A few times each year I travel to see family. Airports I fly into include Texarkana Regional Airport (TXK) and Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport (XNA). Both offer limited connections with the best being Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). The connection times are often stress-inducingly short. Usually less than 45 minutes. For DFW, that is a missed flight waiting to happen. I stress from the time I wake up to the time I walk onto the final flight and get set down.
On the most recent trip, I decided to avoid the short-connection stress by staying overnight in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to explore the infamous Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District. The weather that February weekend was forecasted to be in the 70s so it was not a hard decision.
While living in Northern California I had met several California’s planning to retire in Texas, sight unseen, due to the ability to buy a large home on land for less than half the price of their Silicon Valley apartment, condo or hut-sized home. A co-worker once asked me if everyone in Texas owned horses and land. I had to disappoint them by admitting that many Texans live in modest homes on less than an acre and have never owned a horse or farm animal.
After exploring the Stockyards, I feel comfortable telling anyone who wants to experience the stereotypical Texan in real-life Texas, this is the place. Here you will find an authentic competitive rodeo every weekend and annual championship-level competitions. Many of the stockyard visitors are life-long Texans who visit the district for weekend fun, good barbeque, and entertainment. To commemorate the once-thriving cattle stock exchange district, visitors can witness daily longhorn cattle drives (more like cattle walks) down the main street.
The overwhelming draw of the Stockyards is the cowboy grunge. The weathered brick streets are lined with historic buildings, restaurants, saloons, and shops, including Billy Bob’s Texas, the world’s largest honky-tonk, and Niles City Hall Saloon, a prohibition-style, period-correct establishment. For lunch, I chose Risky’s Steakhouse. It was here I discovered I like calf fries, aka Rocky Mountain Oysters, aka…well, you know.
“Animals make us Human.” – Temple Grandin
For a detailed Fort Worth Stockyards Travel Guide, see my post Top 20 Things To Do at The Fort Worth Stockyards.
