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Published: October 24th 2010
Who shot J.R? Our first stop in Texas (from Oklahoma) late on October 9 was the house of Texas´most famous resident (or so I think anyway), J.R. Ewing. Ok so he wasn´t real but who doesn´t remember ´Dallas´, which funnily enough is the town where Southfork Ranch is. This apparently wasn´t J.R´s first home, but after the pilot series the owners of the first ranch said no to additional filming. Probably not a bad decision as after Dallas became popular Southfork Ranch was so besieged by fans that the owners had to move out! Filming was however only done outside, and with clever wide angle lenses (the only real special effects they had then) they made the house and pool look a lot bigger than it is. The owners of the ranch now have obviously turned the place into a tourist attraction but it was a little disappointing actually. The museum was tiny, they really could have done so much more with it, especially given apparently 83 million people tuned into the whole ´Who shot J.R episode´. The prop gun that actually shot him was there though!
Who shot J.F.K? I promise shootings won´t be the theme of
The Texas School Book Depository Building
The car is right over the X which marks where JFK was shotthis blog, but this was probably one of the most famous shootings in this century which happened right in Dallas´ downtown (the last president assassinated was William McKinley in 1901). The 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building, from where Lee Harvey Oswald supposedly shot JFK on November 22, 1963, has now been turned into a museum dedicated to the events on and after the fateful day. We joined a million other people in the museum (it was seriously busy) which was quite well set out though confused with an audio tour which considerably slowed down advancement of the masses. There were some good videos though of the events and in the end we were there about 2 hours. The whole conspiracy theory was also covered although the conclusion still seemed to be that Oswald did shoot JFK but that he was part of a larger group conspiracy rather than acting entirely on his own. We also went outside to the ´grassy knoll´ where some believe JFK was really shot from, moreover, there is an X in the road marking where the car was at when JFK was shot. Slightly strange to see the videos of the event
and then to stand right next to it.
As has somehow become the norm we spent the rest of the day in Chili´s watching the NFL games.....not sure how that happened although they have good food so it´s not that bad for me either!
Big hat, big boots, big....?Well everything´s big in Texas! We finally went to see some cowboy action at the Stockyards in Fort Worth neighbouring Dallas. This area was originally the last big stop on the Chisholm trail for the cowboys moving cattle up from Texas, where they just appeared and bred naturally up to the northern states. They didn´t have cattle up there so they would pay a lot more for each head of cattle, and then send them on the railroads east. When the railroad finally got down to Texas the stockyards were built together with 2 big packing factories and Fort Worth grew. Nowadays this area has been maintained for tourists decorated with all things cowboy and was actually quite fun. Twice a day they have a mini cattle drive down the main street, with about 20 or so Longhorn cattle and 6 cowboys. Longhorns were the original breed on the
south plains, and they were hardy cattle who could withstand the arduous cattle drives up the Chisholm trail. Breeds have developed over the years such that these cattle are just used for tourist type events these days as the beef isn´t good enough apparently. We also went on a walking tour around the stockyards buildings including the original Cowtown Colliseum built in 1908 where rodeos are now held every weekend (shame we would not actually be here on a weekend), and where even Elvis performed in 1956. We also had a peek in an office that was conducting cattle auctions over the internet. Ranchers used to have to transport their cattle down to central areas where everyone would gather for auctions, but these days all they do is get an auction company to come out with their cameras and they don´t have to go anywhere. Genius! Anyway, it was quite a cool day and a good insight into the cowboy culture.
Yee Haw!! I was very excited this day as we were going to our first rodeo! The Heart O´Texas fair and rodeo was in Waco, a town in between Dallas and Austin where we definitely wouldn´t have
gone but for this rodeo. The fair itself was pretty small with some carnival rides and a few music stages, with food and beer stalls. Patrick nearly had a panic attack when the first beer tent we went to refused us beer because we didn´t have Texas drivers licenses! It seems tourists from out of state are a rarity. Don´t worry, we did get beer at the next stall. They had one stage with the semi finals of ´Who´s got talent´competition with some actually quite impressive singers, one of who sung the national anthem at the start of the rodeo.
We also watched a little of the pig showing. So everyone´s seen the dog shows where they parade dogs round a pen. Well, yes it was the same thing with pigs. A little odd we thought, but it was all very serious with the judge giving a lot of information about why one pig was better than the other. Wow we were really in farm country now! They also had pig racing which was brilliant! 4 pigs put into greyhound style gates, then let go and they really went damn quick round the track, and all for some biscuits
at the end. Fantastic!
Ok, so to the actual rodeo itself. I have to say I loved it! And I don´t really want to get into the debate over whether this is cruel to the animals involved though I will just say that this is the way of life for the cowboys down here, and as far as I could see the animals seemed completely unharmed and after the events where they were involved they just got straight back up and ran away. Anyway, that said I will try and explain the different events in the rodeo. This was the order that happened at Waco........
