Resaca de la Palma Puts Brownsville's Brush and Water in One Park

A resaca is an old, cut-off bend of the Rio Grande, a curving channel of still water that loops through the Brownsville area. Resaca de la Palma State Park, right inside the city, protects one of those channels and the thornscrub crowding around it, and it's about the easiest place to see what Cameron County looked like before the subdivisions.

More than eight miles of trail thread the brush, and four decks lean out over the resaca, where green jays, kiskadees, and butterflies come in close. The surprise for first-timers is that your car stays at the gate. You move through on the tram, on foot, or by bike, and the quiet is exactly why the wildlife sticks around.

It's a node in the World Birding Center network, so spring and fall migration are when the brush really fills up. The rest of the year it stays one of the calmest patches of green in Brownsville, and an early morning here usually beats a midday visit in the Valley heat.