Thursday, February 16, 2006

10 Reasons Nadya should move to Fort Worth

10. Sundance Square. Our downtown is HOPPIN', baby! Even on a Wednesday night, you can find live music - GOOD live music. Then there's the gorgeous Bass Performance Hall (that building with the huge honkin' angels for you tourists), the theaters (live and film), and all the fabulous eateries.

9. The Stockyards! I'll admit that I don't venture up that way as often as I should - mostly only when I'm playing tour guide to out-of-town guests. But every time I go, I'm reminded that I SHOULD go more often! Steak houses on every corner, a live longhorn cattle drive (actually, cattle mosey is more accurate) twice a day, a cool walking tour that's interesting every time I go, the smell of leather in the boot and saddle shops, Western kitcsh, and oh, let's not forget the cowboys. Real, live ones. :)
On horseback patroling the brick-paved streets, and rodeoin' at the Cowtown Coliseum every Friday and Saturday night.

8. The Cultural District. We're known as "Cowtown" and "Where the West Begins", 'tis true. But we're more cultured than that overgrown botoxed city to our east; the proof is all the Dallas-area cars in our parking lots! The world-renowned Kimbell Art Museum, The Modern Art Museum, the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, the Museum of Science and History, and the Cowgirl Hall of Fame and Museum... all within 5 blocks of each other.

7. The Fort Worth Zoo has been ranked as the No.1 attraction in the entire Dallas-Fort Worth area and No.19 among the "50 Overall Top-Rated Attractions" in the entire United States by the Zagat Survey U.S. Family Guide. With shady, tree-lined paths, roaring waterfalls, African Savannahs and tropical jungles, it's easy to forget that you're smack in the middle of a large city. (In fact, you're less than a mile from my house!) Texas Wild is an 8-acre exhibit that features all the different habitats and animals of this great state, from the coastal plains to the piney woods to the blackland prairies to the West Texas desert.

6. Public Art. It's free! From the famed Chisholm Trail mural downtown to the anatomically correct topiary bull (well, he WAS anatomically correct until a few years ago, when someone complained that his, uh... anatomy was offensive. Now he's anatomic-correctly castrated), to the bronze "Texas Gold" statues near the Stockyards...and everywhere in between.

5. Trinity River Trails and Park. Bikers, rollerbladers and joggers populate the trails which snake along the Trinity River from far southwest Fort Worth through the Museum/Parks area and north toward the stockyards. Mayfest, which promotes community awareness and funding for the park, is one of our family's favorite annual events.

6. Botanic Gardens and Japanese Gardens. Lush, well-kept, serene, beautiful. We love to picnic here, where balls and frisbees aren't allowed. The Gardens force you to slow down and (literally) smell the roses. In the summer, we always take in at least one Concert in the Garden - outdoor concerts performed by the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. The Gardens, due south of our house about a mile or so, put on a spectatular fireworks show after each concert, so twice a week in June, we're jolted aware about 10 o'clock, at which time we run outside to watch through the pecan trees. (Truth be told, it always catches us by surprise, and takes us a minute to realize what that POPPING noise is!)

5. Shopping. There's a brand new Super Target 6 minutes from my driveway. Even closer is University Park Village, with its hip shops (Gap, William-Sonoma, White House/Black Market, Harold's, Pottery Barn, Barnes and Noble) and eateries (Celebration, Panera, Cafe Express, Blue Mesa). Scrapbook stores are an easy drive, too, including Recollections, Hobby Lobby, Michaels and Joann's!

4. It's safe! We're ranked #9 on the list of "safest cities with 500,000 or more population."

3. We're friendly! It's true: Texas is known as "the friendly state", and that includes our drivers. Well, sorta. Texans are in just as big a hurry as anyone anywhere. Venture outside the boundary created by Loop 820 and you'll enter a whole new world of tailgaters and cutter-offers. But in Fort Worth proper, driving is relatively painless. The city is laid out in such a way that it's even possible to go ANYwhere within Fort Worth without ever having to drive on a freeway. This I know is true, because my friend Dela, who is 70+, has NEVER driven on a Fort Worth freeway, and that woman's been all over creation. :)

2. Neighborhoods. For a city our size, we still feel like a small hometown! That's because we have pockets of neighborhoods instead of ugly urban sprawl. Oh, okay. So we have urban sprawl too. But only if you head south or north. Avoid those developing areas. Instead, search out the established neighborhoods near the city's center... Bluebonnet Hills, University Place, Monticello, Berkeley Place, Mistletoe Heights, Tanglewood, Ryan Place, Arlington Heights. These aren't subdivisions. They're neighborhoods. And yes, there's a difference.

