Bike ride in Fort Worth

On March 6, we rented BCycle bikes from a bike stand near the hotel, and went for a ride.  It took us a while to download the app onto our phones, and figure out how to use it, but once we did the rest was relatively smooth sailing.  The bikes were a little clunky and unbalanced, but I guess they are built to be tank-like due to being minimally-supervised rentals.

This was a lot of fun, especially considering the summer weather, and the fact that it was still winter back home in Canada made it a special treat.

There are lots of trails in Fort Worth.  We got on the path around where W 10th St. meets Forest Park Blvd., and then downtown we crossed over to take the trail that follows the West Fork of the Trinity River, crossing the river again at the dam to stay on the south side of the river curve, and we stayed on it until a little ways past highway 35W before we had to turn around as Ed needed to get back for a meeting.

These next photos are near downtown.  The weather was perfect:

This bridge is the main one into downtown from the north, N Main St.:

Downtown from the path:

This is me just past the 35W interstate freeway.  This was around where we turned around:

This is the dam that we crossed.  That is me on it, Ed hung back to get the photo.  It was a little scary crossing it, it has no railings, and bike traffic in both directions, with a bit of wind too:

That concludes our short little trip to Fort Worth.  We had a great time, and it was our last trip before the pandemic shut-down, so we are really glad we went.

More Fort Worth

On March 3 I got together with an old university friend who has lived in Dallas for the past 20+ years.  She had never been to Fort Worth.  It seems that it's not the norm for people from the two cities to visit the neighbouring one (they are adjoined) very often, if at all.  Well, on this momentous day my friend took the commuter train to Fort Worth, and we strolled around downtown a bit.

Behind the convention center and just down the street from our hotel is the Fort Worth Water Gardens.  This was the most interesting feature, a waterfall down concrete step-like walls.  That is me at the bottom – a winding staircase of huge oversized steps allows visitors to enter the feature.  It's a little disorienting and scary, with the steep-sided waterfall all around, and the water rushing under the steps that have large gaps between them.  I made it though.  That is foam in the middle.

We went to a visitor centre, where they seemed rather surprised to see us.  They recommended a few sights, one of which was the courthouse.  This is looking up at a skylight window in the centre atrium:

Next we walked down to the site of the old fort, where the Clear Fork meets the West Fork of the Trinity River.

Looking back up at Downtown:

This is the ceiling of the old train station, the last destination on our mini-tour of downtown Fort Worth (the downtown isn't very big!):

The station itself is still in use, but the ticket hall has been decommissioned.  These are the doors out to the platforms:

This art is on the way to the platforms, it's in commemoration of the African Americans who worked to build the railway, and then worked as porters, and who now ride it as commuters:

March 4 it rained.  Ed was off in the afternoon and we visited the Sid Richardson Museum, which contains the western art collection that was owned and donated by the Texas oilman.  I didn't take any photos.

On March 5, I walked over to the Museum district and saw the Modern Art museum of Forth Worth, and the Kimball Art Museum.  On the way back, I took these photos of two older downtown buildings:

Next up, Ed and I rent bikes and hit the bike trails of Fort Worth.

George Dubya Bush Presidential Library, and Fort Worth Stockyards

On Monday, March 2, almost everything in Fort Worth was closed.  We rented a car and pointed it towards Dallas, heading to the George W. Bush Presidential Library.

I didn't take many photos there.  Here is one of Ed taking a presidential phone call in the scale replica oval office:

Photo of part of the exhibit space.  It wasn't too crowded:

Ed got a photo with Bushes Junior and Senior in the courtyard afterwards, I am guessing they are a little larger than life:

After the museum, we headed back towards Fort Worth.  I got this photo from the car on the highway, it is of some famous art museum in Dallas, by some famous architect:

At the stockyards, there were some longhorn cattle hanging out:

Some of the historic cattle pens:

The Colosseum:

Every afternoon they have a cattle drive down the main street of the stockyards, we happened to catch it:

Back downtown, we saw this building as we walked to a restaurant for dinner:

After eating, we saw some of the lights around Sundance Square: