Episode Transcript
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And joining us today is shot achick with things to do in Southeast Texas.
And I'll tell you thanks for comingby, because I think a lot
of people do not realize all thethings that you can do for practically no
money or very little money in SoutheastTexas. Absolutely, and there are so
many things to do that are freeor low costs. And I think that's
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one of the things that with thesummer and a lot of folks may be
on a tight budget, are justlimited time. They think you gotta go
out of town, you have togo far away to have fun, But
not true at all. We've gotso many things here in Southeast Texas that
many people I suspect have never beento. I'd have to agree it's amazing.
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I had not been to the ShangriLaw Botanical Gardens until last year and
lived here, of course, knowall about it. And I think you'll
find a lot of people when youmentioned some of these things, they know
about it, and you say,have you ever been there? And oh
no, But with the kids outof school, why don't you tell us
a few things that you could dothat low costs, take your kids too,
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and have some fun. All right? So when we talked about doing
this, so many ideas flooded inthat I decided to put them into a
couple of buckets. So the bucketsare buckets of free events. So we
didn't even cover low costs. Thatwould add hundreds of events to this list.
So libraries, museums, parks,and volunteer opportunities. All right,
all right, So we'll start withthe Beaumont Public Library System. Amazing,
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amazing group. They house all theirlibraries. It's under this this name,
and so you just look for themon social media and they'll tell you about
all the events taking place at allthe different libraries and some of the really
interesting ones. We don't always thinkabout cool, unique events at a library,
but our libraries are amazing. Theyhave movie nights, free computer classes,
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story time at the farmers market.They have workshops where you can learn
different things from the master gardeners.Rcy Miller has a Friday walking group,
a Spice of the Month club whereyou can learn about different spices and how
to use them. And they alsohave really cool family game backpacks that you
can check out and then check rightback in like a book. And then
Theodore John's they have a monthly crochetCafe, which right, I thought it
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was really interesting. Yeah, andthey have a monthly Pinterest party, and
then Bingos Bingo is on Mondays,and then Main Street has crafty Kids every
Monday, Lego Pullus on Friday,a book club, and then you have
the Tarrell where they have genealogy workshopsso you can learn how to map your
family tree. It's very very cool. And those are just the ones in
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Beaumont. So then when you starttalking about Port Arthur, they have coding
classes, and then Buna has thingslike rock painting, snake education, and
Orange has done really cool things lately. They have they had a hobby fair.
They have an escape room and thenthey play mini golf in the library
an escape room in the line.Yeah, yeah, that's pretty clever.
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So a lot of these, again, these are free, free they're all
over Southeast Texas. You can findout about them by going to where things
to Do in Beaumont and sets onFacebook and Instagram. There's a weekly list
posted every Sunday of more than onehundred things to do in Southeast Texas on
that week. Things to do inSoutheast Texas Yes and again Facebook find it
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and things listed every week We've neverbelieved all this, and you're just touched
on libraries, just libraries. Westill have museums, parks and volunteer opportunities.
What about museums museums, So thisis not an exhaustive list. This
is just a couple that are freeand open to the public. You had
the Art Museum of Southeast Texas.They're always free, and they had this
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really great Southern style brunch on Mondaysat two Magnolia's Cafe that's located in the
Art Museum, and then on Fridaysthey have an amazing buffet. Again that's
not free, but the art museumis to go see the exhibits, and
then they have regularly scheduled events liketheir family Art Day, their monthly book
club, and then gallery openings andother things. Then you have the Edison
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Museum, which I have not hada chance to go to yet. I
still need to make it over thereover by Edison Plaza. I've beat you
to that one. I have beenthere, and it is an amazing collection
of the things that Thomas Edison,yes ahead and some of the things that
he used in his workshops, andjust an amazing collection of things. And
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I think most people never would thinkthat Thomas Edison artifacts are in Beaumont,
Texas. It's amazing and when youstart looking at what he invented, you
don't realize all of the things thatall the things he invented, and you
see a lot of those things atthe Edison Museum. And the museums are
fun. They are fun for thekids too, And of course we're talking
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about things you can do that areno cost for kids, are very low
cost, but really the adults aregoing to enjoy this just as much as
the kids. Absolutely sometimes more.Yeah, if you don't have any kids,
sneak off and do these things.Yeah. And so you also have
this dark Museum of Art and Orange, also free, and it's incredible.
