November 3, 2009: Texas

Over the last few years, I have rapidly closed in on my goal of visiting every state in the country that can be reached by land (meaning any state except Hawaii). By October, 2008, I had visited 45 states, with only Alaska, California, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Texas remaining unvisited. That's the way it remained for a over a year....until today. I can finally say I visited Texas. I didn't want to do this trip without at least adding Texas to my list of visited states.

The trip to Texas can almost definitely be considered a "token" visit. Still, it could be worse. In Iowa and New Mexico, my visits were limited to purchasing food, gas, and postcards. With Texas, I actually visited an attraction.

Texas is so large that it deserves a trip focused totally on the state alone. Unfortunately, this trip had multiple goals and multiple states so I could not spend much time there. Also, because Texas is so far away from home, it's difficult to see it without flying to it. Anyway, I chose something quick and history related. I wanted something in the Dallas-Fort Worth area as I knew I couldn't go any further out of the way and still keep up my schedule. I ultimately chose the Log Cabin Village in Fort Worth.


View Larger Map

The Log Cabin Village was great. The docents were in period costume. They were very friendly and more than willing to talk --- for a very long time. I learned quite a bit and did enjoy the conversations. It was nice and while I did talk with them, my face probably had a different message. It was a three hour drive from Oklahoma City and I planned to be back in Oklahoma City that evening. I was dreading the three hour drive taking the same route back and probably wanted to just see the village, have dinner, and start the drive back to the hotel in Oklahoma City.

The homes at the Log Cabin Village were actual structures that belonged to settlers in the 1840s and 1850s. Each home contained detailed biographical information about the family that had owned the home. To have information about these families from the 1840s and 1850s on the frontier is wonderful.

There was a blacksmith shop complete with a docent who was able to demonstrate all the tools. Another docent demonstrated candle making. The wicks had to usually be dipped as much as 50 times to get decent candles.

On the way into Texas, I saw the beautiful Arbuckle Mountains in Oklahoma. This was a little surprising as my impression had been that all of Oklahoma was flat with at most gently rolling hills.

The trip into Texas was absolutely wonderful. Just like Montana ("Big Sky Country"), the sky is expansive, at least in this region of Texas. I definitely need more time to spend looking around Texas. This particular area was mostly plains.

Fort Worth is a huge city. The population is around 720,000. After leaving Log Cabin Village, I wanted to find a restaurant specializing in barbecue. The GPS had several choices, but seemed to lead me in a wild goose chase. I simply do not like driving around large cities like this. There is too much crammed together in one place and it's too confusing for someone unfamiliar with the area, even with a GPS. If I had found a restaurant, parking would have been a nightmare. Finally, I decided to just head towards Oklahoma City and look at restaurant signs along the interstate. By this point it was rush hour time and the I-35 was jammed. I ended up accidentally taking a wrong turn and started heading south of Fort Worth. To get to the next exit, which was only one mile away, took several minutes. But, once I got out of Fort Worth, the traffic issue cleared up.

Originally, I planned to quickly stop by the Oklahoma City Memorial for the awful bombing that took place in 1995. However, I'm glad I saved that for the next day as my tour there lasted over two hours. It was better to throw that into Texas.