1. Bareback riding So the rider will sit on the horse bareback with only a leather handle to hold onto, and the horse is let out the gate which will then buck (quite aggressively) trying to get rid of the rider on it. The rider has to stay on for 8 seconds, and then there´s some convoluted scoring which we didn´t quite get the hang off, something to do with how stylish the rider is and also the horse? This was the first event we saw and is still my favourite, it looks
completely painful!!
2. Down roping This was my first pang of feeling sorry for the calves involved, but as I said they seemed to jump back up pretty quickly afterwards. So this one involved the rider lassooing (I´m sure there´s probably a more technical term than that but oh well) the calf and then jumping off his horse with the end of the rope attached to his horse, so he can go pick up the calf and ´down´it to tie its legs together. Pretty impressive stuff in times of about 8 seconds.
3. Mutton Bustin´ This was absolutely hilarious! 3-4 year olds, yes little children, are dressed up in chest padding and head gear and put on sheep which race down the auditorium until the kids fell off and the winner is obviously the one that goes furthest. Seriously, they´re putting these tiny things on these damn fast sheep, I couldn´t stop laughing! Guess you got to start them young!
4. Steer Wrestling Another manly event where a calf gets released from a shute, and a rider will ride on his horse alongside the calf and then jump from his horse and wrestle the calf to the
ground. You can´t make this stuff up.
5. Saddle Bronc Riding Like the bareback but on saddled bucking horses. Apparently the horses are different but it looks equally as painful.
6. Calf Scramble Well you´ve got to have something for the bigger kids, so there are about 15-20 teenagers in the ring and a load of calves are let go and the teenagers need to catch one and drag it back into a circle or over a line. Ok these calves aren´t that big but I wouldn´t want to try this with city kids in London! The calves once caught (which is a feat in itself) are then completely stubborn and won´t move when pulled so to actually win seems to be quite a big thing. Another funny event.
7. Team Roping This involves 2 riders together roping a calf, with one getting the head and the other the legs. As we´d see in the 2nd rodeo we saw (yes we actually went to another one! This one seemed to have better competitors) this doesn´t seem to be that easy as there are a load of rules involved. Again another quick event with most happening in 15
seconds.
8. Barrel Racing The only female event where there are 3 barrels in a triangle and they have to ride round each one as quick as possible. Again as we saw in the second rodeo, its not as easy as it looks!
8. Bull riding And last but by no means least is the bull riding. It doesn´t look as painful as the bucking broncos but obviously a lot more dangerous given it´s a big massive bull. Riders seemed to fall off the bull quite quickly and then there´d be the quick sprint to get away from the thing (there are people dressed as clowns to try and take the bull´s attention from the man on the floor) but sometimes they´re just not quick enough as we saw a cowboy get scooped up by one bull´s horns and get chucked over the bull. He did get up and was ok but you do wonder why they would do these things! And no question of who is boss here, the bull gets the last laugh.
So that was our first rodeo experience and I quickly got on the internet to find another one as I thought it
At the 1st Cavalry museum
That´s Staff Sergeant Deangelo with Patrick was so cool! Quite a lot of entertainment for 3 hours. But after all that excitement we thought we´d chill for a bit in Austin before the next time.
You can´t come in here Sir Well, not without an escort anyway. We´d read about an army museum on our way to Austin. Little did we know that it was actually based on Fort Hood (in Killeen) which is one of the largest US armed forces base in the world, with about 30,000 people. When we arrived at the gate we were told we couldn´t get in without having an escort for the entire time we were there. So we were assigned Staff Sergeant Deangelo. I felt quite bad taking up this guys time, given his story was that he´s been in the forces for 12 years, with 3 tours in Iraq, and here we were just lowly travellers. It was great to be able to meet someone in the US forces and he was so unbelievably unbeat about his job, even saying he hopes to get a tour in Afghanistan as he didn´t want to ´miss out´. The museum itself was on the history of the 1st cavalry
division (which Deangelo belonged to), one of the oldest divisions in the US army and involved in every battle since world war I. It was a smallish museum but with so much information, and the outside grounds held more military vehicles than I´ve ever seen in one place. An amazing experience to be on a base and hear a little bit about life in the military.
Goodness Gracious great balls of fire! After they let us back off the base, we drove to the outskirts of our well positioned motel right next to a bus route and went into Austin town centre. Austin is known for its live music venues so we headed to the famous 6th street and started off the evening with a $1 beer. The bars on this road were seriously competitive, especially during the week and beers for $1-2 seemed to be normal. That is until we went into Pete´s Piano Bar which was damn expensive. But this place was where I wanted to be as we´d seen the dueling pianos concept in San Diego last year which was really fun. It´s 2 pianos sitting face to face where the musicians can sing and
Custom boots at SoCo
I didn´t buy my boots here which is just as well because apparently a pair of custom made boots start at $2,000! improvise to people´s requests, and get audience participation as well. If you are ever in a city with one of these then go to it!
