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After checking on the progress of the bike repairs, we decided to visit the Ft. Worth stockyards, part of the legendary Chisholm Trail. John Chisholm, the pioneer of the original cattle trail, is probably best known from John Wayne’s portrayal.

Fort Worth itself is a much older city than its neighbour, Dallas. The two cities appear to be co-joined at the airport, but are, in fact, some 30 miles apart.

The stockyards are about 2 miles north of downtown Ft. Worth, but the drive takes you into the very heart of the Wild West. At 10am and 4pm each day, a small herd of pretty Texas Long Horn cattle is driven from the old Exchange building to the rail road station for the benefit of tourist cameras – escorted by mounted police officers (much to John’s amusement)!

We duly took our snaps (and had our photos taken with one of the beasties), and headed for the shade of the historic Stockman’s Hotel.

John sampled the unique flavour of Buffalo Butt beer (the best that can be said is that he has had some ‘real’ ales that have tasted worse) from a western saddle (mounted on a saloon stool), while Brigid downed a bucket of iced tea (before ordering a Margarita)! By now the sun was going down, and it was time to think of dinner.

Thinking Dallas might seem a little tame to visiting Londoners like ourselves, Lori and Howard McGinnis had recommended that we visit Deep Ellum, which “can get pretty wild on a Friday or Saturday night”. It is one of the trendy places in Dallas, full of night clubs, bars, restaurants, tattoo parlours, punks, gays, lesbians, and bikers. We were sure to fit right in …

In truth, Deep Ellum is probably wild by Texan standards. There were certainly plenty of ‘young’, sporting grunge fashions and loud hair colours. There was a cacophony of noise coming from various dodgy-looking clubs on Main and Elm Streets.

Police patrol cars toured the area, and an electricity company truck partially blocked one of the streets, while its driver tried in vain to resurrect the neon sign over one of the bars. But if you venture beyond the seedy façade of any of the restaurants, you will find the tables occupied by well-dressed, and well-heeled, young professional types. We had an excellent meal in St. Pete’s Dancing Marlin.

Having failed to notice that the clock in the room was set on Eastern Standard Time (Texas operates on Central Time), the alarm went off an hour earlier than intended, and we were up and dressed before we realised. The Alamo was not yet open, so we went in search of breakfast.

Most of the riverside restaurants were closed, still clearing up from the night before, but we found a Tex-Mex Café called Zuni’s that was open.

The menu offered standard breakfast fare of waffles, pancakes and eggs, but our attention was drawn to the tortilla with scambled egg, bacon, jalapeno peppers and salsa verde. With coffee and apple juice, this seemed an ideal combination!

After breakfast, we visited the Central Library (an extraordinary ‘enchilada red’ building, six storeys high) to check our e-mail, before viewing The Alamo.
(A short history lesson: The Alamo mission was held for 13 days in 1836 by a small garrison of about 200 men, against about 4,000 of Santa Anna’s troops during the Texas Revolution. The defenders of The Alamo died rather than surrender to the Mexicans, and amongst those killed were Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie.)

Few of the walls of the The Alamo are original, but the Church and some of the barrack walls have been preserved, and much of rest of the mission has been restored. Sadly, the large compound in front of the mission has been replaced by Alamo Plaza, and is surrounded by tacky shops and entertainments.

The Church is now a shrine. Inside, visitors of all nationalities pay their quiet respects to the men that died. In contrast with the commercialism outside, the shrine itself is low-key, containing only relics of its history, and a model showing the layout of the mission as it was in March 1836.

Americans are often very dismissive of their history, preferring instead to look to Europe for ancient castles and royalty. But we find American history all the more fascinating because it is so recent. It is extraordinary when you think that there are photographs of so many American historical figures: the people who were instrumental in the creation of the United States. We found our visit to The Alamo a very humbling experience.

As we had an air-conditioned Jeep at our disposal, we decided to take a side trip to San Antonio. John had particularly wanted to see The Alamo, but we had shelved the idea due to the extreme heat. The round trip from Dallas is over 500 miles, and would have been unbearable on the bikes!

Having visited the motorcycle dealers in the morning, we left for ‘San Antone’ around lunchtime.

Needless to say, when we arrived in San Antonio, we had no idea where we were going. From the Easyfinder Texas map, it was impossible to tell where Downtown was, or indeed where The Alamo was. We did know that one thing we should see was the Riverside Walk, so seeing signs for the ‘Rivercenter Mall’, we pulled off I-35. In fact, we were one exit early, but almost immediately we saw signs for The Alamo, and a convenient Days Inn motel. For the first time since we arrived in the US, we were within walking distance of the centre of town!

