I’m sorry, life catches up with me and drags me away from the puter long enough that I forget to post or just have so many things to post about I can’t decide what to do next. I should finish the San Antonio trip first, however, we have more pressing things to post about. Later trips… about 150 miles of fog through Victoria, about the secret to eating cheap on vacation, and about the latest trip.. back to Lufkin.
I can go a little longer without a long drive than I can without sex.. and that’s not very long. About three weeks and I start getting really twitchy. Need to go. Soon. Want to experience. The pines and swamps have been calling me, and after a little discussion with Jacob, we decided we could go… but only if we didn’t spend hardly any money, and if we were back that very night. Deal. As long as I can go for a little while, I’m happy.
Up at 5am… well, he’s up. I’m slightly less than enthusiastic about being up that early, so around 5:30 I finally haul my keister out of bed. A shower and a glorious cup of coffee made with generations tried and true Valdez family recipe… started with Juan Valdez… or as he is better known, Don Juan Valdez.. not known so much for his sexual prowess, but for the glorious cup of coffee afterwards. But I digress…
Stepping out for a smoke into the predawn silence. Rooster crowing in the distance, birds twittering at the hint of light, the world is just on the cusp of waking, and its the perfect morning to go. The air is heavy with the scent of rain, cool, but inviting. Come. The world is waiting to be explored.
Back in I go, and I go into high gear, sandwiches, snacks, and drinks are stowed in the cooler. The fold-up picnic table is fetched from the attic, and off we go. Before the sun is even up, its 6:30 in the morning, and we’re on the road… and never fails, whenever I go home to east Texas, it rains.
Ennis is passed by, with their wonderful kolaches. Corsicana is passed by with their chocolate factory and the pecan place. Palestine is passed by, with all the memories of that city. And then we start getting hungry. Chattering along, hadn’t really mentioned food, when around the bend in Elkhart there’s a doughnut shop. Ooooh… doughnuts. Sound good? YEAH!
I love small town Texas. Chattering with folks, they’re commenting how nuts everybody is to be up at 9 on a Saturday morning. … I neglect to mention that we’ve been up since 5ish just for a nice long drive. I can’t help but mention how friendly folks are when we’re out wandering. It doesn’t matter where we are, they’re still nice and you always end up with amusing tales afterwards.
Back on the road with doughnuts and coffee in hand, headed towards the deep forest, I am just happy. Its good to be free and alive and experiencing life again.
We pass by Kennard (with the surliest waitress in the universe) and Ratcliff, and turn into the forest. I think they did some road work out here, cause its less… wild than it was before. Its actually a gravel road, and at least 2 cars wide at that!
A sign is seen that we Officially remember that we did not see before, and turn down a narrower dirt road, leaving all trace of gravel or pavement behind. A last house, a car parked on the side of the road, a narrow one car “bridge” that’s just a couple timbers spanned over a swamp / creek. and we’re deep in the wilderness. Alternating between deep pine forests and swamp on either side. Craning our necks out the windows looking for gators or other wildlife, the only thing we see are birds.. but you can tell there’s more out there. You just can’t see it. Further in we go and the road gets smaller… small enough that I’m glad we’re in my tiny car cause otherwise it may get too narrow.. til we come to a mud pit. I seem to have this knack for finding the biggest potholes in whatever county we’re in… and this one is worthy of that title. Wider than the road, longer than my car, with ruts in it that I know I’d bottom out if I tried to go through them, I pause for a moment, line it up the best I can, and go for it. A minor bit of fishtailing, and damn near getting stuck, and my perfectly clean and shiny car absolutely COVERED in mud, we’re out… and laughing our asses off thinking about how we’re going to tell Angela about it.
We keep going for a bit, and suddenly find we’re on blacktop again.. that makes no sense though, as the road is supposed to dead end into the Nechez river. What the hell… did someone just dump a load of tar out here? After about a hundred feet the blacktop goes away, the road (as much as you could call it one) peters out til it simply stops. We stop, get out of the car, and can’t see the river.. but there’s the birds. Standing there, miles and miles away from civilization, from the nearest people, listening to the birds in the deep forest, my love’s arms around me.. the perfect moment of the trip is found.
We’re so close to the river, its supposedly just right over that ridge over there, it’d be a shame to not check it out. We start hiking through the forest in the direction of the river and I’m in heaven. I’m noticing so much plant life.. even though its late January, there’s still things growing, still things green, and there’s all the mushrooms. This is my home. I may not have been born here, but I’ve always loved the swampland. I can’t understand how people could find it creepy.. its so alive, so invigorating. The river was gorgeous, and we found a huge old pine that’d fallen out over it, and climbed up on top of it, and on the river to sit and listen… and that’s when it started raining. Nothing too nasty, and unfortunately not even a hint of thunder, but a light cool rain.. that sounded amazing. The entire place smells like life to me.. then add water. Water above, water below me, water all around me. Countless birds chattering away all around us, the rain in the leaves and on the water, watching the river slowly pass us by. Life doesn’t get much better than this.
We start talking about canoeing.. one of my all time favourite things to do outdoors, and how this river would be quite challenging to try to get down because its all choked with trees. Not too far away is Silsbee and a canoe rental place down there that I had been to a long time ago.. do we want to rent a canoe for the day and go paddling? Why not? Its a beautiful, if still rather wet, day. Why not?
Eventually we start heading back to the car to get going and Jacob takes the lead. I’m engrossed looking at the vegetation of the area, and am grateful when we finally hit what feels like a game trail to me. The ground is less spongy, more solid than the rest of what we’ve been slogging through… when he confuses me. I noticed a trail when we left where the car was parked, but before we get all the way back to it, he veers off the trail. I dunno.. maybe he has a shortcut in mind?
After slogging through the bog, and what I swear to god must have been peat moss, he turns around and asks me “what do you think” …. what do I think? I think I’m enjoying myself out here and following you! A little later on, he says he has a rough idea what direction the road is, but doesn’t know where we parked the car… Well, my most wonderful love, it was right off the trail you left back there… “Trail?” Apparently the city boy doesn’t recognize a game trail when he’s on it. *officially teasing my love here*
I turn us around and start heading back to the trail, when I spot something white we’d passed before. Originally I’d passed it up, thinking it was some kind of trash, but this time I veer towards it. Its not trash, its the bottom of a turtle shell! A really big, almost perfect condition, turtle shell! He gets to carry that out, and I lead us back to the car with no further incidents other than enjoying being outside on a lovely long hike.
After getting us back down that mud track, and back over the pit, we make it back to the road safely.. and turn east again. Towards Lufkin, Kountze, and eventually Silsbee. The road opens up before us, the skies open up above us, and laughter fills the car once more.
Leave a comment