Our purpose for the field trip was to practice observing the culture of an area that's completely new to us. We were at the Stockyards for about 2.5 hours. When we returned to campus, we had the pleasure of writing up field notes about everything that we saw. When I finished writing my field notes, I had 14 single-spaced pages! It was over 8,000 words to describe what I had seen and experienced at the Stockyards. I wrote several more pages than any of the other students, which shouldn't surprise any of you since you know that I relish in detail and excel at over-achieving. :)
I took a couple photos of our drive to Fort Worth (about 45 minutes away). Jody, another student in the program, teased me quite a bit for taking this first photo. He said, "Did you just take a photo of cows? Haven't you ever seen a cow before?" I said, "Yes, but I've never seen cows in Texas before!" Plus, I liked the landscape. :)
We also drove past the Texas Motor Speedway, which is absolutely huge! You can probably only see half of it in this photo.
I like this photo with downtown Fort Worth in the background.
Welcome to the Stockyards!
The Visitor Center
The old train station that is now filled with lots of touristy souvenir shops.
Riscky's BBQ and some of the fans that blow mist to help keep people cool in the hot temperatures.
Another photo of Riscky's, which is where we ate lunch.
They do a daily cattle drive for visitors to watch. This woman is an employee of the Stockyards who assisted with the cattle drive.
The actual cattle drive with the longhorn cattle.
One of the students offered to pay for us to take a carriage ride through the Stockyards.
One thing I found most interesting about the Stockyards is how commercialized the area is. As a designated historical location, I assumed I would learn quite a bit about history. Instead, it seemed more like a show to attract tourists and then try to get them to buy things. For example, there's a Hyatt hotel in the middle of the historic Stockyards!
In all, it was an interesting field trip. While I was disappointed that I didn't get to learn more about the history of the Stockyards, there was also a part of me that was quite satisfied with not learning more details about how thousands of cows were sold and slaughtered.Mom - you asked about the weather here. It seems to be pretty predictable... it's hot... EVERY DAY. The high temperature each day is in the 90's and it doesn't cool off too much at night. (For example, it's 11:30pm and it's still 83 degrees.) I've seen a few clouds, but there hasn't actually been a cloudy day yet. No rain either. I sure don't mind the sunshine! And they are pretty zealous about their air-conditioning around here, so I only get hot when I'm walking to and from class.
6 comments:
I was nervous about this post being a fellow veg, but I was pleasantly surprised. Yeah!
it does look very touristy.
8000 words that's absolutely ridiculous. But I belive it. Glad I dont have to read that one :) Your going to be one tired and hot woman when you make it back to Indiana. The pics are cool. I like to see where youve been.
It good to hear you did okay at the stockyards.Sorry to hear that the temp. is so high, just be careful in the heat. Are you going to be ready for game night when you get back? How do you get around while you're there? Take care.
I'm pretty convinced that Texans invented air conditioning. There's really no one in their right mind coulda settled there without it.
Like you'll have time to answer this... maybe we can talk about it when you get back:
What was the general consensus from your colleagues on the modernized version of the historic district?
Hey, Mary! In general, the group was fairly turned off by the modernization. Not necessarily because it was modern, but because our expectations were seeing something historic.
One student is from Fort Worth; it didn't really bother him, but he admitted that it's probably because he's been going to the Stockyards since he was young.
The history is still there; the carriage ride I went on was informative, and another student learned a lot from a walking GPS tour, but, unfortunately, neither of those activities were free.
That's the short answer! :)
Thanks!
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