As it was getting late, we dumped our bags in the room and walked into town. The heat and humidity were stifling. Even the proximity of the river did not bring any relief. But the River Walk lived up to its billing. The Walk is below street level, and circles the downtown area.

The landscaped path is interrupted on both banks by restaurant tables. Every conceivable type of cuisine is represented. Tour boats run regular services for sightseers and diners alike – stopping between courses to clear the plates! As the sun went down, the river was almost exclusively illuminated by the lights of the restaurants.
We found a cool balcony table for dinner, which enabled us to view the river and surrounding night life below. But the heat had clearly gone to Brigid’s head. As John prepared to order a couple of ice-cold beers, Brigid announced that she would rather have … ICED TEA!!!

Luckily, because John had been planning to have his bike serviced before left Utah, we had taken down the details of Triumph dealerships in Denver, Kansas City and Dallas. So, we were able to ring the Dallas dealership first thing, and arrange to have John’s bike collected. (Worryingly, Americans don’t use ‘towing services’ for roadside assistance of this nature, they use ‘wreckers’!)

The wreckers and the dealers, European Cycle Sports, couldn’t have been more helpful. Unfortunately, our next problem was going to be availability of parts.

Although damage to the bikes seemed fairly minor, being European, the parts are not as readily available as either Japanese or American makes. However, since we were not due to leave Dallas until Sunday, we hoped that we would not be delayed too much.

We still needed to be able to get around in the meantime, so we arranged to hire a car. We duly booked a compact model from Enterprise, and their agent, Neil (from Huddersfield), collected us from the motorcycle dealers. To our good fortune, our ‘compact’ turned out to be a Grand Cherokee Jeep – thanks to a cancellation – at a very favourable ‘compact’ price!

The day started well enough. We had breakfast at the Waffle House again, and spent a little while sorting out some correspondence, before going out in the afternoon to check out the local malls.

I wanted to post some photographs home, so after an iced mocha at Starbucks’, we set off to find the Rockwall Post Office. Ridge Road was undergoing road works, and a queue of slow-moving traffic stretched back for about ½ mile in either direction.

As we approached the brow of a small hill, the car in front of Brigid stopped suddenly. Brigid managed to stop the light BMW in time, sticking her feet down quickly to prevent a spill. John was not so lucky. As he braked, the Triumph hit a small patch of loose gravel and slid into the back of Brigid’s bike, sending both of them tumbling to the ground in an embarrassing heap.

No serious damage was done, other than some broken plastic and a couple of bruised egos. But, as the Triumph went down, oil had flooded the air-filter, and the bike refused to start. Obviously the bikes would need to be repaired before we could leave Dallas … and it was Monday and no motorcycle dealer worth his salt is ever open on a Monday!

We ate breakfast in the Waffle House across the road from the motel, did our laundry, and called Lori to confirm dinner arrangements. The rest of the day we spent chilling out (keeping out of the afternoon heat) in our air-conditioned hotel room.

Not wanting to arrive empty-handed, we went out at about 5pm to look for a bottle of wine or some beer for Lori and Howard. As usual, our first line of enquiry was the hotel receptionist.

It turned out that Garland was ‘dry’. In common with most other suburban towns, there are no bars, and alcohol is only available in a few specialist outlets. A few restaurants have a special licence to serve beer, but only on production of ID. In order to buy alcohol, we were going to have to drive about 10 minutes down the Interstate! We duly took down the directions and set off in search of the ‘Chilly Mart’ Beverage & Liquor Store.

The receptionist had assured us that we would see Chilly Mart’s Budweiser sign from the road, but having driven for about 10 miles, we became convinced we had missed it, and stopped again for directions.

We hadn’t missed it, but we became more and more confused and frustrated, going round and round in circles, until we eventually spotted the sign. By the time we got back to the hotel, we must have done a 30 mile round-trip!

When we arrived at dinner, Lori and Howard smiled as we presented the beer. They must have known how far we had to travel to get it!

(Texans are not big drinkers. Presumably because of the heat, the most common accompaniment to meals in Texas is iced tea – served with lemon, over a tumbler full of ice cubes. Lori and Howard nearly went mad when they visited London about 15 years ago, because no one understood the concept of iced tea. British restaurants just didn’t have the facilities to produce tumblers of ice.)

In the event, we had an excellent dinner with Lori’s family. Britni is now nearly 15, and Tyler is 11. Both kids are great company and a credit to their parents.