1. Me. I live here! And I can never have too many scrapping friends nearby. :)

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

*sigh* Ya know, Meg still wants to move to Fort Worth....

Martha in CA said...

I wanna go to that Super Target!!

And a juicy steak from the Stockyard's sounds GOOD even at 7:30 in the morning!

And cowboys in Wrangler's...nothin' wrong with THAT!

Giddy-up!

Anonymous said...

That would actually be 12 reasons, but the more the merrier!

-Darren

Stacy said...

yah yah. Hard to count at 3 a.m. with a feverish kid in your lap. :)

Besides, math has never been my strong point. whee!

Sherilyn said...

LOL! The Fort Worth "chip on the shoulder about Dallas" reminds me about how we felt about Plano in HS. They were our biggest rivals, but we certainly weren't theirs. Our little podunk school barely registered on their radar.

I can say that since I live in neither Dallas nor Fort Worth. ;)

I didn't know Super Targets were such a treasure. I have two within a few miles of my house.

Stacy said...

heh. Spoken like a true Dallasite. ;)

Veronica said...

Hee hee....all perfectly good reasons...but #1 is my favourite :)

Anonymous said...

I couldn't help but notice that while Fort Worth was 9th on the safest list, *Dallas* was 5th on the *most dangerous* list ;-)

-Darren

Sue said...

Safe? You want safe? Scroll down, friends, to the 75K resident cities!

:)

Anonymous said...

Stacy...
Well... I'll take #1 that's for sure!!! And the house that is right next to you and your babysitter all at the same time!!! LOL I’ll take anything that was close to you just so I can get some of that creativity on me... :)
Oh... boy! Just reading all the reasons makes me want to be right there all ready!!
By the way this is my FIRST time ever posting on a BLOG!! WOW!! for me!!!
I just might have to ask dh to tell his company that we want Fort Worth on our list of places as well!!! Wouldn't that be FUN! He was laughing when I tolled him that you made this for me... Thanks so much!!! I know more about Fort Worth now then how to spell!!! LOL:)

Cara and Michael--- Hi! I'm Nadya... just thought I would introduce my self to you... :)

Thanks Stacy... Now I have more places I want to go too!!! :)

Anonymous said...

I loved Fort Worth while visiting in 2004. It would be on my list of places if I ever moved from S.C. It's a beautiful town with great attractions, it's just the driving to the airport that was a problem *Ü*
Debbie ~PPD~

Anonymous said...

Well there are just too many things on that list that I missed :(

Guess I'm coming back.

agent713 said...

*I* wanna move there...or at least visit :) I'm really liking the sound of #9 ;)
~Heidi

DKelly said...

FIRST -- Ah Luv Foat Wuth!!!!! That's how we say it in Texas. I can prove it because there used to be a bumper sticker that I saw all over Texas spelled that way. . always cracked me up. But I also feel the same way. It's a cool town (500,000+ population?) that does NOT feel like a huge city at all. It's made up of homey, hearty, genuine people! Case in point -- the Kocurs.

SECOND -- The weather's perfect most of the time!

THIRD -- EASY to get around and PPD, even easy to get to DFW Airport. . it's just that your "Thelma and Louise" party mentality had you giddy and beyond reason. But Texas gals will do that to you!

FOURTH -- Are you kidding me? They castrated the topiary bull?! How hilarious is that! What kind of a bull is a bull without the swingin' sirloins. . . that's just BULL! WHO changed a symbol of our state into a namby pamby steer? Get a rope! *Ü*

Best reason to move to Texas -- Stacy's front porch swing!!!

Denise (who almost called Stacy last week to see if I could have my business meeting on her front porch instead of at the airport!)

Anonymous said...

You know, even though I live in the 'burbs of DFW, I too love Fort Worth and all it has to offer. I worked in downtown on Sundance Square for a year. There's nothing like looking out of your office window and seeing the circus elephants parading through downtown. Or going to one of the many street festivals, for example, Main Street Days. There is SO much to love about this whole area, you can't go wrong by living in FW or in SOME of the other surrounding neighborhoods. Heck, when friends come to visit, I don't take them to downtown Arlington. We go to Fort Worth! Cuz like Stacy says, Life's too short to do it in Dallas. :o)