As we mentioned on the last blog, the journey from Dallas to Houston was a bit of a nightmare, a four hour journey turned into 7 hours. The difficulty was we were meeting our friends Pam and Jeff from the airport at 9pm and time was of the essence. When we arrived at the hotel there were road blocks, police everywhere, crowds of people, this was all we needed when we were running late. Obviously we were wondering what all the commotion was about. We found out that a space shuttle had just been sent across the Gulf Coast from Florida and was getting ready to be moved into Houston Space Centre, which was situated near the hotel. We could see the shuttle from our hotel bedroom. Because of this we made it just in time to meet Jeff and Pam at the airport. After a few gin and tonics in the bar that night, it was great catching up with each other.
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| Houston skyline |
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| First night Houston, Hilton Hotel |
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| Space ship that had just been delivered from Florida |
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| Houston Space Centre |
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| Houston Space Centre (The bottom of Saturn 5) |
Later on in the day we went to Kemah Boardwalk located 2 miles away from our hotel on Clearwater . It was a buzzing little place with lots of people, fabulous waterfront restaurants, amusements and retail stores.
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| Kemmah Boardwalk- People dancing in the water sprinklers. |
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| Keemah Boardwalk |
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Our first Sunday started off with a quick visit to see USN Battlehip Texas a very impresive ship that took part in the D Day landings over 60 years ago. It was right next to the San Jincanto State monument. Here Jeff and Steve spent alot of time up the statue, learning about how Texas won their independence from Mexico in 1835 in the final battle of the war. (Pam and I thought there must have been a bar right at the top !)
Before going to the Kennedy space centre we purchased a 5 day Houston City pass which gives you choice of 5 top attractions including the space centre, Zoo, Aquarium, Natural Science Museum and a Fine Arts Museum. The difference between the prices for each attraction cost $26 or you could do all 5 attractions for $36. As we did not have much time in Houston we only chose to go to one more museum which was the National Science Museum, it was quite informative but we were pleased that we had bought the 5 day pass, for $36. I did not think it would have been worth a further $26.
The best entertainment was Steve deciding to get in a cage that turns 360 degrees spinning upside down, I thought he had enough when he had been on the bull in Orlando, as it took him weeks to get over all his cuts and bruises!
We left the Natural Science Museum and were advised that while we were in the area to look the glitzy Monrose area, it was just like a clean urban area of Houston. The Montrose area didn't take long to get around, so we decided to head of to Galveston Island which is located on the coastline of Texas just 50 miles south of Houston. The information about the Island seemed very attractive quoting that "it has more fun and attractions than one can fit into an entire summer". It mentions towering glass pyramids, an array of shops and cafes, first-rate restaurants, 32 miles of beaches and an abundance of leisure activities with something to do for everyone.
We were all fairly surprised when we arrived there when we saw a typical pier full of amusements being the main attractin We all laughed when Jeff said "Redcar 2 Galveston 1". It was a really sort of strange seaside town, the water looked really brown, not the sort of water that would invite us for a swim even though it was a really hot day. Some of the Victorian architecture in old Galverston, by the bay was interesting and worth looking around though. We stayed for dinner before the drive home.
The following day our next destination was to head to San Antonio. In order to break up the journey we made a couple of stops, the first was Schullenberg, which is famous for its colourful churches designed by the Germans and Czechs. The second stop we headed for Shiner, the oldest brewery in Texas. We were in luck as there was a tour about to start at 1-30 which was supposed to take 30-45 minutes, however they let us do some beer tasting first, where we could taste four free samples. So you can imagine by the time of the tour we had got what we wanted and disappeared back to the car by 1-25pm, who needs a tour when we have already tasted the beer?. However after that we realised Pam had taking to this Shinerbock beer making it her main choice of beer to drink during the trip, so the beer tasting was worth it after all.
We had already pre-booked the motel for four nights in San Antonio, which was not that cheap but when arriving the motel got a new name by Jeff called "El Dumpo". The motel had one thing in its favour, it was really close to the famous Alamo and the River walk known for its bars and restaurants and shops.