Lori and Howard had been scratching their heads trying to think of things that might amuse us during our stay. The Mesquite Rodeo is world famous, but only takes place on Friday and Saturday nights, and we were due to leave on Wednesday. It seemed such a shame. We were in danger of not seeing a rodeo at all during our tour. So, when Lori and Howard offered to take us to the Mesquite Rodeo the following weekend, we quickly agreed to stay.

After a lie-in, we found ourselves back at The Big Texan where we had witnessed Sam Borland’s 72oz steak attempt a few weeks earlier. It was now about 11am, so we decided to have brunch. No 72oz steak for us. We settled for a modest Lil’ Texan 5oz steak with cowboy beans, and a chocolate malt.

The next 300 miles or so were mercifully uneventful, and we arrived in Dallas at about 9pm. We installed ourselves in a motel on the eastern side of town, which would be convenient for the next leg of our trip.

Brigid had agreed to meet her friend, Lori McGinnis, on Sunday evening for dinner with her family. We departed Denver for Amarillo, a trip of approximately 440 miles, intending to arrive in Dallas on Saturday evening.

We had intended to stop for lunch after about 100 miles. However, as the Interstate passed through Colorado Springs, John suddenly veered off to the Business Loop exit. Brigid, who had been following too closely, did not have time to follow. For the first time during the trip, we were unexpectedly separated.

Brigid exited at the next junction and returned on the Business Loop to look for John. In the meantime John, realising his error, turned around and went down the main Interstate, to where we had separated!

Having failed to find John, Brigid got back on the Interstate and exited 2 junctions later at a gas station, where she bought fresh batteries for her CB radio and tried, unsuccessfully, to call him.

John, by this stage, was getting rather cross – and worried. Having expected Brigid to remain somewhere in sight of the Interstate, he tried to call Brigid on his CB. Unfortunately the hand held units have a very poor range.

This proving unsuccessful, John returned to the Interstate and waited at a safe place after junction where they had last seen each other. After a considerable wait, a red pick-up truck stopped and the driver asked ‘Are you looking for your wife? – She’s at the gas station down the road.’

Thus safely re-united we continued our journey. At Raton, NM, we took the 287 for Amarillo. It was a long, straight, boring highway and at times we were the only vehicles on the road. We were distracted for a time by the sight of a small aircraft circling overhead. Shortly afterwards we slowed up as we passed a Highway Police Patrol car.

Minutes later there appeared the familiar blue and red flashing lights in the rear view mirrors! Yes, we had been clocked by the aircraft doing 81 mph in a 65 limit. The officers were friendly enough, and did us a 2 for 1 deal – Brigid got the citation, and John got the warning!

We eventually reached Amarillo after dark. (American roads can be quite treacherous to motorcyclists at night. The huge 16 wheeler trucks often shred a flat tyre, leaving the debris all over the road.) It had not been a good day. If ever we needed a beer, now was the time. We arrived to find that a number of wedding parties had filled practically every motel room in Amarillo. By the time we eventually found a vacancy, most restaurants were closed and we had to settle for a snack in the nearby Waffle House – but the bar was closed!

As agreed, we set out alarm clock early to ensure that we arrived at the Triumph dealer at 9am sharp. True to his word the Service Manager said that the bike would be ready in about 2 hours.

As we had missed breakfast, we headed for 16th Street on Brigid’s bike. Having treated ourselves to a Starbucks’ coffee and chocolate croissant, we discovered The Cheesecake Factory!

Several thousand calories later we returned to Erico’s to pick up John’s bike.

Knowing that most shops and restaurants would be closed for the holiday, we decided that today would be a good time to take a picnic and visit the Rocky Mountain National Park.

It was sunny as we set out for the 80 mile trip to the park. On the way we bought a disposable polystyrene cool box. We filled it with ice from a gas station, and picked up a couple of roast beef subs and drinks from a branch of Subway – hey presto, instant picnic!

As we approached Estes Park, we could see dark clouds gathering behind the snow-capped mountains. We even imagined that we heard the odd roll of distant thunder. Undaunted we carried on into the Park.
By the time we reached the Information Centre, it had begun to rain. We ate our lunch and watched some spectacular forked lightening from the shelter of the porch at the Moraine Museum.

The storm quickly passed and we took a shuttle bus to Glacier Gorge Junction from where we walked the trail to Alberta Falls.

On the way back to Denver we were glad of another opportunity to enjoy the twisty mountain roads.