by Chip Chandler — Digital Content Producer
If the beautiful spring weather this week has you itching to get outside and enjoy some fresh air, Panhandle PBS will air several specials that could help you find the perfect destination.
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, we’ll encore Ken Burns’ and Dayton Duncan’s National Parks: America’s Best Idea. The six-part 2009 documentary series will air at 8 p.m. today through Saturday.
Filmed over the course of six-plus years, the series takes you from Acadia to Yosemite and everywhere in between.
“National Parks are the Declaration of Independence expressed on the landscape,” Duncan told USA Today. “We were the first nation in the history of mankind to say that the most special places should be set aside not for royalty, not for the rich, not for the well-connected, but for everyone and for all time.”
Panhandle PBS will complement the Burns documentary with some special broadcasts, as well.
The National Parks of Texas: In Contact with Beauty will air at 7 p.m. Tuesday as a lead-in for Night 2 of National Parks. The National Parks of Texas takes viewers on a journey through all 16 Texas National Parks.
Panhandle PBS producers Jackie Smith and Brian Frank shot footage of Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument on a recent rainy Sunday. The stunning red bluffs are home to a rainbow-hued flint that was used to create spear points and other tools. It was the only National Monument in Texas until 2015, with the creation of the Waco Mammoth National Monument.
Smith also visited Lake Meredith National Recreation Area to get footage.
You can get a sneak peek at 7 p.m. today with an interactive, online screening of the documentary’s first 30 minutes. The OVEE screening will take place at https://ovee.itvs.org/screenings/okars; register in advance to watch.
We’ll also rebroadcast our own 2009 special National Wonder of Texas: Palo Duro Canyon, tracking it from its prehistoric origins to its relevance today. That airs at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
* Chip Chandler is a digital content producer for Panhandle PBS. He can be contacted at Chip.Chandler@actx.edu, at @chipchandler1 on Twitter and at www.facebook.com/chipchandlerwriter on Facebook.
