Eastern Texas and Family (Day 17 Road Trip)

 The Ratcliff campsite was so good (and the showers so clean) we decided to camp for the next four nights while we are in the Lufkin area. This morning I was able to catch a snap of what we believe is a cardinal. All you bird experts feel free to correct me.

I couldn’t resist capturing a photo of Joe at our campsite early this morning. He was so relaxed!

Today we spent time with my cousin Teresa Johnson and her husband, Johnny. We met up with them at their home in Lufkin, Texas this morning and headed on out to their property on Sam Rayburn Lake, about an hour from Lufkin. The lake is off the Angelina River. Johnny was hauling a backhoe out to move dirt.

Once at the property, we took a tour of their 20+ acres in a mud buggy. Teresa snapped a photo of Johnny, Joe, and me. Joe and I enjoyed the tour and the opportunity to be out in nature.

After the tour, Johnny started moving dirt, we went into town for lunch (grilled catfish and breaded shrimp for me, grilled catfish for them. We ate Blue Bell Ice Cream – specifically Butter Crunch. It is easily the absolute best ice cream I have ever eaten). After lunch we went back to the lake property and Johnnie did some more dirt moving (see photo). Joe, Teresa, and I sat on a covered porch area and while Teresa and I chatted – Joe napped.

Then it was back to town where we had the opportunity to meet Teresa and Johnnie’s youngest daughter, Jennifer, and her husband Jay Murray. A little later Teresa and Johnny’s eldest granddaughter, Kamryn Davis, brought by her baby girl – Landrie. All in all, it was a wonderful day of visiting and catching up. I last saw Teresa face-to-face in 1990. She is still the same sweet, funny, sassy person I was in awe of back then. She is a year younger than Joe and Johnny is a year older than Joe. Both have loads of vitality.

They are planning to build a house on their lake property. I told them if I built a house on their property, I’d never move back to town!

Teresa’s dad and my dad were half-brothers. Though my dad (Kenneth Karnes) never considered his brother Dewey (known to us as Uncle Junior) as a half-brother. Uncle Junior was my grandfather’s first-born child. Junior’s mom died within days of childbirth and his father married Vivian and had six more children. Junior left home when he was young. If memory serves me, Junior was sixteen when he struck out on his own. For many years he worked the pipelines and travelled around the world. Teresa is the middle child of Junior and my Aunt Alice (she was one of my very favorite people in the entire world as I was growing up. She had this wonderful accent and was petite. Oh, but she had a wonderful sense of humor!

Aunt Alice and Uncle Junior have three children – Kathy, Teresa, and David. We will meet Kathy and some of her family tomorrow. Aunt Alice and Uncle Junior have passed on. Aunt Alice in 1999 and Uncle Junior in 2022. Over the years, I always meant to come back to visit them in Texas. Time has a way of getting away from us.

So today. I was here amongst family again. It was an exceptionally good day.

Enjoy a few of the photos captured today. Teresa took a number of them for me as my cellphone died earlier in the day. Due to technical difficulties I will have to wait and upload more tomorrow.

P.S. We have not seen any alligators nearby. There are bugs though. Lots of bugs. I swear some are the size of hummingbirds.