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They have great workshops for teachers duringthe year, pottery workshops. They recently
did painting with porcelain, Penn's workshop, They have play dates and it's just
an insanely unique and interesting museum thatwe went to for the first time about
a month ago, so I couldn'tbelieve we hadn't been, And I think
a lot of people are in thesame boat. Sometimes you just don't leave
Beaumont or Port Arthur or wherever you'reliving and it's worth making that little drive
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to check out these places. Andthen the last museum we're focusing on is
the Fire Museum of Texas, thelargest working fire hydrant I think in the
world. Nobody's challenged it, right, nobody has challenged And of course the
fire trucks there. Yeah, kidsalways love fire trucks, great history,
including the little cab setup where thekids can actually get into a firetruck and
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be driving a firetruck. Great photoopportunity for the kids, trying the bunker
geary, the bunker gear on,and just have a lot of fun.
And the Fire Museum is one ofthe most popular museums actually in Southeast Texas.
I guess probably the Museum of theGulf Coast is one of the others
that is very, very popular asthey come to see the Channis Joplin exhibit
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and so many of the other things. And we didn't include that one because
it's not free, but that isone of our favorite museums. That is
one of my favorites. In yourbody. It's not free, but it's
a great museum in a little likethe Stark Museum, and that it is
very eclectic, yes, very veryeclectic museum. There's something there for everyone.
Well, okay, we got thebuckets. What's our next next bucket
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is my favorite bucket? Parks.So we love parks in Southeast Texas.
There's over forty parks in our area. Thirty five of those are in Beaumont.
Really yes, and they're all amazing. They all have something different.
So some have splash pads, somehave nature centers, some have walking trails.
So it's really worth figuring out whatyou like and finding a park that
align. So that because almost positivethere is one, but we could take
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up an hour just talking about that, so we're only gonna focus on one,
which is our favorite park, andthat is Tarrell Park. So at
this one park, you have catTail Marsh, you have a Wetlands Education
Center. You have free yoga onSaturdays at nine thirty am. You have
the Education Center where they do freecrafts each week, Van Tour's Archery,
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you can go see the horses.You can play disc golf for free where
you can rent the disc from thenature center. And then they also have
the botanical gardens and you can playgolf, and golf is the only one
that's not free on that list everythingelse in that park. You can spend
a whole day participating in free activitiesjust at Tarrell Park. It's amazing.
It is an amazing park. There'sa lot more than people think of at
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that park. And have gone tothe Cattail Marsh, went down there,
and that's you don't realize you're inBeaumont. You're walking through there and you've
just driven and parked, and suddenlyyou're in the marsh. Yeah, and
watching alligators. It's incredible, justincredible and again free, free, and
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you start talking and you learn thattwo migratory patterns across each other. There's
more than two hundred species of birdsright in our backyard. And they'll there's
people out there who will teach youhow to bird, how to identify what
you're looking at. So it's areally good educational opportunity or a date night.