An expensive day We were staying in Austin for a few nights so we headed back to town with the plan of seeing the State Capitol and history museum. But we arrived to find a load of school kids there for a no drugs rally, so instead we headed south to SoCo which is full of vintage (i.e. Second hand) shops and a boot store called Allens. We´d seen lots of cowboy boots of course so the plan was to find some, although Patrick quickly concluded he couldn´t really get away with wearing them, imagine the ridicule! So it was a hunt for me instead! The area was quite cool, hippyish, and I found a good pair of jeans but only 1 pair of possible boots that were secondhand. So we ventured into Allens which was an incredibly bad idea as I fell for a gorgeous pair of very new cowboy boots with a nice big price tag too. I couldn´t resist and I won´t tell you how much they are but it
Floor mosaic at the State Capitol Building
Showing the different flags of Texas´ history, the Spanish, French (bits of Texas were under French rule), Texas, as a republic, confederate and USA. means I have to wear them a lot to get my money´s worth! That´s about all we did this day although we headed back to 6th street for some more Pete´s Piano Bar which Patrick was now warming to.
Remember the Alamo! Now October 15th and 6 days into Texas we thought we´d better learn some more about the Texas history at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. Contrary to what people think, the US actually does have quite a history, well, at least from the 16th century (before this time it was obviously settled by indigenous cultures) when it belonged to Spain, as part of Mexico. I´ll give you the short version, so Mexico (including Texas) gained independence from Spain in 1821. Mexico allowed immigration into Texas from the then other states of the US and Europe, which would eventually lead to its downfall as Texas´new residents fought to gain independence from Mexico, which was won in 1836 (after a big slaughter at the Alamo by the Mexicans they finally won at San Jacinto against cries of ´Remember the Alamo´). So now Texas is it´s own country, a matter of which Texans are still very proud
of, and hence ´the lone star state´ which it remained for 9 years until it voluntarily annexed itself as a state in the US. However, Texas entered war again in 1861 after arguments over the abolition of slavery brought in by Abraham Lincoln and the southern states (the confederates) joined in war against the Union. Well, needless to say they lost and Texas once more became annexed to the US in 1870. Bit of a pointless war I think. It would be hard to imagine citizens today coming to war over a new law, however much they oppose it. Guess it was different in those days. The museum was excellent although huge, so we even had to take a lunch break before returning to it afterwards.
We also went down to the State Capitol Building which was completed in 1888 after the previous capitol building burnt down. It has an interesting story in itself. Texas had no money after spending it all on the civil war so it had to pay for the construction with land, which was used by the construction partners to create the first mega ranch in Texas, called XIT. It wasn´t very successful apparently but
it paved the way for future ranches and further settlement of Texas. It´s quite a building, and no expense was spared. I think the star on every single door handle, and the words ´ Texas Capital´on every door hinge is a bit overboard. It probably contributed to the $2.9/3.6m (depending on what book you read) price tag, way over the $1.5m original budget, but it is impressive. After a fire in the 1990s the state capitol was fully restored to its original state (with lots of upgrading like airconditioning etc) in 1995 together with extensions very cleverly built underground so not to ruin the view of the building.
That evening we went back to the museum which had an IMAX cinema to watch Avatar again. I still think this is an amazing film and you have to see it at an IMAX cinema if you haven´t already. I reckon the story line is just fine, contrary to most reviews I´ve read.
Yee Haw again! The next day we headed to the little town of Bellville on the way to Houston for the Austin County Fair and Rodeo. This was a smaller town but almost seemed a bigger
affair than Waco, although it might have been because it was a Saturday night. The rodeo though was outdoors with only 2 bandstand seatings each side unlike Waco which was a massive indoor stadium. Although it made it seem much more rustic and there were definitely no tourists at this one, the crowd were great! It was just as fun though with all the same events, except unfortunately there was no mutton bustin´. They had a big tent with it seems some good country singers although we can´t really appreciate that all that much so we called it a night.
October 17 and we headed to Houston for the traditional (seriously when did this become a tradition, so sad) Sunday NFL at Chili´s. Unfortunately the Chili´s we headed for didn´t have the direct TV NFL package (we thought all of them had) so we had to go to Buffalo Wild Wings, which is actually pretty good, with some very loud Houston Texans fans. And there ended our exposure to Texas and Texans as we headed for Louisiana the next day.
Texas was very cool. My favourite state so far.
Maybe I´ll become a cowgirl one day, after
all I already have the boots.
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Crazy Canucks
Matt
How's it Going
Dude - great to hear your back to health. As you know we are living in Cayman and are thinking of doing a quick trip to Nicaguara (sp). Given its quarter end etc it'll just be a quickie. Do you recommend Nic - is it worth going there for 4-5 days? Cheers Matt - enjoy Arizona and SoCal (love Scottsdale and nothing compares to SoCal)