Right in Our Backyard

We were in the car (again!) on Memorial Day as we took a short 1 hour drive north of Fort Worth to visit the Lyndon B. Johnson National Grassland. This place was hard to find, that's for sure. And we couldn't help but chuckle when we finally saw the welcome sign, which was not much larger than a standard sheet of printer paper.

We felt so welcomed.

We found some grass on the land, so it truly is a grassland. 

Perhaps we should stop mowing our lawn and get it registered as a grassland. I can get a sign printed up in no time at all. Oh, and we don't need to call it a "national" grassland, just a "regional" or "neighborhood" designation will do. ;-) Just think how much water we will conserve from not having to water the lawn, not to mention all of the time we will save by not having to mow the grass every week. I am sure that our HOA would love this idea. Not!

We pretty much had the place to ourselves.

We found a shady location to enjoy our lunch. We didn't have to fight anyone else for a picnic table, except for a few ants and lots of flies.

We found a nice hiking trail to walk off our lunch, but decided that a 1.5 mile trek was far enough to go since it was 93º outside.

On the drive back to Keller, we stopped for a few minutes in the little burg of Decatur. It is a small and quaint city, and will require a future trip for further investigation.

The Wise County Courthouse is an architectural beauty, despite the fact that the clocks cannot agree upon the correct time of day. Neither timepiece is displaying the correct time. I'm not sure about the other two.  Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody care (about time)?

"El Castile" is an amazing limestone mansion that was built in 1883.

We plan to go back to Decatur sometime soon for breakfast at the Whistle Stop Cafe. We've heard that this small roadside diner has some of the best home cookin' around. The biscuits and gravy get rave reviews, and it's right next to the Petrified Wood Gas Station, right here in our "backyard." Who could ask for anything more?
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/13034