Another great night sleep! We weren't in a rush to be anywhere so we let the kids sleep in a bit. But given, we were sharing a room, it wasn't long before they started to stir. We headed down to the breakfast buffet in the hotel at 9:00am.
Yesterday, I was able to get rodeo tickets for today at 1:30pm so we had some time to kill. We took a nice walk through the historic district and enjoyed the warmth of the morning.
Scott found a cool park in Fort Worth with water gardens so we decided to pack up our room and head over there.
It is a beautiful park with incredible structures all with fountains, calming pools, and waterfalls. We really enjoyed just exploring the space and posing for pictures.
When we left we noticed the parking lot we were in was the site of the major railroad hub. I looked it up on ChatGPT to learn more and found the station is still in use and could be accessed through the condominiums that now took the majority of the space. So we wandered it.
It was incredible to see the architecture of the original train station (completed in 1931 - long before modern computers and equipment) and how carefully they repurposed the space for modern use while still protecting the history. We went under ground following the white subway tile only to emerge on the open platform. It was fun to imagine what this place would have looked like in its hay-day.
After we finished our exploration, we headed back to the stockyards and grabbed some lunch at Riscky's Barbecue. They couldn't seat us in time so we got it to go and ate in the lobby of our hotel from last night.
After our meal, we walked over to Cowtown Colosseum for the Stockyards Championship Rodeo at 1:30pm. We had great seats with a good view of all the events. It was fun watching it with the kids who had never experienced rodeo before.
We wrapped up around 3:15pm and grabbed the car to head south. Today we are relocating to San Antonio, appx 4 hrs south.
We had an obligatory stop at Buccee's in Hillsboro, TX. I am always so fascinated by how they can pump so much fuel without bleeding those tanks dry. We filled up on snacks, ziplock bags, even a dress... you know the typical things you buy at a gas station!
We ran into a decent backup near Waco which added almost 30 mins to our trip. I tried to convince Scott to cross a grassy median and onramp the highway from the shoulder like so many others were doing, but the kids outvoted me and we waited patiently for the traffic to clear.
We also used the opportunity to share with the kids about the Branch Davidians and all that occurred during the raid of their compound in 1993. While some of the details were hazy even for Scott and I, we leaned it to ChatGPT to help!
Our next stop may surprise you. But we were driving through Austin, TX at exactly the right time, so we went for it. Here's the background.
In the city of Austin, there is one of the largest urban colonies of bats in the world, with over 1.5 million bats living under the Congress Avenue Bridge. Each night around dusk, the bats wake up and fly out in a tight spiral formation (like a swirling tornado) for almost an hour straight. It is a massive, coordinated migration for feeding. And they eat appx 10-30,000 lbs of bugs EACH night. Anyway, I heard of this bat colony years ago and have always been intrigued. And as it happened, we were passing Austin, right around 7:30 pm when they would be close to starting. So we made a quick stop - and it was incredible! (The photos definitely don't do it justice - I promise)
We hadn't had supper yet, so we stopped for a quick meal at Freddys and then grabbed a coffee before getting back on the road. We had 1:15 hrs remaining and pulled in to our hotel in San Antonio right around 10:15 pm. We'll be here two nights so it'll be good to settle in.
We were all pretty shot after a big day... so it was pretty much straight to bed.
