How 'bout them cowgirls...

My favorite day of Claire's visit was Saturday - we spent the whole day and evening in Fort Worth (Cowtown). There were NO shortages of cowboy hats, boots, spurs, horses or anything of the like! Love it!
We spent the morning at the Botanic Gardens, then headed over to the Stockyards and had lunch at Risckey's BBQ, then shopping throughout the giftshops. At 4pm, we watched the cattle drive (one of the longhorns had a cowbell around his neck - need more cowbell!) and then we headed to Joe T. Garcia's for dinner. Joe T's is supposed to be this famous tourist trap that has fabulous food and gorgeous dining areas. Claire and I weren't that impressed, but at least we can say we've been there. After we had dinner, we headed back to the rodeo area and watched all of the cowboys and cowgirls heading in to the rodeo. We decided to go to Billy Bob's instead, which is just behind the rodeo coliseum.

Here are some pics of our adventures in Cowtown!

Some people just take the cowboy thing too far. Mayce would just puke if she saw this cow all dressed up like this!

Claire found this big huge oversized spur during our power-shopping time in the afternoon. There was also a HUGE belt with belt buckle too, but it wouldn't fit in a picture very well. I thought it was a fabulously big spur!!

Here's a biker bar in the Stockyards - maybe I'll take my next visitor to the Love Shack! Oh wait, my Mom is my next visitor......I'm not sure if that's really her thing....... hee hee

As part of their uniform, the cops in Fort Worth wear cowboy hats - I couldn't resist getting my picture taken with two of them.

While we were at Billy Bob's (the biggest honky tonk in the world!), we took in some bull-riding action. This whole stadium thing was inside the bar! One of the bullriders got hurt while we were there - he got thrown off the bull, but his hand got stuck on a rope and dragged him around. He probably broke his leg - they had to kind of carry him off. But other than that, it was very interesting.

As we were heading into Billy Bob's, we passed by the practice corral for the rodeo that was going on next door. The horses are walked around in that corral and warmed up, and some of them were tied up to the outside edge so you could walk up and pet them. Horse noses are the softest, sweetest thing - I loved touching them! Here are some pics of the horse corral: