Fort Worth Stockyards

While Mike held down the fort with the MoHo in Jacksonville (fishing and chores), I flew to Dallas for my annual girls weekend.  This is a tradition I have had with 2 of my best friends, Shelly & Sunny, so we didn’t want to skip it even though I was on the road.  Typically we meet up somewhere closer to home but this time we had to pick somewhere in between Washington and Florida, so we landed on Dallas!

Mike dropped me at the airport Friday mid-morning and I landed at DFW around 1:30 and the girls were waiting for me!  After a bit of debacle at the airport trying to find their luggage (that airport is HUGE), we finally got a cab with our driver Beshar, and arrived at the Omni Dallas around 3.  Got checked in and it was time for a cocktail and to let the chitty-chatting begin.  We hadn’t seen each other since Thanksgiving so had a lot of catching up to do.  It was Valentine’s Day, so knew we probably couldn’t get reservations anywhere.  Decided to just walk downtown on Main Street and see what we could find.  Found a place for appies and a drink then decided to just head back to the hotel for a bite to eat.  It had been a very early morning for them, so we ended up going to bed fairly early.

Random eyeball art in downtown Dallas

Room service was on the agenda the next morning, then we headed to the Fort Worth Stockyards.  If you’ve never heard of this area it is kind of like a Texas Bourbon Street.  Our driver Beshar picked us up and off we went, about a 45-minute drive.  It was a beautiful sunny day and the area was pretty full with people.  There was a rodeo going on so that added to the crowds.  Our original plan was to stay until about 6pm, but we had so much fun we ended up staying until 10.   We were basically on the ultimate pub-crawl for the day.  Listened to some great live music, saw the Longhorn cattle drive, ate a burger at the Love Shack (delicious!), went boot shopping, met a real cowboy and the highlight – Billy Bob’s!  This place was absolutely huge (120,000 square feet and capacity of 6,000) and reminded me of the Urban Cowboy bar. It is known as the world’s largest Honky Tonk.  It was a Saturday night so this place was definitely full and hoppin’!  There was a bull riding rink and a concert venue; Scotty McCreery was playing but didn’t come on until 10 so we missed him, but there was great live music playing the whole night.  We were mesmerized by the dancing and watched for hours as the couples two-stepped and glided around the floor.   Sunny and I even took a whirl, but after bumping into a few people, scampered off.  Oh, and we had our photo taken on a bull.   To quote another friend, “straight up ridiculous.”  We wanted to stay longer, but Beshar was ready to pick us up.  Probably a good thing we left when we did.

From the deck of Love Shack

Classic barstools

Longhorn cattle drive

Tall drink of water!

No caption needed

Sunday morning we had appointments at the spa, which was glorious.  We had a nice lunch then watched a movie in the room.  We were a bit tired from all of our antics the day before.  Decided to walk over to the Reunion Tower, a rotating restaurant with killer views, for a drink at sunset.  Then, to uptown and Perry’s Steakhouse for dinner.  A much mellower evening for us.  Monday morning, I had my hair cut/colored – it was beyond time to get this done!   Then, we walked to the west end area for some more boot shopping (still no purchases) and a nice lunch sitting outside on the patio, except I got pooped on by a bird on my arm.  Isn’t that good luck?!  On the way back to the hotel, we happened upon the JFK memorial, which I’m glad we saw.  Had a few last cocktails at the hotel before Beshar took us to the airport.

Reunion Tower

The view from the top of Reunion Tower

What a great weekend it was and I so appreciated the effort for them to fly all the way to Dallas to meet me.  I needed some girl time.  We laughed til we cried and created another arsenal of great memories. It was really hard to say goodbye to them.  But, I know that no matter how much time passes, we always can pick right back up where we left off.   Mike picked me up around 10 and it was nice to be back “home” and to catch up with him.  We have a few more days in Jacksonville before we head down to Cape Canaveral for the rocket launch on Thursday.

Our VERY patient cab driver, Beshar