A Cattle Drive Down Main Street

Friday, April 8th – Cedar Hills State Park, Dallas to Fort Worth, Texas and back 

 The kids had met new friends the day before and in the morning they went to their campsites to play around. They had a pop-up that was nicer, newer, and smaller than ours. 

 The plan was to visit the National Historic District in Fort Worth at the old Stockyards. The story is that when the Spanish settled the area around northern Mexico and present-day Texas, they brought cattle with them. These cattle were released into the wild, they prospered and multiplied. As urban centres grew and there was a larger market for beef, cowboys started rounding up cattle and driving them North. Fort Worth started as a place to fatten up cattle before moving them onwards. Once the train came in, the stockyards developed to sell cattle and put them on trains to move further north. 

 Today, the stockyards are a tourist destination with shops, restaurants, alcohol stands on the street, horse rides, a petting zoo, and Billy Bob’s, the oldest honky tonk (country music bar). We toured around for a while, saw the long-horned cattle, took pictures. These cattle are impressive with 5-foot-long horns sticking out each side of their heads. We went to try to get a meal at Billy Bob’s but they wanted a cover of $3 each and we didn’t want to pay since we were limited for time. We decided to skip the meal since the highlight of the day was coming up, the cattle drive. 

 The cattle drive featured cowboys on horses lead 15-20 long horn steers down the middle of the street while lines of tourists stood on the curbs and took photos. We were warned not to sit or duck down because a long horn steer might come over to see what you are doing, stabbing your neighbour in the process. The steers looked bored and slowly plodded their way down the street. The kids enjoyed seeing the cows. 

 This was the end of our day at the stock yards and we decided to go out for dinner since Mary was leaving in the morning. We found a Mexican buffet that was in a quaint building with a beautiful patio. I really enjoyed the fajitas on freshly made wraps. 

 On our way home, we drove through Dallas to look around. It was a Friday night and the city seemed to be happening. People were out and about, and the restaurants were packed. The city seemed nice. Afer a quick drive around, we drove back to our campsite to end the day.