Attention Texans!

[YB in IN]

Hi. I'm going to a wedding with my girlfriend over Thanksgiving, and was wondering what there is to do in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. We're going to probably have a couple of days to burn before the wedding and want to explore some.

[RebeccaV]

Skip the wedding and go to Fort Worth's art museums - The Kimball, the Modern Art Museum and the Amon Carter Museum are all within walking distance of each other.

The Amon Carter has the personal collection of the late Eliot Porter, who was one of the first photographers to work in color. His work is breathtaking.

Then go to downtown FW - they close the streets to traffic after 6pm if I remember right. Sit in an outdoor cafe and listen to live music.

[rmoser]

There's a great day trip ride to the southwest of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Nice country back roads (once you get out of the metroplex, anyway). It's a loop of 95 miles to which you have to add in maybe 50-70 miles to reach the start if you're coming from Dallas.

Basically, you take I-20 west out of Dallas and pass to the south of Fort Worth. You take 377 to Grandbury . In Granbury, you take 144 south to Glen Rose. You turn right onto 67 just east of town. Glen Rose is a nice old town on the banks of the Brazos river. Don't miss the old downtown which is a left off of 67. There are a lot of B&B's there.

Continuing west on 67, take a right on 205 to go to Dinosaur Valley State Park where there are a lot of Dino footprints in the rock along the river. Continuing on 205 to the west (a nice country road), you'll eventually come to Stephenville. You want to arrive here around lunch time since there's a really great bar b q place right near their town airport (the Hard Eight Pit Bar B Q). This place is usually packed with motorcycles on a weekend. They even have a special parking lot for bikes with steel pipe fencing around it so your bike can't be knocked over by a careless cage driver. They have even have little steel plates for your sidestand so it won't sink into the pavement in the summer heat..

From Stephenville, you head northeast out of town on 377. You can follow that directly back to Granbury or if you want more curves you take a left on 1188 (I think maybe it's 10 miles out of Stephen ville). Eventually, you'll go right on 1189 to Lipan. In Lipan you take 4 out of town back to Granbury.

A nice day trip.

[username]

the best thing to do in dallas is drive down to austin.

:D

sorry, i have no useful feedback. that's what my friends who used to live in dallas did.

[The_Veg]

I'll second all those suggestions. Also if you are into aviation there are a couple of good museums on the subject here. One is the C.R. Smith Museum, located at American Airlines' training center off Hwy 360 just south of 183. While it is a company museum, there's cool stuff there. Also the Cavanaugh collection is housed at Addison airport. Nice group of aircraft from WWI to present, military and civilian, and nearly everything in the collection is in flying order and gets flown. You can even buy a ride in an AT-6 on nice weekend days.
A visit to Dealy Plaza is great too, and if you're here on the 22nd you can catch interesting stuff and people down there. The area is easy to access, just a few blocks off the DART train (a good idea since parking downtown, while not difficult, will cost you more than the train tix). The 6th floor of the book depository is now a musuem and well-worth seeing!
I'm not a sports guy but if you are, you may be able to catch the Cowboys, Mavericks or Stars while you're here.
Plenty to do here for nightlife and food as well. TONS of great restaurants from BBQ joints to Brasilian Churascarias to high-end steak places and more Asian stuff than you can fathom.
Good musicians come here- check listings for when you'll be around.
If you love foreign/independent film, you're in luck- Dallas has *OVER 15* screens of it! Not sure about FTW...
Speaking of film, many films have been made in the area so if you're a movie trivia nut, do some online research and find local locations. Logan's Run was largely filmed around the Metroplex, and the downtown skyline and freeways in RoboCop were really Dallas.
I'll second the vote for the Hard Eight. I've dined there and if you don't come out groaning and rubbing your belly, you must be dead. Also if you're down that way check out Fossil Rim Wildlife Center and Dinosaur Valley State Park. FRWC is a drive-through safari park with everything from prairie chickens to giraffes. DVSP is where you can see preserved dinosaur tracks from the Cretaceous Era. The park is in the vicinty of where in 1938 Roland T. Bird found Sauropod prints in the bed of the Paluxy River (which runs through the park). This was a scientific revolution as these beasts had previously been thought too heavy to live on land.
I'll even second the suggestion to visit Austin. It's three hours south and a very fun place.
PM me when you get ready to head this way and we'll make plans if you like to meet for some beers and lie-telling.