Hey Everyone,

Heading on a spur-of-the-moment road trip in a couple of days to East Texas and the Big Thicket area. Any ideas for scenic drives from the Austin area and back? Suggestions for any special sites, restaurants/cafes or lodgings welcome, too. Looking for historical, offbeat, casual fun.

Thanks!

Here's one that can be fun, especially for kids:

www.texasstaterailroad.com

can't advise you on any specific drives, but here are a few suggestions in NE Texas.

Longview- Barron's Bookstore, has a great cafe in it for both lunch and dinner. You will need reservations definitely for dinner, not sure about lunch. It also has a great gift shop attached to it. Not sure what else there is to see in Longview, but there are a number of midcentury/antique stores on one edge of downtown. and if like miniature golf, maybe the South Green golf course is still around. It's on South Green Street as you would expect. There's also a restaurant for great burgers, The Butcher Shop, they also have great cookies and cakes.

Scottsville - tiny little blip on the road. Not even sure it is still a real town, but it is known for its historic and charming cemetary with lots of statues.

Kilgore - The East Texas Oil Museum is a great find. I think it has been updated recently, even dated, it was a great charming little museum that talks about the East Texas Oil Boom. Kilgore has also been erecting memorial derricks that approximate what the town It's nowhere close to what it was really like as apparently there were oil rigs on every corner literally, but it is a great approximation. There's also a great shop in Kilgore 279 or something like that. Maybe 315? It's the number of the address of the shop.
Thrifty Liquor a.k.a. Mary Ann's a rabbitlike warren of a liquor store. Worth a walk through just because it is so funky. Just outside of town is the Country Tavern barbecue. Not sure of the quality these days as the matriarch is no longer living, but if you are in the mood for barbeque and most of all ribs, worth a thought.

Caddo Lake/ Uncertain Texas. Take a boat tour of Caddo Lake. I've always wanted to do this. You can google Caddo Lake Boat Tours to see options.

Jefferson - precious, cute quaint town. The East Texas version of Fredricksburg. Lots of antique stores, B&Bs. There's a really good restaurant whose name I am blanking on. And I am not sure if it has a b&B with it. There's also a railroad in Jefferson (i think) and of course Caddo Lake is rght there.

Not sure about Nacogdoches, but I remember stopping in there as a child on drives to Houston and going to some antique shops. Who knows what it is like now?

Also, Hwy 59 to Houston has shops and country stores the whole way.

Thanks rkkwan and williamscb13~ many good ideas. We found a promising canoe outfitter in the Big Thicket area, which is somewhere we've never been before. We will have two days to road trip around before we have to be there for the canoe trip. Is there anything intereting in the Beaumont/Port Arthur area?

Stop somewhere and get a Texas travel guide. They have the biggest & best guide as any other state in the US. Or go to a Triple A travel office and get one. They have them for every state too, but they are diff than the official Texas guide.

Thanks again to everyone...heading out today!