When most people take a vacation, they're anxious to get
out of town. For this four-hour ultra-mini-vacation, we chose to go
into town! For all our years in this part of Texas, we had never spent much time in the Fort Worth Stockyards. Now that the kids are old enough to (a) appreciate what they're seeing and (b) walk long distances without being carried(!), Brett thought we were long overdue to see this tourist destination.
First stop: The Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame.
Part of the museum space is devoted to the hall's inductees. Each cowboy honored has his/her own stall with mementos, pictures and a video tribute. The world of rodeo cowboys is foreign to us, but we still appreciated what these folks had accomplished. It was cool to see their saddles and belt buckles, too.
The kids were impressed with the rodeo clown's job and the big barrel this guy had used. Beyond that, we didn't recognize many cowboys' names. The names we did recognize?
George Strait
Willie Nelson
(This one cracked us up since we listened
to a Willie CD on the way there.)
More musicians: The Light Crust Doughboys
(Honestly, I know of these guys only because of Texas history.
Their manager, Pappy O'Daniel, was elected governor
thanks to his and their popularity!)
Walt Garrison, a cowboy and a Dallas Cowboy
After perusing the hall of fame, we ventured to the other section of the museum, the Sterquell Wagon Collection. We saw a bunch of restored horse-drawn wagons, carriages and sleighs.
They call these "lifestyle" wagons, vehicles essential to everyday life. We saw mail wagons, milk wagons, oil wagons...
a photographer's wagon,
and plenty of wagons from the ordinary...
to the extraordinary!
(I love the headlamps on this one.)
This hearse was especially impressive.
This was just the first of many longhorns we saw.
It was a chilly morning! We wore jackets through most of our visit.
The museum is housed right across from the livestock exchange in one of the old horse and mule barns. From the brochure: "The barns, housing over 3,000 horses and mules, were built in 1912 and considered the first 'fire proof' barns. The original wooden barns that stood in this location were lost in 1911 when a spark from a passing train ignited the fire."
And that was just our first Stockyards stop!
After watching the longhorns, we headed to our next destination: the Cattlepen Maze. Both kids were REALLY anxious to go through the maze!
It's an impressive structure, and it even has a herd of longhorns in its backyard! A banner out front reminded me that this maze was featured on CBS' Amazing Race 5.
As people go through the maze, they're supposed to find stamps for the letters M, A, Z and E. Katie was the first to find the A stamp!
When Ryan found the A, he used that vantage point to scout out his route.
Both kids came right under our observation deck a couple of times.
We wondered how long it would take them to get all four stamps and find their way out.
Ryan was the first to finish with Katie not too far behind. Their reward for successfully completing the task?
