Dad and Mom Go On A Retreat

Dad and I took a camping vacation the week before Thanksgiving. We drove to Rusk, Texas and caught the steam train that took us to Lake Palestine.

Dad in front of Engine 201. You get on the train in the morning and ride about 3 hours.

Here is the train at the beginning of our trip.

Here's the cute train station.

Here's the train going along. The scenery was beautiful with lots of trees and fall foliage.

Relaxing on the train.

This is the diesel engine that came to our rescue when old Engine 201 gave out.

Our beautiful camping spot in the train campground.

We visited these Caddo Indian burial grounds. They were people related to those who built the big mounds in Ohio and central United States. It was interesting to view their lifestyle. They built teepee like structures using wood and bark. At one time there were thousands of them, now only a few decendents exist and they live in Oklahoma.

Our campsite at Lake Livingston. It is hard to get a good picture because you are only seeing about 15 feet of the trees that are around 60-70 feet tall. It was a beautiful place to camp.

There was thing random phone booth on the road. Didn't work at all.

An attempt at a picture to show the tall pine trees.

I took this picture with my camera pointing up to get the top of the tree. This was just amazing to me to see these tall pine trees.

Sitting up top of the wooden structure that sits on the edge of the lake.

Dad enjoyed viewing and climbing this wooden structure. We had no idea who built it or why they built it. It was just very cool and a fun way to view the large Lake Livingston.

We hauled our canoe the whole trip and had some trouble finding a suitable place to canoe. Lake Livingston was too big and full of choppy waves, the other lakes we camped out were pretty small. We did have fun the two times we went out. Rowing in much harder work than I thought, even with Dad doing most of the work. We were good for about an hour out at a time.

They had these cool log cabins at Buecher Lake. We saw them from the lake and then later check them out. They looked great inside with beds, kitchen and a great balcony. We should all go there sometime.

Some of the pretty fall scenery.

Beautiful trees to look at when we were canoeing.

We also went hiking while we were at Bastrop Lake. There were lots of trails and lots of these purple bushes.

It's so hard to get a good picture of what your eyes are taking in. It was just lots and lots of forest filled with bushes, more trees and more bushes.

Our campsite was below where the van is parked. We would go to bed at dark and wake up at 4 AM. We enjoyed lots of good meals fixed out on the stove. Dad made great campfires. We did alot of resting and taking in the scenery. It was an enjoyable trip. We loved being together for 5 whole days and nights.

I thought this was a funny shot. We are camping, but we have to plug in our cell phones, camera, battery charger etc. What would our pioneer ancestors think of us?