Farewell

We got up early (vacation early) and started back north.  Our first stop was at the famous King Ranch, which has almost a million acres in Texas.

Over the course of 150 years, King Ranch has led some of the first cattle drives, developed the Santa Gertrudis and Santa Cruz breeds of cattle, bred the finest quarter horses, and produced champion thoroughbreds.  Today’s King Ranch has diversified into a major agribusiness with interests in cattle ranching and feedlot operations, farming (citrus, cotton, grain, sugar cane, and turfgrass), pecan processing and sales, commodity marketing and processing, luxury retail goods, and recreational hunting.


It was a long drive back up to Dallas, but we got to see a lot of ranch country on the way.  Texas speed limits are in general about 10 MPH faster than on similar roads back home.  We pulled into cousin Sarah's place at about 8:PM and she made us an excellent stir fry supper.  We enjoyed our visit and slept in the next morning.  Next stop was the historic Fort Worth Stockyards. The yards once covered 203 acres and had large packing plants built on the edges.

At the height of World War I in 1917, the Fort Worth Stockyards was the largest horse and mule market in the world.  During World War II, the Fort Worth Stockyards processed 5,277,496 head of livestock making 1944 the peak year of the entire operation.

No longer in operation as a stockyards, the area now houses historical buildings, museums, restaurants, shops, hotels, honky-tonks, western wear stores, rodeos, horse boarding, and the resident longhorn herd.  We had a late lunch of mesquite grilled beef fillet at Risky's Steakhouse which was excellent.

Earlier in the week, we had found out that Bonnie and Clyde were from the outskirts of Dallas.  It sparked my interest, so I did some internet research about them and found out that they were buried (in separate cemeteries) in Dallas.  We had some time on this, our last day in Texas, so we looked them up.  We found Bonnie's grave easily, and found the small cemetery where Clyde is buried.  It was fenced in with a "No Trespassing" sign, so we couldn't pay him our last respects.

The next morning we turned in our rental car, boarded our plane to Peoria and said farewell to Texas. 

But bade them farewell, saying, I must by all means keep this feast that cometh in Jerusalem: but I will return again unto you, if God will. And he sailed from Ephesus.
Acts 18:21