On a recent weekday morning, a camper from New Hampshire and his dog were the only ones in the park. The park also has two group picnic pavilions that can be rented for day use and a half-mile nature trail. The entry fee for both Palestine and Rusk state parks is $2 for persons 13 and older.

By contrast, Rusk State Park has 71 wooded campsites with water and electric service located in three separate campgrounds. Of those, 32 also offer sewer connections for recreation vehicles. The park is a bit hillier than Palestine State Park, has more pine trees and boasts a scenic, 15-acre lake.

The Rusk park’s group camping area features a rustic dining hall built of native iron ore rock and timber, a volleyball court, horseshoe pits and large barbecue pit. Kitchen facilities, ample inside seating and restrooms with showers make the group area a hit with Scouts, church groups and families holding reunions. It’s a bargain at $75 a day. If at least 10 campers book the area, park management will throw in use of the dining hall for free if it is not already reserved for that day.

Other park facilities include restrooms with showers in all three camping areas, a nature trail with markers denoting the different trees and other vegetation, a playground and lakeside picnic shelter with a fire pit. Park Manager Thomas Northcutt expects another busy summer thanks to the Kids Ride Free promotion, which he termed a “bonanza” for the parks last summer. On weekends, he notes, both parks’ campgrounds stayed almost full all summer during hot weather months that traditionally cause a drop in the number of campers. He estimates that more than 30 percent of the campers come to ride the steam train and have found the companion parks to be handy places for an overnight stay.

“People may not understand that we’re a small park,” Northcutt says, “but we’re quiet and located in beautiful East Texas. They might not realize that we are a real bargain. Our campsites here are only $12 with full hookups and you can’t find that anywhere else in Texas.”

Though the Rusk unit is small by state park standards, it boasts a wealth of activities. In addition to camping and picnicking, visitors can play tennis and volleyball, shoot baskets, bird watch, fish, swim and rent a pedal boat or canoe to float among the lake’s lily pads. As Northcutt points out, “We don’t have a big lake or a lot of trails, but I guarantee we can keep you busy for a day or two.” The picturesque lake proves popular with anglers seeking to hook large bass, crappie and catfish. Landing a 9- or 10-pound bass is not uncommon, according to the park manager. In the spring, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department stocks trout.

Interestingly, park visitors in February of 2003 saw pieces of debris from the disintegrating Space Shuttle Columbia splash into the lake. Though divers never recovered any shuttle debris from the lake, more than 40 pieces of the spacecraft and its contents were found along the TSRR tracks, Rusk and Palestine state parks.

Park visitors may want to check out the four color panels detailing the Columbia disaster co-sponsored by NASA and TPWD located in the Rusk Depot breezeway. Photos of the astronauts and debris recovery teams, as well as a map of the area showing the four-mile wide swath of where spaceship debris fell, makes for a compelling exhibit.

Both depots have a gift shop brimming with t-shirts, coffee mugs and dozens of other items with a railroad theme so visitors can take home a memento of their rail excursion.

Wildlife is plentiful, too, in both parks that thrive in diverse vegetation representative of the blackland prairies, cross timbers and East Texas forest ecological regions that overlap in the parks. White-tailed deer, squirrels, cottontails, beaver, raccoons and armadillos are readily seen. Keep an ear cocked for the seemingly endless chorus of cardinals, bluebirds, killdeer and other songbirds, and the staccato beat of several species of woodpeckers, including the pileated woodpecker.

Rusk and Palestine state parks are two of more than 120 parks that make up the Texas State Park System. Rusk State Park is located on U.S. Highway 84 three miles west of Rusk. Palestine State Park is located three miles east of Palestine on U.S. Highway 84. For more information about the parks, call (903) 683-5126. To make a train reservation, call (800) 442-8951. To learn about other Texas state parks, call (800) 792-1112 toll-free, or visit the Texas Parks and Wildlife Web site: www.tpwd.state.tx.us.