Almost That Time of Year When Texas Blooms Colorful With Wildflowers

Soon March will arrive, and with March will come the arrival of Spring, and with the arrival of Spring will come that time of the year when the hills of Texas  come alive with the sight of a technicolor display of wildflowers.

The photo you see here was taken north of the Enchanted Rock State Natural Area.

When the conditions are right, with the right amount of sun and rainfall, the prime Texas Wildflower season lasts from March through May.

For more Texas Wildflower photos, along with a list of some of the more than 5,000 species of Texas Wildflowers go to our Eyes on Texas Wildflowers webpage.

Deep-Fried Western Diamondback Rattlesnake available at Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup in March

Soon it will be the second weekend of March which will have the Eyes of Texas and people from other locations on the planet focused on Sweetwater, Texas where the 2015 Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup takes place.

Rounding up rattlesnakes is controversial. You can read about this controversial issue via a previous Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup blog post on this subject, with additional links to other previous blog links on the subject.

Among the controversies regarding the Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup is the fact that most of the snakes which get rounded up are killed.

Some of the butchered rattlesnakes roundup in Deep-Fried Western Diamondback Rattlesnake & Chips Baskets, which you see being offered by the young rattlesnake purveyor in the picture.

Squeamishness prevailed, so no one in our tour group sampled any fried rattlesnake, though we were assured it tasted like chicken. Chicken with a lot of little bones.

The World's Largest Rattlesnake Roundup  takes place on the Second Weekend in March.

Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup weekend starts up on the second Thursday of March with the Rattlesnake Review Parade at 4pm through downtown Sweetwater. That evening, the Miss Snake Charmer Pageant takes place in the Sweetwater Municipal Auditorium at 7:00 p.m.

The doors open at 8:00 a.m. Friday for the Annual Sweetwater Jaycees World's Largest Rattlesnake Round-Up, with snakes being weighed in at 7:00 a.m. that morning at the Nolan County Coliseum.

For more information about the Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup, including video of our visit to the Roundup, go to our Eyes on Texas Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup webpage.

ZestFest 2015 January 23-25 in the Irving Convention Center at Las Colinas

The Fiery Food Experience known as ZestFest 2015 starts up this Friday, January 23 with the ZestFesing ending Sunday, January 25.

This is the 10th year ZestFest has taken place in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, returning this year to the Irving Convention Center at Las Colinas.

$15 gets you in to ZestFest to begin sampling zesty tastings, beer and liquor samplings from 1pm to 7pm Friday, 10am to 6pm Saturday and 10am to 5pm Sunday.

You can learn about the celebrity chefs, such as Jon Bonnell, who will be sharing their zesty cooking and zesty eating contests, along with other pertinent information at the ZestFest website.

Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo Parade Rolls Today at 11am

At 11am this morning of January 17, 2015, the world's biggest non-mechanized parade, the Fort Worth Stock Show Parade, will be rolling,walking and riding through downtown Fort Worth, signalling that day after the beginning of the annual Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo.

The weather of North Texas has decided to cooperate with this year's Stock Show Parade, with the relatively balmy temperatures well above freezing, with no danger of rain or cold causing a cancellation of today's big Fort Worth event.

If you are new to Fort Worth and in town for the Stock Show you may want to also visit the Fort Worth Stockyards, which is where the Stock Show used to take place, a long time ago.

If you explore around the Fort Worth Stockyards long enough eventually you will  find yourself walking on the actual Stockyard's boardwalk, looking down on the Fort Worth Herd of Longhorns.

Lee Harvey Oswald Nick Beef Gravesite & The Ozzie Rabbit Lodge

If part of your visit to Fort Worth includes visiting the Gravesite of Lee Harvey Oswald, after your visit to the Shannon Rose Hill Memorial Burial Park, that being the location of the final resting place of Oswald, you might want to continue your trip to this particular dark side of American history by heading west a slight distance on East Lancaster Avenue where in the Urban Village of Handley you will find the Ozzie Rabbit Lodge.

Ozzie Rabbit was Lee Harvey Oswald's nickname when he was a member of the U.S. Marines, prior to defecting to the Soviet Union where he found himself a Russian bride named Marina.

The Ozzie Rabbit Lodge is decorated with memorabilia from the John F. Kennedy era.

Be assured, the Ozzie Rabbit Lodge is definitely not some sort of shrine to Lee Harvey Oswald, if you are among those who think that naming anything after anything to do with Lee Harvey Oswald is in bad taste.

Due to being the east side of Fort Worth's hippest watering hole, the Ozzie Rabbit Lodge is a popular night spot, at times.

For more information regarding the final resting place of Lee  Harvey Oswald, including directions on how to find his gravesite and the Nick Beef gravesite next to him, go to our LEE HARVEY OSWALD GRAVESITE webpage, where you will also a link to video we took of the trek to find the Oswald gravesite.

2015 Legendary Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo Opens January 16

The 2015 version of the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo starts up this upcoming Friday, January 16, ending on Saturday, February 7.

Weather permitting, and sometimes the weather does not permit, the 2015 Stock Show Parade will be parading starting at 11am on Saturday, January 17.

Parades are one of the things Texas does real well, with the Fort Worth Stock Show Parade being one of the best. It is the biggest non-mechanized parades in the world. We have no idea how many other parades there are in the world which do not allow motorized contraptions to move the parade.

Find all the information you could possibly need about this Legendary Thing, the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo, at the event's Official Website.

Natural Bridge Caverns near San Antonio

In Texas Hill Country, near San Antonio you will find America's largest privately operated caverns, known as the Natural Bridge Caverns.

Natural Bridge Caverns are adjacent to the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch, which is a drive-through animal safari park.

Somehow Natural Bridge Caverns was not discovered by Texans until found on March 27, 1960 by four students from San Antonio's St. Mary's University. The caverns were located on land owned by Mrs. Clara Wuest. Negotiations with both the National Park Service and the Texas Park System had both entities agreeing the caverns should be developed as a public attraction, but neither agency had the funds to make it happen.

So, Mrs. Wuest developed Natural Bridge Caverns as a privately funded enterprise, which opened on July 3, 1964.

You can go to the Natural Bridge Caverns website for all the information about various activities in the Natural Bridge Caverns complex, along with pricing.