Texas 2009 - Day 3 - Dallas/Fort Worth

So after days and days of empty promises, I've finally gotten my stuff together (meaning I've gotten my pictures together) and I can now blog about the rest of the trip to Texas. So here you have it, Day 3.

Our first stop that morning was to the King Tut Exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art. We had ordered the tickets ahead of time for a 9:30AM slot, and while ordering the tickets, I noticed that there was also a King Tut exhibit in Atlanta at the same time. This confounded me, because how can King Tut be in two places at the same time?

When we got up to the gate to go in, my brother asked the girl who was working, "How can King Tut be in Dallas and in Atlanta at the same time?" Without missing a beat, she replied, "King Tut is still in his tomb in Egypt, and he's never been anywhere else." Well, didn't WE feel stupid. Haha! I think we were all under the impression that we would see his sarcophagus or coffin or whatever you call it. The famous "King Tut" face. But alas, we just saw lots of other things that were also found in his tomb. It was still pretty amazing.

After the museum, we made our way to Fort Worth to see the Stockyards. I had no idea what the "Stockyards" were before we got there. In my imagination, this was some big farm with lots of cattle. I was wrong. The Fort Worth Stockyards is probably one of the most unique places we visited the entire trip. If I had to describe it, I'd say its like a ghost town that hasn't been abandoned yet. Its just like the towns you see on old westerns and such. They had a General Store, and a Trading Post, an ice cream shop, bars & restaurants, and yes....cattle. At 11:30 AM and 4:00 PM every day, they do a "Cattle Drive" through the streets with Longhorn Cattle. It was really neat to see. We ate at a place called Riscky's Steakhouse, which has been there since the 1920's. On their menu, they serve their "Famous Kapusta Soup", which is saurkraut soup, an original recipe from the 1920's. It's the only thing from that time that is still on the menu. The soup, steak and baked potato were the best lunch I believe I've ever had! It was amazing.

They also had plenty of shopping areas in the Stockyards, where we did some souvenier shopping, much to Scott's dismay. He hates shopping on vacation, and my family loves it, which is a bit of a quandary. Once we were fully exhausted, we stopped in to Billy Bob's Texas, which is the "World's Largest Honkey-Tonk" to relax and get something to drink. The place was dead, as it was a Sunday night, so we practically had it to ourselves. After leaving there, we grabbed some dinner at Sonny Bryan's Smokehouse (great barbeque, terrible side
dishes). And then we called it a night.