We're back in TEXAS! (Canoeing at Caddo Lake + AMAZING Texas BBQ!)

Good to be back. Ten months ago we left Texas for the best adventure of our lives. We drove up the west coast of the United States all the way up British Columbia and through the Yukon to Alaska where we spent two and a half amazing months before tackling a crazy drive up to the Arctic Ocean in Canada and then heading back down to the lower 48 where we explored Spokane, Washington and spent our last few weeks on the road checking out new states for us including Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. And over the next two days we are officially making it back to Austin, Texas which for those of you new around here is our home base. I put it in quotes because we don't have a home besides this van. We just crashed in my parents house while we're there but it's technically our legal home. We are currently in southern Oklahoma where we just finished exploring some amazing nature spots and we have 40 miles until we cross back into Texas. We're back baby! Usually when we cross back into Texas we're eager to get home and we just rush back but over the next couple days we're going to be making a few fun stops along the way and first up we're going to a place we've wanted to go to for a really long time, Caddo Lake. There are over 7,000 lakes in Texas and for the longest time I thought Caddo Lake was the only natural lake in Texas. Turns out that isn't true. Whoops. There's actually many natural lakes in Texas and Caddo Lake isn't even totally natural. It actually was created by a huge log jam on the Red River which flooded one of its tributaries, the Big Cypress Bayou, forming Caddo Lake. These logs were eventually removed and they created a dam to keep the lake. But even so this lake looks incredible. It's famous for its cypress trees that are both in and along the water giving it such a unique appearance and to experience the lake we're renting a canoe because trees in the water plus the possibility of alligators just did not sound like a good idea with our inflatable kayak. My first time ever getting in a canoe. There are a bunch of different paddling trails here at Caddo Lake but we decided on the Cathedral Trail which is about four miles round trip and will take us through the lake's iconic cypress trees and there are a couple different access points to this trail with the most convenient being the Shady Glade Resort which does have a fee to launch your canoe or kayak there but I don't think they have rentals so instead we rented our canoe from Johnson's Ranch Marina which is only $35 for the whole day but unfortunately we only have a few hours until they close. The canoe here for a little bit. I gotta say even just a short amount of time I am loving the canoe way more than the kayak. There's just so much more room. You don't always get wet whenever you paddle every time. A plus on the canoeing. I always thought that I would feel very unstable and just unbalanced on a canoe because you're sitting up higher but I feel so sturdy on this thing. These trees are so gorgeous and they are all over the water. They have this spooky moss hanging down and the fall colors are still holding on so they have an orange hue to them and there's parts of I guess old trees that are just jutting out of the water that kind of look like teeth. This place has been on my Texas bucket list for so many years but we're never in this part of Texas so we made sure on our way down to come by this way so we could finally check it out and it is totally living up to my expectations. First canoeing trip was a success and it won't be the last. We had planned to take our time getting home today. We were going to make a few fun stops in Tyler but Mother Nature has other plans for us. There's some heavy storms in the forecast with maybe some hail, maybe even some tornadoes. That just doesn't sound like a good idea or very much fun to be driving through so we're just going to hit the road, make some miles and hopefully dodge the storm as much as possible. We do hope to make a delicious stop along the way. All right, it has officially started raining pretty hard. The wind is whipping us all over the road. For whatever reason, it just seems like the miles in Texas are just longer. Everything's bigger in Texas. That's what they say. I think it's just because I'm just excited for some Texas barbecue. Spoiler alert. That barbecue smoke is hitting me. Best smell in the world. I can't think of a better welcome home meal than Texas barbecue. We stopped in Belton, Texas to check out a place called Miller's Smokehouse. They're listed on the Texas monthly top 50 barbecue list and they not only have barbecue, they also have coffee. To start I got the campfire latte which has a nice smoky kind of chocolatey s'mores flavor and then of course we had to go big on the barbecue. We got a half rack of St. Louis style ribs, a whole pound of moist brisket, their green beans which I hear are really good and some buttery, creamy, cheesy, I forget the name, I think it's buttery potatoes. All right, we're going to start with the brisket because you know what they say, brisket is king. Oh, that's the bite right there, that burning part. Good to be back. That right there is what dreams are made of. Oh man, so smoky, so peppery. Oh man, so juicy, fatty. No one does it better. Texas barbecue, fight me on it. Oh my gosh. Perfect, absolutely perfect. Brisket and coffee, it's like the best day ever. Look at these bad boys. Oh my goodness, looks like there's some kind of glaze on there or something. You can see all the smoke that got in there, pulls right off the bone perfectly, so tender. My goodness and this glaze or whatever on the outside is delicious too. Perfectly soft and just buttery as the name implies, potatoes, it's a really good pepper flavor too. So buttery. Keeping it healthy with the green beans. Those are really good. On the surface, they just look like very basic green beans. I have no idea what flavors are in there, but it has a really good flavor. A little bit of a spiciness, not like a hot, like peppery spicy, but just some sort of spice in there. Can't think of a better word to describe all this food than perfection. But now it's time to put the camera away because it's about to get ugly in here. I liked it so much, had to get a hat. We weren't even supposed to come to this barbecue spot today. We had another place planned in a different part of Texas, but it could not have worked out any better. And now we have a little over an hour drive until we are home. It's pretty crazy that we haven't been here in Austin in 10 months. Well, Catherine did come home in August for a wedding, but me, Kona and Brisket, we haven't been here since January, which is the longest stretch we've been away since we moved into the van in 2019. I cannot comprehend everything that we've experienced in the last 10 months. And I think back to Arizona and Joshua Tree, places that we visited at the beginning of the year, they truly feel like they were years ago. We've experienced more this year than we have in our entire lives. And I think this year more than any other year, we're especially grateful for our home on wheels here and all the incredible places that can take us. We do plan to share a recap video soon with some thoughts on the year, some different stats, as well as our favorite spots. But it has just been an insane year. Insanely epic and also insanely exhausting. And we are very much looking forward to some downtime for a bit. I'm back! Oh, I missed you. Oh, hi, Dad. Are you ready, sweetie? Hi. Hi, girl. Hi, Mom. Home sweet home.