was an awesome experience, no crowding, no issues with people getting injured, and places to sit and relax. In an area so small as Jacobs well I can not imagine 60 people crammed into this swimming hole. At the same time, the park needs to make money, it has to stay operational and it is running into a lot of community pushback as people don’t want to have to reserve a time slot to swim. Moving forward as our population in this area grows, more parks are considering moving to a reservation style for visits.