• 26 Dec, 2025 *

Happy holidays.

This is a time of year dominated by tradition.

After my trip to Big Bend, I began to see the world in a different light. I had long since stopped being Christian, but pure atheism didn’t fit either. I considered modern paganism, but I viewed this with skepticism as well.

I was looking for some kind of belief system. Animism was probably the best fit for what I felt, but this was a broad, and very nonspecific term. So, I decided to cobble together my own traditions and beliefs into a system definitively me.

This involves a camping trip every winter solstice. I took my sojourn last weekend - a one night in Missions Tejas State Park.

2025’s Winter Solstice

In previous years, I’ve usually stuck to Sam Houston National Forest, but I’ve also done Lost Maples State Natural Area (which was my favorite), and Stephen F. Austin State Park. This year, I decided to go with Missions Tejas State Park.

I’ve been to this park before - it’s a busier one, and every site in the park was occupied this Winter Solstice night. We have been having a warm and muggy December and the solstice was no exception: high in the mid-70s, low in the mid-60s (~24 C to 17 C). Humidity in the 80s. No wind.

Despite being packed, it was relatively quiet. The trails are beautiful here and deceptively long. The longest trail may claim to only be 2.4 miles long, but you can connect it up to other trails beyond the trail heads, meaning it’s quite easy to get lost for half a day without seeing a trailhead. Unfortunately, we had total cloud cover, and so I did not see stars despite how dark it was.

This trail connects up to several other trails, winding all through the park. I was in the bush for hours. (Picture taken by me, 2021)

Spanish Colonization

Missions Tejas State Park is located on the El Camino Real de los Tejas. There are multiple caminos reales across the former Spanish colonies. These roads connected the massive Spanish empire and, as the name implies, this part is located in Texas.

It connects Nacogdoches, San Antonio, the Rio Grande, the Red River, and multiple state parks including, of course Missions Tejas. What makes Mission Tejas unique is the historic site that gives the park its name: Mission San Francisco de los Tejas. This mission, originally built in 1690, served multiple functions: one was to attempt to convert the indigenous Caddo to Spanish Catholicism, and establish an imperialistic check against the French to the east in Louisiana. If the original building still stood, it would be one of the oldest Anglo buildings in Texas.

FDR and the New Deal

The original building is gone. However, in 1933, FDR created the Civilian Conservation Corps. This was one of FDR’s New Deal programs aimed at alleviating the pain from the Great Depression and one of their projects was building a Replica of the original mission.

There is a little library, and a number of other colonizer houses in the park, surrounded by beautifully tall trees. A number of the trails have CCC projects hidden deep in the back trails. There are many signs that both talk to the natural sites, but also impact of humans on the landscape.

It was a foggy, misty, and unseasonably muggy December morning. (Picture taken by me, 2025)

Caddo Mounds

Just a few miles from the park entrance is another site of human history: Caddo Mounds State Historic Site. The Caddoan culture was the most southeastern of the Mississippian Culture which spanned across the Mississippi River Valley. They were mound makers, and the state historic site nearby has a trail that allows you to see several artifacts, including three mounds. Unfortunately, the day I visited the Caddo Mounds was Monday, which is the one day of the week it is closed.

Sign courtesy of the Texas Historical Commission.(Picture taken by me, 2025)

The El Camino Real de los Tejas intersects the historic site. Thus, while I could not approach most of the site, one of the mounds was right next to the highway, behind this sign from the Texas Historical Commission. If you like to pull over to read historic markers, expect to pull over a ton because this remote country highway is dominated by them.

One of the three mounds left by the Caddo people. (Picture taken by me, 2025).

Final Thoughts

I really like Mission Tejas. It’s not my favorite, but it is rather isolated in the Davy Crockett National Forest, smack dab between Houston and Dallas. Cell service is spotty, especially at the campsite - but that’s honestly a plus in my opinion. Campsites fill up relatively fast on weekends. The nearest towns are 10+ miles away. Just expect high humidity, as is standard for Texas east of San Antonio. Campsites feel safe, despite the isolation. The bathrooms are developed with running water and showers. Both times I went here (2021, and 2025, both Winter Solstice), the office wasn’t open. Thus, I still have yet to get a postcard from this park.

Oh well. Maybe another time. Thanks for reading.

Previous

#adventure #nature