Go outside, and experience the weather, woods, waters, and celebrated sites of your place.

“Why is it so quiet?” my son asked. “I don’t know,” I replied in a whisper, without knowing why. My children and I were visiting Seiders Springs, limestone artesian springs that lie along Shoal Creek in Austin, Texas. They’re framed by crowded city streets and two busy medical facilities, one on each bank of Shoal Creek, such that the quiet blanketing the path past the springs was arresting. Water babbled up through limestone to collect in shallow fern-framed pools. While we stood there listening, a couple of hospital workers walked by, chatting in hushed tones, enjoying the soft beauty and respite of natural springs in the heart of a bustling, rapidly-growing city.

My children stopped briefly to wonder at the improbability of water flowing from rock, then took off down the path, past the springs without…