Fort Worth Stockyards

Saturday we went to the Fort Worth Stockyards, and it was worth every minute and every penny!

When you stroll along this elevated walkway, you can see down into all the pens of horses/cattle/mules/etc.
This day they were having a Horse Auction, and it most definitely wasn't a sale of old worn-out nags. These were worthy ranch horses for the most part, well-trained and ready to work.
Sitting in the Auction Barn brought me right back to my childhood when we used to go to Neimeyers Auction Barn in Lowell. Same atmosphere and same country folk! Yet, this was a bit different in that each horse was ridden into the pen (instead of DRIVEN in) and the rider endeavored to show off that horse's best abilities, such as cutting, roping calves, loping, backing, stopping on a dime, no-bit-needed, etc.

AND, before the auctioneer started his gibberish, the horse's glorious fine points were given over the mike....especially such things as "this horse was just used to rope half-a-dozen calves this very morning" or "I saw a 4-yr-old child riding this gelding w/ no problem at all!" Of course there was a whole lot of pedigree given for some, and a whole lot more ranch lingo for others. It was interesting to see how much each horse brought! The average prices were between 900 and $1800. A huge white mule who was obviously VERY highly trained and also registered... went for $2000, and a Golden Palomino pony went for $2400.

These horses below were waiting to go into the Auction Barn. Beautiful!!!

The best part came as I was leaving the Auction Barn and a business man in casual clothes next to me.......looked over as we stepped out into the open air......and in a British accent said, "THAT is the furthest thing from England that I have EVER encountered!" I laughed so hard! After a short conversation we learned that he was here on business, had spent 4 days in NY, then 2 days in Dallas working on a project.....and "let himself out for the day".....and this whole scene just boggled his mind! :) I loved it! His last words about all he'd seen in the US were said with a laugh and a shaking head...."It's all so vast." Said with his accent, it was priceless.

Every day they drive the longhorn cattle down the main street, so we lined up to watch that.

Obviously this is a high point of anyone's visit to the Stockyards, but I guess I had the idea in my head of a real CATTLE DRIVE! You know, cowboys yelling (or singing), horses galloping, cattle stampeding, and everyone ducking to make way for long, long horns! This was quite mild and slow, actually. Only one cowboy gave a token "Hi-yah", the cattle mosied along like this was something they do every single day of their lives, the horses looked pretty relaxed, and nothing stampeded! They are fine-lookin' animals though! :)
Maybe I've watched too many Westerns!!! HA!

We ate lunch at a burger place, and I have to say I like Bison, Buffalo and Elk way better than what slides out of the package at McDonalds, Burger King or the like! Johnny and I both had Buffalo Burgers and they were fabulous! Mine was actually incorporated into a salad, and I would DEFINITELY order it again! Sorry, no pictures of our meal. I guess we were too hungry to think of photography!

Then we watched a Gun Fight in the street. Lots of fun, and noisy too! They use real guns! (See the fingers in the kids' ears?) It was loud! It was pretty much a skit and the one Marshall played John Wayne REALLY REALLY well!

These were the main actors......
(This particular show was filmed by a tv crew as we watched.....for part of a Superbowl ad, so maybe you'll see a quick clip of it if you watch that game.)

And last but not least, Johnny let each child get ONE piece of candy from the old-fashioned Candy Store. Such fun. (They wanted lollipops as big as their heads, but we valued some semblance of sanity for the ride home, so declined that suggestion!)