Ross and I had heard great things about Forth Worth, so we made plans to take advantage of our rental car and visit. I found lots of fun things we could do, some on the advice of friends. The Stockyards give you a chance to see a cattle run, but the area also has lots of shopping, arts and nightlife. There are other touristy areas as well, and some of them seemed intriguing. But we knew we wanted to walk a bit, so when I found there were free museums and a botanical garden in the cultural district, our decision was made.

As with so many of the places we have visited this far, we didn’t have much time  (or money) to see the city, and we know we’d probably like it a lot more if we stuck around! That’s why we are looking forward to taking our time in southern Arizona in the upcoming weeks. All caveats in place, here’s what we actually did with our afternoon in Fort Worth. 

The Cultural District is nice. It’s really spread out, which is great if you like long walks, but there is plenty of parking for cars and there was tons of space for an RV when we were there too, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We parked in a public lot (max rate is $10) across from the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.

There are a lot of other free museums in town, which is fabulous, but I was attracted to this for its contemporary art and its western art and it didn’t disappoint with either. One of their temporary exhibits is called Border Cantos and it is a collaboration between a visual artist and a composer who created musical instruments made from material the visual artist found along the Texas/Mexico border. Both Ross and I were stunned by the powerful exhibit, which also includes music written with the instruments on display, and we made sure to watch the short films of the composer’s pieces too.

After that, we began walking to the Botanical Garden. Unfortunately that was kind of silly – Google Maps didn’t know about the Will Rogers complex – at least enough to tell us we couldn’t walk through it – and we saw upon arrival we would have had tons of room to park. But we got a great workout at this huge garden (we did the free one, not the Japanese one, which costs $7), Ross caught lots of Pokémon, and we enjoyed our visit.

Once the trek back to our car was complete, there was some debate on whether we should visit a game/comics store or find Ross a taco. Ultimately Ross wanted to make me happy, so we headed toward Sundance Square to see some Christmas lights.

Parking around the square is free nights and weekends, so we found a parking garage and explored the area, full of restaurants, high end shopping and many theater companies, on foot. I love seeing urban areas lit up for the holidays and this charming area didn’t disappoint. We even found a gelato place I’d heard a lot about, so I sampled some wild berries and milk chocolate flavors while Ross had coffee. (Keep up with my ice cream adventures here.)

We had a great afternoon and evening in Fort Worth. Although the traffic outside it is atrocious, the city itself has lots to offer. We hear it has some nice public transit options too – had we parked the RV at the Will Rogers complex campgrounds, a trolley could have gotten us to the lights. Next up – a trip to Denton gets us more excited about Texas!