Cleburne State Park (near Fort Worth)
Thursday, April 14th, 2011March 30th – April 1st
On Thursday, we woke up to a sunny, beautiful day. This is what we came to Texas for. We took advantage of the nice weather to spend a day in the park. We went for a hike around the park which surrounds a large lake. There was a strange noise (like a shooting range) in the distance. After further exploration we found that it was coming from natural gas pipelines. We also found out that they were mining rocks near the park.
After a day of relaxation, we set off early on Friday to explore some of the towns along the Hwy 281. Fabien programmed the GPS to take us “off road” onto some of the dirt roads through the ranches. Our first stop was in Hico, an old west town with a preserved historic center. We spent a little time looking in the antique shops and found a Romanian dowry chest- all of the time I spent looking for one in Romania and I could have bought it in Texas. From Hico, we went to Dublin to visit the Dr. Pepper Bottling Factory which is still using equipment from the early 20th century to bottle Dr. Pepper in reusable bottles. Texans are passionate about their Dr. Pepper. From Dublin, we made the long drive to Ft. Worth where we had tickets to see the Stockyards Rodeo at the Cowtown Coliseum. Before the rodeo, we had burgers and beer at the Loveshack where we heard some good live music.
The Cowtown Rodeo is the oldest indoor rodeo in the U.S. and they do it every Friday and Saturday night all year round. In true American spirit, it opened with Lee Greenwood’s “I’m proud to be an American” with a cowgirl riding around the arena with an American flag. Then we sang the Star Spangled Banner heard the cowboys’ prayer. After this impressive intro, we had the first event: round 1 of bull riding. To receive a score from the judges, the rider had to stay on the bull for at least 8 seconds. In the first round, only a couple of riders achieved this. Of course, there is a lot of preparation for each ride and the announcer along with the rodeo clowns keep the audience entertained by telling jokes. The rodeo clowns also have an important job- keeping the bull away from the rider after he falls off and getting it back in its pen. The second event was calf-roping. The cowboy has to rope and tie a calf in set time limit. There was also a team calf-roping event along with another round of bull-riding. Then there was barrel racing (a women’s event) where the riders have a course around 3 barrels- fastest time without knocking over a barrel wins. The rodeo ended with round 3 of bull-riding. We really enjoyed the events (my favorite was barrel racing) and the fun atmosphere.
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