The McKenzie's Official world tour site
# Sunday, 25 January 2009
TEXAS DREAMING..........

We drove into Texas and dipped off Route 66 for a while, as we stayed quite near to Dallas. The Sandy Lake RV Park had many friendly local residents who were great to talk to! We met Thom and his son William and enjoyed listening to both local and general US history and knowledge too. It has always been great to talk with the locals wherever we have been as the local knowledge has been priceless!

On New Years’ Eve we visited Fort Worth Zoo. The animals all had well thought out and spacious enclosures and we had a great day!

We toasted the New Year in – in Nessie. Here’s to 2009! Thank-you to 2008 for being kind to us!

We enjoyed another special meal in Nessie with a New Year’s Day Roast. She is looking after us really well! We enjoyed the evening chatting to our new found Texan friend Thom and the children would like to thank William for letting them loose with his X Box and Guitar Hero Rock Band!

We went to spend some time in and around the Stockyard area of Fort Worth. This area has famous history as thousands of animals were taken by cattle drives from across Texas and gathered together at these stock yards and then shipped off to different places on the trains from the Fort Worth station. This western city still maintains the traditional approach with the local’s ‘cowboy dress code’ and plenty of steak eating houses! There was a lovely laid back and relaxed feeling about the place! We took a look around some traditional stores. The first stocked western furniture and home decor “Bum Steer”– with lots of animal heads looking at us from every direction! We had a good chat to the lady with English connections and reminisced about H.P sauce and marmite!! This lady was kind enough to phone through and find out the details of the Rodeo that was happening later that evening, for us!  

Next we took a look around the company’s next shop-“The Cross Eyed Moose” with an enormous selection of Western Antiques (they also have a third store along the Main Street at the Historical Fort Worth Stockyards called Adobe Arts & Frame Gallery). Once again the people were very friendly and interested in what we were doing! We told our story-including about Phil’s cowboy hat (which was actually his brother’s!)  having been stolen. The lady very kindly decided to give Phil a real mocoy Texan hat to replace his, especially as we were going to the Rodeo that night!

Here we found out about the Texas Jackalope-a Jackrabbit that actually has horns too. This is a single fauna specimen and was first seen by a trapper named George McLean in 1829.

The children also fell for the resident dogs in the shop and we all enjoyed our time at the Cross Eyed Moose!

The rest of us were not to be outdone and so after a traditional steak meal - we stocked up on a cowboy hat each too!

The Rodeo was great fun – we saw the finals of the Stockyard Championships in the Historic Cow-town Coliseum. It was very entertaining with bull riding, bronc riding, barrel racing, and calf lassoing!

The children were let loose into the arena with maybe 50 more children to do the calf and mutton scrambles! A calf or sheep was let loose and the children had to race to remove the tag and be the winner!

The Texas Longhorn Cattle herd can still be seen being driven up the cobbled streets twice a day, by cowboys on horse- back. Traditional is still alive and strong! The children were able to dress in traditional clothes and sit on the Indian’s horse which was also great to do.

We went to see Downtown Dallas which was a world away from Fort Worth. It is not very far in miles and it is a business centre rather than a tourist area. It is adorned with many enormous glass sky scrapers and offices.

We decided to take advice from the locals and get air conditioning fitted and we would like to thank May’s RV Inc in Lewisville, Texas for juggling their jobs and fitting us in at short notice. We were told that we would simply not survive when we return to the US in summer –without full air con throughout the whole of Nessie! Point taken!!

We packed up once more and headed out of Texas for a while and into Oklahoma. Phil had read that there was a great wildlife refuge where we may see wild buffalo/bison and so we decided to go and take a look!

 

FACTOIDS-

·         Texas covers 268,581 square miles – both land and water.

·         Texas extends 801 straight-line miles from north to south and 773 miles from east to west.

·         Texas has 91 mountains a mile or more high, all of them in west Texas.

·         The longest river in Texas is the Rio Grande, which forms the international boundary between Texas and Mexico and extends 1,254 miles along Texas.

·         Texas ranks first internationally in cotton production.

·         The Cowboy Boot’s history dates back to the Spanish Conquistadors who invaded Mexico in the 16th century.

·         Spaniards taught the natives the art of the fine boot construction.

·         In the latter part of the 19th century, approximately 600 boot-makers practised their craft in Texas.

·         Now, no more than 60 artisans produce boots the old fashioned way-totally by hand.

·         The classic boot was a work shoe with the cowboy’s daily routine in mind. They had pointed toes so they could be easily slipped in and out of the syrups and an elevated arch that helped to hold the foot firm in place. The upper part of the boot served as protection against barbed wire and snakes.

·         The Cow-town Coliseum is home to the world’s first indoor rodeo!

·         Jackalopes have the ability to imitate the human voice and they only sing on dark nights before a thunderstorm.

WILDLIFE HITS-

·         Armadillo

·         Redwing Black-birds

·         Texas Long –Horn cattle

·         American Kestrel

·         Northern Cardinal

·         Great Blue Heron

·         Egret  

 


Sunday, 25 January 2009 06:53:47 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0]  USA