Day 19
This was our second travel day in a row and it saw us enter Texas!
Our first stop in Texas was at “The Big Texan” in Amarillo for lunch.
This is quite a famous place. It has been featured on numerous food shows for its “Big Texan Challenge.” This is where you have 1 hour to eat a 72 ounce steak (that’s 4 1/2 pounds!), a dinner salad, a large baked potato, a dinner roll, and three breaded and fried shrimp. I think if I was given 72 hours, I could easily complete this challenge. But 60 minutes, no way. Take a look at what you have to eat.
Here is a picture of some poor slob trying and failing the Big Texan Challenge. Please note, I do not know this person and the term “poor slob” is used as a term of endearment, not an insult.
Here is a picture of my normal sized meal that included a delicious steak, fired okra, and a free plastic souvenir cup that I did in fact take home! And the jalapeno was super hot and delicious as well. I did not taste the other green leafy garnish.
And here is Cindy and I letting all that great food settle while admiring our collection of free plastic cups.
We arrived at our hotel and settled in after two days of driving. Here is what downtown Fort Worth looks like at night.
Day 20
First on our agenda was our free breakfast buffet at our hotel. I had a Texas shaped waffle that was delicious.
Had this been a California shaped waffle, it would have been covered with fruits, flakes, and nuts.
Bellies full, we headed to the Fort Worth Stockyards, which is a famous shopping area that also has historic buildings, and restaurants. At the stockyards, we posed with a car that had steer horns attached to the front. The pictures below can be used as an example of what I want to put on the front of Big Red.
Here are two pictures of the stockyard in general.
We walked around, drank some beer, shopped, had lunch, and drank some beer. A few hours into our visit, some weather moved in very quickly.
Listen to how hard the wind is blowing in this video.
As I looked up at the clouds and the wind howled, I noticed some rotation in the clouds. Now I’m no tornado expert, nor do I play one on TV, but I have seen my share of episodes of the show Storm Chasers. What I saw looked like the formation of a tornado. At that point, I realized standing on the sidewalk of the Stockyards was not where we should be. I told Cindy about the rotation I saw and she thought I was joking…………….Until the wind hit so strong it tore down a light post, crushing a BWM beneath it, flung trash and debris down the sidewalk at a dangerous speed, and worse of all, kicked up dirt into my beer (that I continued to hold throughout the ordeal). We ran into the doorway of a local business with a few other stunned tourists, and within a few minutes, the wind was gone. I’m not saying we were in a tornado, but we were in a significant wind event. And the news reported an EF0 (EF Zero means winds speeds between 65-85 mph) had hit near the Stockyards.
We decided we had all the fun we could take and headed to where we had parked Big Red. When we were within 1 block of where we parked, the rain hit very hard and we hid out under cover for about 15 minutes for the rain to let up.
We headed back to our hotel and straightened up for Father’s Day dinner, that I was going to get to pick and Cindy and Corrianne (mostly Cindy) could not complain. We walked around Sundance Square in downtown and I saw a sign that immediately caught my attention. I was so happy to see country music legend George Strait was going to be at a local eatery. Then I read the small print. Even though I was disappointed, I noticed the sign was an ad for Simply Fondue. I have always wanted to have fondue and tonight was going to be the night! And even though Cindy made a few faces at first, she kept her word and did not complain. It would turn out she actually enjoyed the experience.
Here is Cindy and Corrianne preparing for the first course. Cindy likes to keep her eyes closed so molten cheese doesn’t get in them.
The meal was a four course meal. It started with melted cheese that you dipped bread, fruit, and vegetables in. This was really good.
Next came a salad. There are no pictures because I’m sure everyone has seen a basic salad before. If you need to, close your eyes and imagine a green salad. OK, that’s enough, open your eyes now.
The third course was boiling oil that you “cooked” your meat and vegetable items in. This was a different experience, but very tasty as well. Of course I forgot to get any pictures of this, so close your eyes again………………….oh never mind.
The final course was treats and fruit you dipped into melted chocolate. It started with he chocolate on fire so you could roast a marshmallow.
Everything was outstanding and we had a great time.
We left the restaurant and walked around Sundance Square to try and walk off some of the amazing food we had just eaten. Here are a few sights from our walk.
On another night, we ate at the below restaurant. It had good food and great drinks.
There was also a JFK Tribute. He had spent the night in Fort Worth before he was assassinated in Dallas the next day.
And here is a Fort Worth police car. I love that it has the steer on the door.
Day 21
Since this was our last day in the Fort Worth area, we decided to go to Dallas so we could visit Dealey Plaza, where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. While getting ready in the morning, we watched a news story of a heavily armed gunman who was shooting at a Dallas federal courthouse. I looked on a map, and it looked like the affected area was far enough away from where we were going so it would not effect us. Turns out I was wrong. Here was our first view upon arrival and trying to find a parking lot.
We ended up at another police barricade when there was a really loud “bang.” Cindy was sure it was an explosion, while Corrianne and I were sure we had just run over a giant metal plate in the road. We all looked back to the street and there was no metal plate. We finally found a parking spot and a local federal police officer told us the loud bang was an explosion. The suspect’s car was not that far from where we had stopped and there was a suspicious item in the car so the police blew it up! Great times.
We had to walk just under a mile to get to Dealey Plaza. Along the way, we took in the local sights.
Once we arrived at Dealey Plaza, it was a sobering experience to realize what had happened there in 1963. Here is the building where Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK from. It is the square looking sixth floor window on the right side of the building.
The “X” in the street is the first place the president was shot.
This is the famous “grassy knoll.”
This is where the famous film that is always shown that was shot by Abraham Zapruder, who was a dress maker, not a photographer or media person.
After lunch in downtown Dallas, we headed back to the Fort Worth area and checked out some of the local neighborhoods to see if we would be interested in living there. We found several neighborhoods that were nice and had very affordable homes. Fort Worth has made our short list of places we could possibly live.
We also visited the Texas Christian University (TCU) bookshop. That place was huge and you could even take a picture with a giant blow up horned frog, their mascot.
And this concluded our visit to Fort Worth.
The next post will detail our visit to Waco!