March 9, Ft. Worth/Arlington TX, Day 9, Sunday

No high pressure sales at Robson Ranch, nice touch. After saying good-bye we headed to Ft. Worth.

As we were trying to find the water park we saw th old Santa Fe railroad station, what design in the brick work.

It is mid morning and we found a water garden in downtown. This is really a nice garden, many flowers, remember them? With three different gardens. One with 40 spray nozzles making a fine mist with a couple of rainbows. The other a 40 foot high slowly dropping water over the walls 250 gallons per minute. The last was a large, ¾ block long and half wide water cascading down all side.

In 2004 there were 3 deaths in the bottom of this pool, just recently opened. There was a walk down stepping landing to the bottom a young man walked down. This person was accompanied by his mother on spring break. She gave us a couple ideas to do while here, they were from St. Louis.

Ate a breakfast lunch at Gloria’s by the art museum area. Mexican and further south items. I had a pupuas tamale, instead of rolled and steamed it was flattened with cheese and chicken in side and fried. The chips and great salsa with bean dip accompanied. The meals were Shirleen’s had Huevos papas fried potatoes in scrambled eggs, along side was black beans and lettuce salad. I had Huevos Argentinian, litely fried Argentinian sausage and scrambled eggs with same sides.

The Café coffee was delicious look at saucer - neat. Carlos our waiter was a joy to talk with, lived the last 20 yeas in the same house. The restaurant was neat, it was an old warehouse split in half with a small street and the parking slant wise but a shallow slant, looked like you parked on sidewalk.

The support columns and internal walls were limestone with seashells pressed into the rock. We left for the Amon Carter Art Museum, contains old 1850 European and western paintings, along with sculptures by Remington and Frederick along with paintings by them. Nice to see and would recommend it. Georgia O'Keffe pictures also.

Then the Ft. Worth Botanical Garden. Oh what a splash of color and late spring. We walked the entire area, taking in the Texan trail, rose garden and Japanese Garden. What a pleasant walk through a garden watch young kids and adults taking in the free environment. There was a butterfly exhibit this month, about 400 flying around at any time and 12,000 ordered for the event. Saw the largest moth, the female was laying eggs. After laying eggs the moth dies and the baby lives on. Humid and lots of people taking pictures they will never print. I’ll post some later.

We had an hour left so we took in the Cowgirls Museum and Hall of Fame. This showed the gals in the many activities, cow roping, horse riding – wild and tame. Dale Evans and Annie Oakley were well shown. Shirleen had a cousin in LA who used to clean Dale and Roy’s house, neat connection for her.

Down the road toward Arlington/Dallas with dark clouds following. We jumped off at Six Flags a mile from Texas Ranger’s baseball stadium which is being built. Sleep Inn was right by Six Flags but low cost, nice room. Ate down the line at the Texas Land and Cattle restaurant, kind of like Grizzlies in Mankato. We split a 1883, 20 oz bone-in rib eye, this is a special cut from old time cattle lines, utterly delicious even though they had to re-grill. Shirleen had the Trenchero cabernet and I the Red Diamond merlot, had this before a good stand-by.

Off for a good night sleep, but whew filled up with gas. It is running from 3.03 to 3.19 per gallon. Ours was Shell (5% discount for our card) at 3.09. Sure it will go up because we have no input, just pay. And why would you build more refineries? They are making a bundle this way by George. jerr