Shopping Centre on the River Walk.
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| Steve and Jeff in 'Mad Dogs' ,the British Pub on the river walk on Jubilee Day. |
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| Part of the River Walk. |
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| Outside the 'Alamo' |
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| 750 feet up in The Americas Tower- Happy Hour! |
Our highlights of San Antonio was of course " The Alamo", happy hour (cocktails) in "Americas Tower" (standing 750 feet above San Antonio) The Menger historic hotel and the restaurants on the River walk.
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| The Menger Hotel;where Teddy Roosevelt hired his 'Rough Riders' |
We also experienced the bus city hopper which gave us a fairly educated history and site seeing tour of San Antonio that also had some really interesting areas ,(Especially the three other Missions .) We all felt that two-three days was enough time to discover San Antonio as we were searching for things to do on the fourth day,but we went for a car ride out towards the mexican border and ended up in Uvelde- a very, very quiet town .
The next day we went to a pre- arranged surprise package for Jeff and Pam, 'The Mayan Dude Range' in Banderas, 70 miles north west of San Antonio. The literature was exactly what we expected we had not even got to the ranch when we we saw 20 horses all saddled up wondering around the Coral. The ranch was situated in 350 acers of land . The organisation has been run by the Hicks family for 60 years.
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| Steve outside the Bailey ranch |
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| Steve relaxing on the swing bench outside our ranch |
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| Pam lasooing in the Cowboy Olimpics |
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| Resting by the Dude Ranch pool |
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| Pam and Jeff outside their Ranch. |
This was an all inclusive deal with a very structured itinerary with options of course. Our first horse riding session was booked within an hour after we arrived, so straight in to it. Each couple had a beautiful two bedroomed cottage, all detached within the woods, very peaceful, however they were still close enough to all the amenities, pool, tennis courts etc. Our highlight of the day was the cowboy Olympics which involved shooting golf, lassooing a metal bull, horseshoe throwing and many more. Steve won the golf round for the men and the lasooing and by some luck I won the women's golf. Pam was our ambassador within our group for the shooting, scoring two out of three while we all scored zero. The first evening finished with live country music, barbecue and fireworks and obviously as much alcohol and food as much you wanted.
The following day was cowboy breakfast and a country singer which was very relaxing, followed by a hay ride back to the ranch. We did a little bit more horse riding on the morning and relaxed by the pool on the afternoon. That evening the whole Hicks family did a show whilst we were having dinner which was excellent. There were alot of good singers within the family. We would recommend the place for families and especially children who love horseriding. We also found out while we were there, that people have been going back every year for the last 10-20 years.
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| Hay ride. |
We left the following day and headed towards Austin the state capital via Fredericksberg, again local knowledge told us to get to Fredricksberg by one o' clock to see a pacific war display. Some display it was, it was like being in the middle of the film set, ducking hand grenades, heavy machine guns and bullets everywhere. We were surprised when tanks jeeps and troop carriers came on the scene. The whole display was very realistic and well acted, however it was very noisy. The odds were a bit uneven though they had more Americans than Japanese. The best part was when the flame thrower came out, we felt we were on fire. We now understand why we were given ear plugs at the entrance and the front seats were the only ones left that were free. For us this was a really exciting display and a very new experience however this would never have been passed in the Uk. Fredrickberg is a beautiful litlle town, a very strong German influence with lots of character.
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| Showing the firepower of a Thompson machine gun |
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Two hours later we arrived in Austin, where we stayed near the centre which was still a taxi ride from the bars. As we only had a duration of two nights we went to the supposedly 6th Street which had a fantastic write up about all the bars and restaurants. It was the roughest place we have seen since we have been to America. The police were on pedal bikes. We had a quick walk down 6th street after passing many rough bars and found an Irish bar where we felt pretty safe. We really struggled to find a decent restaurant and walked quite a long way to find one. We didn't seem to have much luck they all seemed to close early so we went back to the Irish Bar.
