Last weekend, I was headed back to Houston from Arkansas after a work trip. I got stuck in a barricaded lane in Texarkana and missed two exits since I couldn’t find a way out. That sent me on a backroads detour. I was a little annoyed at adding an extra half hour to my drive, but the simplicity of the backroads (that I’d never driven before) while listening to classic rock was also kind of soothing in a way. I kept having to check the map though to make sure I wouldn’t take more wrong turns. Then finally, I saw a sign for 59 and smiled. Highway 59 leads to home!

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been riding or driving on Highway 59. As a kid, it was to the lake house in East Texas. Then for a year, it was back-and-forth to college at SFA (before I got home-sick and switched to a local university). After college, it was chasing my heart to Lufkin, TX to visit my now husband. Now, together, we drive 59 going back to the same lake house and to visit his family in Northeast Texas.

Highway 59 reminds me of FM 99.3, the oldies station we listened to on our lake trips as kids. Tall, skinny pine trees…the sign we were almost to the lake house. Buying a watermelon from a boy on his front porch. Texas country music. Holidays to visit family. So many memories.

All of that reminiscing to lead into… This time last year, the art director at Houstonia Magazine sent me an email that landed at just the right time. My Tahoe was already packed up, and the kids and I were about 30 minutes out from heading to East Texas for a week at the lake. Did I want to shoot a travel feature on East Texas? YES, yes I did!!

Over the course of two weekends, I drove about 900 miles through East Texas. My assignment was to visit 4-5 specific places and then to add in any roadside finds I might stumble upon.

The first weekend, I started the trip in Northeast Texas heading south from my in-laws’ place to Martin Creek State Park. I hoped to spot a deer, but only found a snake. Lunch was a favorite (Bodacious BBQ), followed by an entertaining visit to Cherokee Trace Preserve, where my Tahoe was licked by donkeys and horned (is that a word?) by a cow of some sort. Multiple animals, including a massive camel got all into my personal space to say hello. Then after a night in Nacogdoches (the oldest town in Texas, as some proclaim), I briefly stopped to see Caddo mounds on the way to Mission Tejas, which was a gem of a park I’d like to revisit.

The following weekend, I headed north from Houston making my first stop at Huntsville State Park. It was a beautiful, quiet and foggy morning. But the fogged burned off as I made my way to the Blue Lagoon, a place that looks like it could be near Lake Tahoe, instead of less than 2-hours from Houston. From there, I made my way to Sam Rayburn and visited endless spots looking for a specific destination for a starry night photo that I didn’t end up making happen. Something about being a lone woman in the boonies after dark didn’t quite sit well…I’d prefer not to be a headline. I rounded out that weekend with sunrise shots at Boykin Springs Recreational Area and lunch in Livingston at a cute cafe called Katie’s (because that’s the name of one of my high school BFFs).

Thanks for following along on this little tour of East Texas. Enjoy the views I saw along the way. Do you have a project that calls for travel photography? I’d be glad to collaborate and help tell that story.