When Geraldine Watson's father was a teenager around the turn of the last century, he spent a summer floating down the Neches River. Watson grew up hearing his tales of the steamboats, log rafts, and the flora and fauna of East Texas. At the age of 63 she decided to repeat his odyssey in her own backwater boat. This is both the story of her journey retracing her father's steps and a natural and social history of the Neches region of the Big Thicket.