The following day on the morning we visited their Capitol Building which is where the Texan government is based. This is very impressive building, higher than Washington State Capital Building.
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| The Capitol |
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| The Main Hotel on 6th Street |
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| The Biggest Texas Star in the world |
On the afternoon we did the 'Duck Tour' which is a bus that converts into boat. When we were on the lake the guide pointed Andy Roddick's ( famous tennis player) house. The tour overall was pretty informative, with a very enthusiastic guide who was very proud of the City. The evening finished back in the Irish bar, once again two days were enough to get a good insight into Austin.
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| On the Duck |
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| We thought this was funny Waco Police |
Our next destination was Fort Worth which was recommended by people we had met on our travels , this journey was approximately 200 miles however we did have to stop for a while.Firstly for lunch in Waco.We didn't bother checking out what Waco has become world famous for ie the mass religious suicide but on our way to Fort Worth we did pass loads of Baptist churches. (In places they were lined up next to each other, similar to a parade of shops!) Secondly the weather changed from a glorious summers day to thunderstorms and torrential rain. In the end we took a detour away from the motor way so the journey was a bit longer than anticipated. (That day hailstones were reported and shown on TV the size of tennis balls!)
The next day we went to the stockyards, where there was a cattle drive down the main street, approximatley18 Long Horn Cattle followed the cowboys on horses, apparently they do this everyday at 11am and 4pm to demonstrate to tourists the importance of cattle in the history of Fort Worth. The stockyard area was a home to cowboys with some excellent venues for live country music. Some were dance halls, Billy Bobs was the largest of them all biggest holding 5000 people at one time. The shops were quaint and most of them sold cowboy style goods varying from clothes, furniture, small gifts and a vast amount of hats and cowboy boots. We enjoyed the stockyards tour and could not believe how big it was, once again we had a very enthusiastic tour guide who was very proud of his routes. We liked this area for the restaurants the first night we had a Tex Mex and the following night a grill/ Steak house was recommended to us, both restaurants were busy and buzzing with people.
We also spent a bit of time around Sundance Square which is the centre of Fort Worth where the infamous Sundance Kid used to hang out, hence the name. This was an interesting area with lots of nice old Victorian buildings, however the square was still under reconstruction so we could not see the full potential at the time.
We all decided to stay an extra day in Fort Worth as Dallas City was only 20 miles away, we decided to make it a full day visit instead, instead of up routing again.
We parked in the centre and spent the whole morning in the Kennedy museum, learning about the details of assassination in 1963. It was an informative audio tour and was quite moving. We then went to the second top attraction in Dallas which was sculptures of approximately 60 bronze long horn bulls stampeding through a river. This was a very impressive piece of sculpture for the city. It was a clean city but lacked shops and restaurants in the centre. Their westend area, which was highlighted in the guide book famous for restaurants and bars only consisted of about 6 restaurants.
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| Bronze sculptures- Long Horn cattle- Dallas |
Departure day ; A ride back to Dallas and the Bailey's Tours Texas road trip was over! We all had a fantastic time and were very proud of oursleves to manage so many cities in temperatures soaring around 95 degrees the whole time. We managed to once again cover alot of miles 1500 miles in total since picking the car up from Dallas on the 1st June. We feel we have learned a lot about Texas, love the Texans and their southern accent is brilliant. We did not realise how much they use the work Ya'll !
That's all from Bailey's Tours for now. Our next trip is a bit of a dog leg again - north to Arkansas, then east to Tennessee. I'm really looking forward to this part of our trip to get my music 'fix' in Memphis and then Nashville. Steve is really looking forward to getting back to nature again, in the woods, walking and lots of fishing .(Plus he's just informed me of the many Civil War battlefields in Tennessee ,so it looks as though our tour of the Mid South will prove interesting and educational too ! )
Pam and I on ourlast night in the Stockyards in Fort Worth -celebrating surviving Bailey's Tours of Texas, June 1st -15th 2012!
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