It's really a great place to gettrue great placed. Some of the
others right next one is Village CreekState Park. So I'm gonna look at
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state parks and a national preserve.So Village Creek it is free if you
have the State Parks pass, whichis about seventy five dollars for a family
well worth. They can get allall your state parks for free, and
in Texas you don't need a fishinglicense to fish in state parks and they'll
normally provide you with the tackle forfree. You can rent it, so
that worth is weight in gold.We have used it so much so Village
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Creek State Park it's four dollars forentry, but if you have a state
park pass, it's free. Theyhave a really cool fitness trail that was
built by a Girl Scout troop,and so there's all these different fitness apparatus
that you can do while you're walking. You can bring kids or go on
your own. And then they nowhave paddle board and canoe rentals. The
canoes are like seven dollars an hourand paddleboards or twenty, so that's not
free, but it is at thepark. And then they have a ton
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of events that are really really interestinglike medicinal plant hikes, night hikes,
learn to canoe events, things likethat. And then the next park is
Sea Raum State Park which is inSabine Past. They also have a lot
of great fishing opportunities crabbing. Theyhave the tackle that you can use,
they have Gambouja Trail, which isa nice birding trail that was redone and
it's really just an awesome place togo. And then the last one is
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Big Thicket National Preserve incons They havean awesome museum in there that people don't
really know about. It talks aboutthe nine different ecosystems that exist in the
Big Thicket. And then you canalso go on really cool hikes. They
have carnivorous plant heights, sunset canoetrips, and so much more. There's
just tons of time. I wasfascinated to find out we have carnivorous plants.
I was fascinated by that and theeco systems and such a lot of
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things people don't realize. So it'sjust again it's amazing. Shot a chick
with us as talking about things todo in Southeast Texas. Go to Facebook
and find it things to do inSoutheast Texas well, things doudent bolm on
it. Southeast Texas is officially howyou're going to get there, but it
is amazing all of these things,or as you mentioned, free, We've
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managed a couple of low cost items, fun for the family, fun for
adults, just a lot to do. People get in the car and they're
driving, and they driving and theydrive, and they don't realize what probably
within thirty to forty minutes, sometimesliterally minutes, you've got all this right
here in southeast Texas exactly. Andthat's a great thing if you get with
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the kids out of school, theydon't have a lot of time, just
got a little bit of time.You can take these in and you know,
pull them away from the video games, show them a little nature,
show them some of these things.Now what else you got. So there's
a couple of volunteer opportunities we wantto highlight too, and these are just
really fun things, fun ways toget involved in the community. So the
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two we want to let y'all knowabout our Sleep and Heavenly Peace and the
Giving Field. So the Giving Fieldis this amazing garden located across from Saint
Ann's School in Beaumont. And whatthey do is they grow pounds and pounds
and pounds of produce and it goesto some other place, the Hospitality Center
and market to Hope. And thisis volunteer driven. They have a couple
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of people that work there. Butif you go out there on Tuesday between
seven thirty and nine thirty am Thursdaybetween four and six pm, or the
second Saturday from nine am to twelvepm. You can help weed the garden,
you can help harvest the produce,you can help with the chickens.
You can do all sorts of things. And it's a really low barrier opportunity.
You don't have to know anything.They know it all and they'll direct
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you and tell you exactly what todo and it is a ton of fun,
well learning opportunity. Yeah. Yeah, they have a master gardener working
out there now, so they reallyjust have loads of experience. So if
you're not experienced and feel a littleintimidated, it's a great place to go
get that experience. Yeah, andthen sleep in Heavenly Peace. Another awesome
organization. They have a bed buildthe second Saturday, I believe it is
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at nine am on Mileam Street andthat's their their home office, their headquarters,
and what they do is they buildbeds for kids in our community.
And Jack Seely who started the organizationhim and I can't remember who we started
it with, but they have aneed for four hundred and thirty six beds
currently. They have those requested andhe said he didn't realize there was such
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a great need in Southeast Texas forbeds for children, and so it's making
sure no kid us to sleep ona couch or a floor in our community.
Yeah, and you go help buildthese beds and they're already they're pretty
much ready to go. You don'thave to have a lot of skill for
this either. If you can holda sander and you are a great volunteer
for this opportunity and it just fillsyour heart. It's one of those those
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really really Southeast Texas. Yeah.Wow, Well we're half to have you
back from part two. There isobviously far board to do in Southeast Texas
than I ever imagined. Now again, if people want to know more and
they can follow this, it's easy. Yeah again, how they follow you?
They'll just go on Facebook or Instagram. Things to do in Boma in
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Southeast Texas. Every Sunday we putout a list of between one hundred and
one hundred and twenty things to doin our area, and there are always
that many things to do every singleweek. Wow. Hey, thanks for
being with us. You're welcome.Thanks for having me