A Day at the Fort Worth Stockyards
We’ve settled into where we are staying in the Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas area. We’ve found the most beautiful little park to stay in while we are here for a couple weeks And we are going to spend this week hiking and exploring the park and working on meeting other campers.
We split the eight-hour drive over here into two days, driving around four hours each day (which, let’s be honest, with three kids and two dogs took us SIX hours each day) and stayed halfway at Natchitoches Peacan Orchard RV Park in Natchitoches, LA. If you’re driving through the area and need a beautiful, level, east-to-access place to park your camper overnight or even stay for a while, I highly recommend this RV Park. The owners are VERY kind and easy to deal with, plus the park has a really pretty pool and concrete patios for every spot!
We rested for a day when we got here after the long drive, but yesterday we were ready to explore. So we drove into Fort Worth to check out the Fort Worth Stockyards Historic District.
We paid $15 to park and everything else we did (except eat) was 100% free for the day! We had so much fun!
Because it’s an historic district, it looks much like a little Main St., America, except smack dab in the middle is a little side alley that is covered (Praise the Lord, cause it is HOT OUT HERE!) and filled with shops and restaurants.
Our first item on the agenda was to stuff our faces. It seems to be a thing that when we wake up, we feed everybody and by the time we shower and get ourselves and three kids ready, walk Toast and Moses, and get to where we are going, we are ready to scrounge up some lunch. So, walking down the main drag, we found Shake Shack There were a myriad of other options from Southern cooking to Barbeque to sandwiches, but this place was promised to be pretty quick and they had milkshakes, so we weren’t just going to walk away from THAT.
You can order from the little kiosk center, which is neat, and then they text you when your order is ready.
I wish I had taken photos of our food , but between a yelling/hangry almost-two-year-old and a child who was overly hot because she INSISTED on looking like a cowgirl and wore thick jeans, boots, a hat, and a flannel shirt (I’m teaching lessons here…listen when mama says to wear shorts!) I was just shoving food in people before I took photos.
Will had a burger that had a cheese-stuffed mushroom cap, battered and deep fried on it. I had a regular cheeseburger, the kids had grilled cheeses and IT WAS GOOD. Add root beer floats to that and we were pretty darn happy with our choice. Plus, the tables are made from reclaimed bowling alley lanes from New York.
I told you, blogger fail on the photos, but I’m learning! Take pics of EVERYTHING. Lucky for y’all, I’m not ever short on pictures of my kids 😂
After lunch, we headed straight for the Herd Observation Deck, where we got to stand (in the shade) and look at the Longhorns. About the time we got there, the Drovers (cattle drivers) came into the bull pen and spent time telling us about the history of the Fort Worth Stockyards and educating us on the history of cattle driving in Texas! It was SO neat. #homeschoolwin
Also, when he found out my girl LOVES horses, this nice driver who is a shoe-in for the job as a Sam Elliot look-alike spent time quizzing her on horse breeds and colors and educating her even more! We learned a ton and enjoyed these drovers SO much.
When we finished gleaning from the drivers, we walked down the shopping alleyway (where we would return later for the gunfight!) and checked out all the shops. Since we live in an RV, we can’t buy souvenirs everywhere we go like we used to, but we LOVE looking through the shops.
One of them had multiple taxidermied (is that a word?) animals, our favorite of which was this grown lion!
We had about an hour left before it was time for the Cattle Drive , so we went to the Nestle Tollhouse house shop on the main drag for a cold fruit smoothie. They also have milkshakes, cookies, and lunch items. The pineapple peach moo this tastes like the just blended up pineapple and peach and didn’t add anything to it- which was about the most refreshing thing EVER in the Texas heat!
We went and found our seat for the Cattle Drive afterward. You want to make sure your seat/spot for the drive is near the shopping alleyway because immediately afterward At the end of the alley is the comedy gunfight- and everyone is going to make a beeline for it.
Our driver friends from the herd observation deck were driving our long-horned friends down the main drag, which happens daily at 11:30am and 4pm. I HIGHLY suggest coming early and seeing it all at the 11:30 Cattle Drive if you come in the summer because by 4pm, it is HOT, y’all. Real hot.
Here are our drover friends being the coolest humans we’ve ever met.
Then, we headed down the alleyway (followed by the LOUDEST bar mitzvah group ever 😂) to the gunfight Comedy show. For real though, there were about twenty of them high-fiving and yelling and doing the Macarena and backflips), but they livened up the place for sure!
I didn’t get pictures of the gunfight, unfortunately, because there are two of us and three kids in a crowd of sweaty people I don’t know, so my focus was on the babies and not on the photograph. But here are some pictures of the beginning before people started touching us 😂
You can tell the people who aren’t from the South because they’re not real sure what with a southern mama. 😂 I had the kids by myself while Will went to the bathroom, and the guy next to us in the crowd started talking to the kids Asking if they were excited. I should add here that he wasn’t a weirdo or anything. Just a regular guy on a date with his wife.
Then, he looked up at me and said, jokingly, “It’s going to get loud, huh? What with the guns and all, What are you going to do if things get out of hand and it’s real bullets?”
I switched the baby to my other hip, looked him square in the face and said, “I shoot back.“
To which he replied, only half- sure I was joking (I wasn’t.), “Are you packing?”
At this point, I could tell he was half-curious, half-taken-aback, but I’m not ever one to back down from helping people feel the awkwardness of their conversations or letting them know this mama means serious business, so I looked him in the eyes and said, “Always.”
To which his eyes got wide and he returned his gaze to the comedy gunfight as he swigged his Bud Light.
and THAT was the end of our day at the Fort Worth Stockyards 😂😂
I enjoy messing with people. 😂
For those non-southerners out there, there are three things you never ask a lady:
How old are you?
How much do you weigh?
Are you packing?
Have you been to the Fort Worth Stockyards?
If so, what’s your favorite thing to do there??
Let us know!!
