Parks

Caddo Lake State Park is in far northeast Texas, but you'd think you were in a Gulf Coast bayou, with its maze of murky cypress sloughs, trees dripping with Spanish moss, and ... alligators.

Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge has taken an usual path - a heavily developed property being returned to the wild.

Martin Creek Lake State Park sits on a peninsula and island of a small lake. A short nature trail loops around the island, while longer and more elaborate hiking and biking trails weave among the hills nearby.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department took the wrappings off a renovated Daingerfield State Park just two years ago, and it still has that new park feel. The developed areas have a manicured, but natural appearance that blends into the wild surroundings.

Lake Bob Sandlin State Park is cut from a pine and hardwood forest on the banks of a 9,400-acre lake. An extended trail (4.5 miles) crosses through most of the park, traveling along a lake cove, crossing the park road into the forest and open up on a picturesque Trout Pond.

Tyler State Park is a serene lake surrounded by a series of sometimes challenging hiking and mountain biking trails that wind through a dense East Texas forest.

Lake Mineral Wells State Park lies in a diverse terrain of steep hills, rocky ravines, grassy prairie and a unique landscape of dense oak forest known as the Western Cross Timbers. Most of those are on display in the back country trails on the park's north end.

About 100 million years ago, lumbering dinosaurs took a stroll along what is now the Paluxy River. Originally pressed into the mud of a shallow, prehistoric sea, their tracks are now preserved in a layer of white limestone along the river and are the centerpiece of Dinosaur Valley State Park.

Meridian State Park is a small park of 505 acres surrounding a small lake of 72 acres, created by a Civilian Conservation Corps dam on Bee Creek. Its trails climb from the grassy lakefront to the limestone ledges above and into a Hill Country landscape of juniper and oak woodlands that blaze with bluebells and other wildflowers in the spring.

The lake, woodlands and wetlands of Fairfield Lake State Park attract a diversity of wildlife. In the morning, deer often graze at the edge of the woods or wander the meadows along its trails. Herons and egrets wade along the lake's reedy shores, while Road Runners dart across your path and into the bushes.