Cowtown

Friday morning I woke up to a text from our tour operator for our Dallas tour that said it was canceled for the day due to sickness.  So we pivoted and changed our Fort Worth tour to Friday.  And it was such a good tour!  I didn't find my boots this day, but we did get to see the longhorn steers.

The tour started our at Sundance Square, which is a nod to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  There was evidence of the town getting ready for the World Cup.

The beginning of the tour took us to the sights of Fort Worth outside of the stockyards.  And our tour guide was really knowledgeable and we learned a lot of interesting things.  

Someone once said the town of Fort Worth was so tame a panther could sleep there.  The town decided to use the panther as one of their mascots.

There was a really cool water sculpture park with three different water features.  One was a waterfall and you could walk down into it.  It was really neat!

This pool was supposed to appear like tiles that you could walk on.

The quiet pool

The next stop where we got out was a memorial to JFK.  This was the last place he spoke before he was assassinated.  He and Jackie stayed in the hotel beside the memorial.  They said they put paintings like Picassos in their hotel room.

 Our last stop of the day was at the Stockyards.  We got there in time to see the cattle drive.  Well, the cattle walked down the street, but they weren't being sold off or used for meat.  It was cool seeing them!  

We had time to eat lunch at Shake Shack and look in a few stores.  We were looking for boots and steak knives, and we didn't find any that we wanted.  But the smash burgers were good.

Since we had to head back to Dallas for race packet pickup, we decided to go to the George W Bush Presidential Library next.  It was a really good museum that took us back to our lives in the early 2000's.  They also had a replica of the Oval Office and a Texas rose garden.  The videos were interesting, especially the one his girls made talking about his sense of humor.  

On the Medal of Honor wall, I saw the man who inspired the Murph exercise challenge.  I think the docent thought I was strange when I told her why I was interested in his picture!

After packet pickup, we went for our Texas steak dinner.  We found a local steakhouse that wasn't crazy expensive.  It was nice to get a steak, salad and potato for dinner.  The name of the restaurant was Dunston's.

We could see where they cooked our steaks

We ended our evening with a trip to the mall and we found steak knives.  This is what Dave wanted from Texas.  It had been a good day!  

  

 

Who shot JFK?

 

Our first day in Texas was in Dallas and it was all about JFK.  We started our day at the 6th Floor Museum, which is the museum about the JFK assasination.  It was named 6th floor because Lee Harvey Oswald was at a window on the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository when he shot President Kennedy.  Or did he??  Or did he shoot along with another shooter??  Maybe one who was on the grassy knoll??  You will have to go to the museum yourself to figure out your theory!

The grassy knoll is behind those steps

Views from the sixth floor

The far right window on the sixth floor is where they found Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle

After the museum, we took a JFK trolley tour.  It began at Dealey Plaza near the museum.  We drove the route that JFK took on his drive through Dallas; and then the route that Oswald took after he left the book depository, where he also worked.  One part of his route was where he shot a police officer, Officer Tippet.  There is a sign on the telephone pole with his name in memorial.  There is also a house right behind it.  I would hate to live there, but there was a woman working in her yard while we sat in the trolley and looked out at the street.  She did  a good job ignoring us!  

A view of Reunion Tower from Dealey Plaza

The Old Red Courthouse near Dealey Plaza

The boarding house where Oswald lived.  His room was where the second AC window unit is located. 

Texas Longhorns 

After our tour, we went to Moak's Family BBQ in the Historic West End.  We all got brisket and it was delicious!

I tried to find boots at a boot shop, Wild Bill's Western Store, in the district, but they didn't have the ones I wanted in my size.  The lady working there was very helpful though and I wished I could have bought boots from her.  

We took a quick walk to Pioneer Plaza to see the longhorn sculptures.  The sculpture represents the Shawnee Trail from TX to OK where they used to have longhorn cattle drives.

After checking into our hotel for the next four nights, we headed to Fort Worth for dinner.  We went to a restaurant named The Social House.  It was in a nice looking, but not busy section of Fort Worth.  Dinner was good, but the waitress told us that the action was in the stockyard area.

We went into a leather store called Tandy and Dave bought some leather to use in his truck

We then headed to where the action was, the Stockyards.  She was right!  Lots of people were there with many stores and restaurants.  There was also a rodeo happening that night.  We didn't go because it had already started and I was wearing white pants!  

We stopped at Braum's for ice cream 

It was fun walking around Fort Worth and seeing all the cowboy stuff.  No boots yet, but I was looking for them.  It was definitely a place we wanted to go back to during our visit.