Dallas / Forth Worth

Long flight from Sydney to Dallas, with no night, just lights off & pretend & then breakfast at what was lunch time in our destination! Seemed to be it was a cost saving move by Qantas as on a 14 hour flight, got a light tea & brekky. One or two sagas getting through the airport, not least of which was keeping a group of 17 together when airport staff seemed determined to separate us, sending some down different corrals for no apparent reason in the immigration & then customs queues. Finally we were through & Pat
had collected all the cases as she had sailed through with Business Class....she had used frequent flyer points to upgrade 80,00 points do you mind..We met our Dallas guide Alice,  then  waiting, waiting, waiting for Peter & Liz, the tour leaders.  Turned out that he had had had to declare over $10,000 cash
- our spending money - & this involved a lengthy interview with the US Marshalls or somesuch

An hour's respite at the hotel & off on a guided tour of Fort Worth, after a big Bar-be-que nosh up at XXXXX, it was what they term here a "family restaurant"  similar to smorgasbord
but not licenced. Ribs & BBQ sauce great but much too big.

Dallas hot & steamy, same as Darwin & really a concrete jungle, overpasses no object, in fact on the way to the hotel, went under one of the airport runway overpasses...with a plane on top.
Roads not hugely busy while we were driving around, say from 3.30pm. I guess a lot of roads to choose from, saw petrol at $3.52 a gallon, couldn't do the calc. Then someone suggested American
Gallon smaller than ours so stopped trying.
Headed off for Fort Worth  35 miles away. Fort Worth was built to protect the interests of the settlers who were stealing the Indians land & was a wild town back in the day.
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid used to come in for www - wash, whisky & women - & apparently send telegraphs to the managers of the banks they had robbed of how they were spending the money!
The old part of Fort Worth was full of character, we visited the Stocklands Hotel, all what looked like well maintained original character.
 Bonnie & Clyde had apparently checked in. Also saw the stockyards with all the longhorns, they go through the streets every day at 11am & 4pm, but we missed it,  the Water Gardens, a philanthropic gesture by one Amon Carter, one among many monied bods in Texas and it seems that Fort Worth has been particularily lucky with cultural bequeathals & most museums & art galleries are free all the time.

Ended the evening at Billy Bobs Night Club, huuuuuge dance hall, bit quiet on a wednesday night, some desultory line dancing...until Peter& Liz got up to show them what it was all about
More cowboy boots than you could shake a stick at, stetsons galore also.  
 Guess what Smoking is a-ok in a nightclub.
And another thing, it is not an offence to talk on the cell phone while driving a car!!!!!  texting is a no-no however.