Fort Worth Texas

It was another short train run, boo.

We had a great day out at a Putt Putt (crazy golf) and baseball place. Willow finally managed to get a go in a batting cage, which she has wanted to do for a while.

Stockyards Station is in the Historic District and probably how a lot of people from the UK growing up on western films imagine a lot of the US to be like. It was once the biggest and busiest livestock marketing places in the south west now it is of course a complete tourist area where you can relive the Old West, but I really liked it.








Twice a day there is a cattle drive of Texas Longhorn steers through The Stockyards as years ago this is what happened here when the cattle arrived by train and were taken to the slaughter.



There were some nice little train bits and memorabilia around also, which I'm not sure I would have been interested in a few years back but actually living on one of the things makes you look at them slightly different.

One of the cattle pens where made into The Cowtown Maze. Willow has been in a maze before but not one that she can remember so has been wanting to go in one for ages. This one was quite good, not to big and you had to find four stamps inside and stamp your card before you came out. All against the clock.

There was also a petting zoo. Willow wanted there to be a pig but she had to make do with goats, a calf and a donkey.

For lunch I had a buffalo burger as it seemed the thing to do in Texas. It was really nice, I liked it more than beef.

Another must while in Texas was a rodeo which definitely was a unique experience. Willow even participated in the calf and sheep scramble though I'm not really sure she knew what was going on.

Downtown Fort Worth and Sundance Square were pretty, not that many real shops but enough for the time that we were here. As usual it is mainly bars and restaurants but did have some nice buildings and some art work spotted about.




Right next to the arena was the Fort Worth Water Gardens. I was a really nice area and consists of three main pools. The Meditation Pool, The Aerating Pool and the Active Pool. This is where some of the scenes from Logans Run was filmed.

Dallas TX

The train run was well over due and thoroughly needed and enjoyed. It was a short one this week and even though we were hours ahead of schedule we still managed to be hours late, but that's how this silver train rolls.



We were parked right next to Fair Park which is really nice. I would love to see it in full swing. There were also lots of museums here but we were museumed out the last few weeks so gave them a miss. There was a Discovery garden full of butterflies and insects, a museum of nature and science which includes an iMax theater, an African American Museum, a rail-road museum, an aquarium and more.




The circus gave everyone tickets to Six Flags over Texas and even provided transport. There are quite a few Six Flags in America but we hadn't managed to visit one before now. Willow was really excited as she was finally tall enough to do a loop the loop (shock wave) so that was the first thing we headed to. Unfortunately she managed to put her back out on the ride and we thought we would have to go home after 30 minutes. We ended up at the medical centre for a while with a heat pack on her which seemed to do the trick and we managed to enjoy the rest of the day, even if it was 106 degrees. They actually did pretty well keeping the park cool with lots of shade, fans and misters. My favourite rides are usually the water ones and this was definitely the case this time. Though my favourite moment was just after we got off Aquaman. You can stand on the bridge as the ride comes down and get seriously soaked.




Texas has generally been full of bugs but this week we replaced the mosquitoes with crickets. Big crickets, and hundreds of them. So many that they can keep you awake at night with the racket they make. This is much better than being bitten though and Willow quite liked them, so much so she even caught a few. Sometimes though you didn't need to catch them as they just moved into your home without an invite which Willow loved and found very funny though when it happened to some people they hollered like a big girl, which we also found amusing.



I found a map of a nice public art walk in Dallas. It even worked out how many steps you would take on it and how many calories would be burnt. Not sure they took the heat into consideration when they worked it out though.




The Old Red Museum is one of the oldest buildings in Dallas and is pretty impressive and hard to miss. It is not just a museum though as it also houses the tourist information center.



I wanted to but never got around to visiting The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. This museum tells the story of the events of November 22, 1963 when JFK was shot and killed. Even though I didn't go in to the museum you can still explore the area see the cross in the road where it happened. Though I was a bit confused as there was a clear cross and a more faded one. May be if I had actually gone in it would have been explained to me.



Not far from The Sixth Floor Museum was the JFK Memorial.



I felt like we didn't really get to see that much of Dallas though as it was so hot. Too hot for Willow to go out and explore. One area I would have liked to go to was Deep Ellum, it looked really interesting and the sort of place I would like, though I'm thinking it probably came to life after dark.