Ft. Worth!

Big day in Ft. Worth with several stops. First, Sue took me to the Stockyards, which were originally (large scale) stables later turned into a touristy, yet cool, shopping area. You still get the feel of the old west/cattle thing, and they have a "stampede" twice a day when they actually close off a street and herd the longhorns along for all to see.

Can you believe the horns on that sucker?!

This shows the make-up of an actual well-planned cattle drive. It was just as well that I didn't have much spending money - the turquoise jewelry was crazy!

Next, we went to the water gardens in downtown Ft. Worth. I didn't know exactly what to expect but I really enjoyed it. There are 3 different "gardens" with 3 different styles of water flowing over landscaped walls, rocks & sprinklers. 2 and 3 were cool, but the first one was my favorite.

You could actually walk on stones that were strategically placed among the other stones with water cascading over them. I almost felt like the flow of the water would take me down with it, but I was about 2" above it. It was loud, but very soothing - loved it!



This one was just multiple sprinklers, but the rainbow came through in the photo (if you look carefully)!

This one is sunken into the ground like the first one; you must walk down a flight of stairs and all of the walls around you are flowing. The walls are straight and in one piece, so there is no noise and wake like the first one.

All of this is in a city block in the middle of the busy business district of Ft. Worth, yet it is below the street level and not even noticeable if you're driving down the street. If I worked downtown, I would have lunch down here AT LEAST once a week - loved it!

We had a killer healthy lunch at Sweet Tomatoes. Of course, the healthy lunch was completely off-set by the brownie thing with the frozen yogurt and chocolate sauce on top, but gee whiz...

Our next stop was the Ft. Worth Botanical Gardens. This is not, of course, the best time of year for roses but there were some still blooming. Couldn't resist the beautiful archway in the middle of the rose garden - perfect place for a wedding.

I decided to try the close-up button on my new camera (yes, I know there's probably a much more technical name for it - back off). You get the benefits of my trying that button on some of the roses in the garden:

There were plenty of other plants, trees and flowers in the gardens, and we smelled some beautiful, giant sage bushes, but the roses are always the best!

I had a wonderful day and am very grateful to Sue for taking me all over and for inviting me and my Fletch into her home again...

Continuing to head west!