Texas invokes a lot of rugged images and we did kind of expect that we would be part of a wagon train as we crossed the border. DH was already going somewhat weak in the knees at the thought of a black hat cowboy jingle-jangling by us as we tip back a Starbucks late on a sunny Texas patio. She was blaming the weak knees on her recent surgery but she keeps calling me "pilgrim" so I'm really working hard on my best Clint Eastwood squint.

Texas isn’t just cowboys and oil men and we did run into some of that varied history almost right away. We stopped to see Bonnie Parkers grave (of Bonnie & Clyde fame/shame) with a slightly twisted epitaph, Lee Harvey Oswald’s grave (murderer of JFK) with absolutely no epitaph (apparently it was a struggle just to find a graveyard that would accept his body), a Texas Music Museum (Buddy Holly, ZZ Top, Tanya Tucker, etc), and we even stopped for a look at the world’s largest Dr Pepper cans (Texas is the home state of Dr Pepper and this relatively rare pop is absolutely everywhere in Texas). All of that Texas wandering brought us to Fort Worth.

 In all of our worldwide travels, we hadn't witnessed a cattle drive in the middle of a city (although the number of wandering cows in virtually every Indian city seemed like a stampeding herd at times), so we had to make the journey to Fort Worth. To be fair it wasn't exactly the dusty, chaotic cattle drives of any spaghetti western you might watch, but just the idea of a herd of Longhorns sauntering along the streets of major U.S. city made it a nice fit in the list of eccentricities we have seen.

And just to take the kitsch to the next level we took in Pawnee Bills Wild West Show. Unlike the western rodeo which was also on offer, no animals were harmed or terrified in the making of this 'tricks' show which included daredevil horseback riding, rope tricks, shooting accuracy, and bullwhip demonstrations (DH seemed really supportive of the cowgirl who was flicking her pink bullwhip at her husband).

We had to keep our time in Fort Worth to a minimum, as my easily influenced Princess was starting to walk bow legged and chew on a straw she found at the Wild West Show while telling the local persistent street people (addressing them as y'all) to “pull in their horns” or she'd “put a spoke in their wheels” (que??).