Heart of America: Day 3

After 2 days filled with driving I was finally able to get out of my car and experience some culture. I started the day by driving to a FedEx Office store to print out the tickets for the night's game between the Rangers and the Mariners. I then continued north out of Houston to Fort Worth to make a stop at the Stockyards Historic District. I first heard about the Stockyards in a song by one of my favorite honky tonk bands, the Casey Donahew Band. The songs centers on the bar scene of the Stockyards but after doing some research online I found that the Stockyards had much more to offer. Originally, the Stockyard District was a huge stockyard for cattle in the early 20th century. They still have some livestock pens to show what the district looked like back in its heyday. The signature event of the district is a cattle drive through the main street which occurs twice a day. It was pretty cool to see huge longhorn cattle walking through the street. Not quite a running of the bulls but much safer!  There are also western stores, touristy general stores, some small museums, and the world famous Billy Bob's Texas. I went into Billy Bob's and saw their large stage and their hall of fame with handprints of famous country artists.

After the cattle drive, I headed towards Dallas to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. There I met up with my friend, KB, from college. It was nice to see her because she was our unofficial 5th housemate last year. KB also let me crash on her couch for the night. On the way to her apartment I went by the Dallas skyline. It was a lot bigger and brighter than I had expected. While Fort Worth may still have the cow town atmosphere, Dallas is more of the modern-day city.