March 8 This is going to be a special day, no wandering aimlessly for us. We are heading straight to Fort Worth TX. as fast as these Texas roads will take us. We were going to see the stock yards area, didn't know what that was but we were game.
We parked and headed right for the information hall, got our Fort Worth pins and was told we had arrived to see the trail drive that they still hold everyday. We positioned ourselves on the street and the drovers came by with a herd of Texas Longhorns. They were bigger than I expected.
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| Where's Walker? |
We went inside the White Elephant saloon, famous for Fort Worth's last gunfight and more impressive to me as CD's saloon in the filming of Walker Texas ranger.
In front of the Stock Exchange building they have a bronze statue honoring Bill Pickett a black cowboy and rodeo performer who invented steer wrestling, known at that time as bull dogging. He had seen trained bull dogs capture steers by biting their noses, he started by leaping from his horse onto the running steer and biting the bulls lip and falling over backwards throwing the steer. ( I'm not surprised this method didn't catch on.) He also appeared in a silent movie preforming his rodeo stunts.In the Texas trail Hall of Fame they have a star for Ol"Blue, a steer that rancher Charles Goodnight used to lead the herds on the trail. He wore a bell, knew the trail and the rest of the herd followed him. I still wonder how they got him back to the starting point for the next trail drive? A little bovine history there.
It had been a full day as we headed out of Fort Worth trying to beat the Friday afternoon rush of workers, with three quarters of a million people we hoped they all weren't headed toward Stephenville.
In the middle of the night I heard sheep blatting. Of course this came to mind. "I think I hear sheep , am I in Scotland??" Maybe I've seen to many movies, still one of my favorite lines. We found out there was a huge flock on the nearby ranch where they hold sheep dog trials. These sheep were different than the ones I had seen as they all had black heads. Let me rephrase that, their heads were black. Also sometimes they use sheep to practice their roping skills. The ninth was rainy so we spent some time in the camper. Maybe to much time, we had a light lunch accompanied by some chips and dip. Ruthie was asking me if I was done with the dinner items and I said she could take the dip, as she tried to lift me out of the chair, Poor me, I must be a saint. Besides playing cribbage to pass the time we had been discussing the camper we had pulled on this trip. Although a very popular one, we started checking the internet for one that was easier to set up and take down. We started communicating with a company in Oklahoma and some of their customers. For our evening meal we headed back to the Hard 8 BBQ, kind of like that place.
The next day was very windy, I had planned on changing oil and repairing the wiring for our heated jacket liners. Glenn was nice enough to let me use one of the enclosed area's to get in out of the wind. By using planks I was able to bridge the gap and climb up the foot to the cement pad. I used some more planks to get the cycle high enough to change the oil. Sometimes you just have to make do with what you have. I found out my soldering iron didn't get hot enough to repair the connection so I headed into town. A lot of people just turn you down flat with "we don't work on cycles" but every once in a while you run into someone with an open mind that will at least take a look at what you are talking about. As was the case at probably my 5th place. It is called "Stephenville Starter and Electric" 1076 Glenrose Hwy, Stephenville TX ( you can see I was happy I stopped there.) Dennis the owner who's wife is from somewhere in MN ( I hope he has learned where by the time she reads this.) came out took a look at it came back with a soldering iron and solder and in seconds had it repaired. No charge, thank you very much, I hope they do well!
Again last night the wind was very strong, a grocery store roof in one of the little towns we had toured thru came down, fortunately no one was injured. The propane ran out again (come on Glenn, fill it this time.) as the temperature dropped to 43 degrees, we might as well head north. Our last day here we headed West to check out another BBQ joint (not as good as Hard 8) and on to Dublin TX known for the first Dr Pepper bottling plant. The story we were told was that some one wanted to imitate the aroma in the drug store in their home so they put all 23 flavors in a container and presto, there it was. However that was in 1885 so there are lots of stories. Lots of fun memorabilia here and a tour of the bottling area. While in Dublin the home of Ben Hogan the famous golfer, we toured a small museum where I noticed a unique machine. If you noticed your ancestors feet glowing in the dark, this could be the reason. Notice the machine, here is the way it worked the innocent child with his new shoes on stepped up and put his feet inside the machine. The shoe salesman and parents looked thru the viewing area to see if the shoes fit properly. Even though there were many warnings about the danger of exposure to radiation it took many years for the machines to be banned. Tomorrow we start toward home, will the weather favor us? Sure there will be a little wandering.
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