Brushy Creek Soundwalk

We have decamped from the inner rings of Austin to the suburb of Round Rock, TX. It’s April 7th, 2023.

When I’m scouting a map for a good place to record a soundwalk, I look for trails through natural areas that have some sort of buffer in the way topography or distance from highways and arterial roads. In Round Rock, one of those places is the Brushy Creek Regional Trail, and the buffer, as it turns out, is the enormous property on which was built the Kalahari Resort, presently America’s largest indoor water park.

How big? The resort compound boasts a total of 1.5 million square feet of indoor space. The water park is 223,000 sf with 30 water slides and 20 pools. The hotel has 975 rooms and suites. The site also boasts an 80,000 sf adventure park, a 200,000 sf convention center, a 10,000 sf shopping area, 20 dining outlets, and a spa & salon. It is a small encapsulated city.

Kalahari Resort with Brushy Creek Green Belt in the foreground.

Now, I’m not here to judge Kalahari Resort. Well, maybe a little. I mean it strikes me as kind of a landlocked cruise ship, recalling in some respects the Axiom Space Cruiser from the movie Wall-E, with its always-72˚ razzle-dazzle cocooned-ness, but I haven’t been there, and I happen to have fond memories of water parks.

When I was in the 6th grade I travelled with my dad to Orlando, Florida. It was the only flight I was took as a child. Disneyworld and EPCOT were fun, but Wet’n’Wild, one of the country’s first modern water parks, really excited me and captured my imagination.

Back to the soundwalk. I was strolling along the paved path, and I glanced over in the direction of the creek canyon. Under a flimsy wire fence, a stormwater spillway led down to smooth rocky basin that Brushy Creek meandered through. I skittered carefully down the slide and was transported to a magical place. The light glittered on the riffling water. A Snowy Egret stood sentinel. Cardinal song ricocheted off the stone walls. I couldn’t help but feel like I walked into a superior water park, admission-free. I mean it wasn’t a thrill ride, obviously, but it engaged my senses, and offered its own kind of thrills.

Now if I told you that clip was from a national park, would you question it? I mean c’mon. It’s glorious! It’s priceless! And it its hidden between the nation’s largest water park and a suburban development.

I love finding these overlooked spaces: undeveloped, sometimes difficult to access, tucked into the fabric of our civilizations. I encourage you to look at maps of your own region for quirky public spaces that might offer a sense of refuge and discovery in the midst of so much sprawl.

Lastly, a word about the music. The backbone of the arrangement is a wobbly, stylized Wurlitzer electric piano. Plucky (mandolin, zither, “Panjo”) and fuzzy (synthesizer) sounds are latched to this scaffolding in turns. Some parts are sparser than others. Generally speaking it’s all melodic, sometimes concretely, sometimes vaguely.

This was a very memorable walk and I’m happy to share it with you! Thanks for listening.

Brushy Creek Soundwalk is available on all streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple, Tidal, Amazon, YouTube…) Friday, August 2nd.