Nov 24, 2019
Since we drove a bit longer the night before we had time for one stop in Fort Worth. We went to the Fort Worth Stockyards. Site of the stockyards where cowboys would end their cattle drives, it is now a cleaned up tourist destinations with stores, restaurants, petting zoo, maze and a twice daily cattle drive. Exactly the type of place a tourist with only a couple of hours to spare would go to and we knew the days of it being a real stockyard were long past since the place did not have the distinct smelliness of an operational stockyard.
The Stockyards had some old west style buildings and one of the first things we passed was real live Texas Longhorn steer tied up next to a fence for tourists to climb on and get their picture taken for five dollars.
We got there just in time for the cattle drive and as a small crowd lined the streets five or six cowboys on horses herded an equal number of cattle slowly down the street and into a pen. The cows were walking freely with no barrier between the 2000 lb animals and the families lining the street and all had an impressive set of horns, some measuring six or seven feet across. There wasn’t much danger though as the cowboys had certainly selected the most docile and lazy steer available and they ambled down the road with no incidents. This was definitely not the Running of the Bulls, more like the Amble of the Bulls.
The cattle drive was over in a few minutes and we headed to the petting zoo where for three dollars a person and three dollars for a cup of oats Olivia got to feed a bunch of fenced in goats, sheep, along with a lama and a cow. I would pass next time as there was a very limited selection of animals and you didn’t actually get to go in the pen, although that is probably a good thing since the goats were very aggressive in trying to get food.
Now it was time for the main even, we saw the animals, we fed the animals and now we certainly couldn’t leave the stockyard without eating the animals. We went to Riscky’s BBQ which had a $13.99 all you can eat meal and a nice outdoor patio. The ribs somewhat better than what you would expect from a $13.99 all you can eat tourist trap and came with some quite good French fries. I managed to finish off 8 ribs although Holly only ate 5. However the weather was nice, the patio was good for people watching and the staff were great so overall I would recommend Riscky’s.
Stuffed full we rolled on back to Rover and headed to Costco to gas up at a new all time low of $2.09 a gallon before we made for the final run down to Livingston. After a few hours of boring landscape, it got dark and even more boring. Eventually we got to the Escapee’s Rainbow’s End RV park around 7:30pm, hooked up and had a light dinner before turning in.