Christmas and the cattle drive

Yep! It's Number 3 of "Yes. I drove 3,000 miles for Christmas!"

Today readers, we briefly go over Christmas and then delve into the rich in character cow town area of Fort Worth - The Stockyards! (Here's a link to 25 things to love about Fort Worth!)

Christmas in Texas, it was nice to get away (since I usually do NOT travel on holidays) and with all the changes and updates the Rents have done, the house looks great. And hey... I didn't have to wrestle with a tree this year. (Though I would've helped take it down if we left later!) Even Roxie had fun, as Santa managed to find her so far from home. Here she is guarding Pop-pop's gifts so that no one takes them.


Pop-pop was thankful for the protection, as he was engrossed in a 20Q, an electronic version of the game 20 questions that freakishly gets your guess right quite a bit!

He was always very pleased when he managed to outsmart that "new fangledy contraption".

Then Christmas took a turn to tools, and lots of 'em!

Pop-pop is never happy unless he's sawing, cutting, pruning, or otherwise "adjusting" a tree, shrubbery, or plant. And when he's not doing that... he's gardening. (I need to hire him out around here... I have several terraforming projects he'd be perfect for!) Seriously though, he singlehandedly transformed the area around the pool (at his house) from the old wooden landscape timbers the he, my brother, and I originally installed (ok HE installed and WE carried). It's now a garden oasis ringed by beautiful and large Crape-myrtles with several tiers of precisely cut and aligned castle stone walls with stone caps. I meant to grab some photos while I was out back, but guess I'll have to do that next time!

Later in the week, we all went to the Fort Worth Stockyards. The last vestige of wild west characters, and longhorn cattle in the streets. A fun place to visit, eat, shop, and be entertained.
When we first got there, these two strangers caught my eye, and thinking of a blog I frequently check, I took one in the spirit of it.


The whole area still had decorations up (it was only a couple days after Christmas people, not like it was Valentine's day or anything!), and I grabbed a shot of the Rents.

Don't Nana and Pop-pop look adorable?! I thought it was funny that he was "gettin' the boot". What? Not everyone has big light-up boots on their lawn for the holidays? For shame!

After we took their photo, I saw the perfect next photo-op! This guy and his "friend" have been plying the streets downtown for as long as I can remember (so like a week).

His name is "Big Jake" and is truly a gentle soul. Unless there's an incredibly rude and foolish boy with inattentive parents that continually runs up ad shouts at the BULL's face. After Jake's owner AND I both told the boy it wasn't safe to scare the bull, one of his parents FINALLY noticed that their son was going to be gored (or worse) and managed to bribe him away with more candy and pleading. Oh... wait.. HA! You thought "How could he possibly slip a blog o' scorn post in with fun thoughts of the holidays?" THAT'S how! Sorry... back to the story.
The guy did offer for me to get up on Jake, but when I asked Jake he just looked at me and said "Uhh... maybe next week? Big Steve will be here and he's even bigger!" ok.. he said *SNORT*, but I think he meant the former.

Not too long after we stopped burdening Jake, the twice daily cattle drive (ok it's symbolic since they only drive like 15 head) down main street began. The line police were VERY vocal, prolly because that stupid kid from paragraph above kept jumping into the street after the cops said about... oh... I dunno about thirty times to get up on the curb. (one of them eventually went to where the Anti-Darwinian child and family were, and that seemed to "curb" him in a little) I have a little video footage of the drive, but I couldn't see through the viewfinder (held at arms length) and the quality is... well it leaves something to be desired unless you like the old Batman TV show fight scenes. (Yes James, you can see it if you want too, and I'll even make sounds like BAM and POW!)


After the herd was put up, the trail boss came back around. I stopped to chat with him and "Lil Texas" for a bit. He was just a really nice man. And Lil TX loved his ear scratch.


But then we didn't say "Howdy Y'all!" loud enough when prompted, and we were immediately incarcerated!

Fortunately, the Rents were able to explain that we didn't live around "these parts", and the local "man" relented and allowed us to leave. (as long as agreed when told "Y'all come back now, hear?") Somewhere in there we had a great lunch together too! (Not BBQ...the OTHER Texas food in abundance... Tex-Mex! I had a yummy enchilada and a tamale that was almost as good as Nana makes. Nothin' beats homemade...)

To further assuage the locals, we shopped through many of the stores. We picked up some odds and ends for the house, and then Da Wife found her favorite T-shirt...

She was excited that she might be able to win several "heats". My money is on her, now where did I put my chili recipe...

A good time was had by all, and I'd love to go visit again. Anyone working on that teleportation thing yet? It'd be nice to skip the 4 days in the car. Either way, I think there will be more trips.

Yeeeehaaaaaaaaaa!

This was the final post in the "Fort Worth Series", thank you for your support.