Hungry?

Well, you’ve floated down the river and driven through Fossil Rim and fed all those yummy pellets to the giraffe. I’ll bet you’re feeling a little hungry about now. Let me introduce you to some fine eating establishments in Glen Rose!

We’ll start with my very favorite place to go — Dairy Queen!!!

I don’t know if all of you folks out there are familiar with this fine eatery. It’s kind of a Texas icon. They’re famous for their ice cream treats. Cones and Dilly Bars and Buster Bars and shakes and cakes and Blizzards.  But they also make burgers and chicken and FRENCH FRIES! Whenever Walker and I go to work – to the library or the detention center or the hospital, we get to go get french fries afterwards. And DQ has the best! AND, they always have dog biscuits for us as well! The BEST place!

We have other burger places in town as well. The Green Pickle has a large variety of burgers and chicken fried steak. And I know that they have excellent burgers because they are always tooo big for the Mom Person to finish so she brings some home to share with us.

Another favorite establishment is the Storiebook Cafe. It’s a cafe and bookstore all in one! They offer sandwiches and soup and stuff like that. And you can browse the books while you’re there. I’ve had doggie bags from here as well and I can testify that they make very fine sandwiches! No fries though.

There are a couple of Barbecue places in town. The Ranch House is especially dog friendly. They used to have a big porch where it was ok for dogs to come sleep under the table and soak in the good smells. They have recently enclosed said porch which is a sad thing. Hammonds is the other Barbecue place. They have a big buffet for lunchtime guests. And doggie bags from both of these places are yummmmmy!

There are several Mexican restaurants and pizza places and pretty much your choice of fast food places. No McDonalds! This makes the Mom Person very happy for some reason. There’s a Chinese restaurant and a Cajun one. We’re pretty multi-cultural here. There’s even — Hollywood and Vine! They’re mostly a burger joint but I understand they have other stuff on the menu as well.

Several of these places have live music on weekends. The Hollywood and Vine, Storiebook Cafe and The Green Pickle. I’ve heard some of this music from afar and it’s pretty good stuff.

When you go to restaurants, I happen to know that sometimes you have to wait around a lot. To get a table, to get a menu, to get your food. And all that waiting can get pretty boring. I know. I’ve been there! Well, I have just the thing for you! A book of course!

While You’re Waiting for the Food to Come is a must have book for any dining event. It is by Eric Muller with illustrations by Eldon Doty. It was published by Orchard Books in 1999. It is “A Tabletop Science Activity Book” subtitled “experiments and tricks that can be done at a restaurant, the dining room table, or wherever food is served.” 76 pages of all kinds of fun stuff to do at the table! With a glossary and further resources at the back. Excellent!

And now to finish it all off you can stop by and visit the Pie Peddlers!! Ms Ford and Ms Cagle used to be Kindergarten teachers and I used to visit them at school. But now they make pies! Every kind of pie you can think of! Chocolate and Pecan and Cherry and Apple and on and on and on………

They were recently voted Best Pie in Texas by the Texas Country Reporter, a Texas travel TV show. They are a couple of really friendly ladies and their pie shop is a good place to kick back and relax. I highly recommend that cherry pie!

Now after you’ve filled your belly with all this fine food, you might want to just stay the night in Glen Rose. We have several nice motels and quite a few Bed & Breakfast places with mighty fine beds. Some are right in town and some are on the rivers.

I’m going to leave you with some links to more information if you are so inclined.

Y’all come on out for a visit some time! There’s plenty to see and do around here. I didn’t even tell you about the Expo Center where there are rodeos and horse shows and dog shows — something every weekend. And our passion play, The Promise, that has performances in an outdoor amphitheater during the fall. And our art museums and regular events for artists. Whew! Always something!

Visit Glen Rose website

Glen Rose CVB website

Glen Rose Expo and Amphitheater website

Now a little musical send-off – about PIE! See ya!

Rhythm in the Glen

I’ve been dreaming of road trips, but alas, My Mom Person claims to have no time for such things right now. So instead, I’ve decided to take y’all on a road trip — to Glen Rose, Texas. My home town! Glen Rose is in north central Texas about 90 miles southwest of the Dallas/Ft Worth area. It is the county seat of Somervell County, the 3rd smallest county in the state.

Glen Rose is a smallish kind of town. There aren’t any big tall buildings like I see in Dallas. And we don’t have a lot of traffic. What we do have is an abundance of natural geographical and geological wonders. We get lots of tourists coming out to enjoy all the cool stuff that I live with all the time.  I’ve already told you about our fossils and dinosaurs. Dinosaur Valley State Park is a great place for camping, hiking, swimming, fishing and dinosaur hunting. Fossil hunters and dinosaur enthusiasts come from far and wide.

There are 2 rivers that converge in Glen Rose.

Paluxy River

dog party on the Paluxy

The Paluxy River, which is the one that runs past our place and the one that I play in, and the Brazos River, which is a bigger river and probably more well known. There is a famous writer who lives in Glen Rose, Mr John Graves, who wrote a couple of books about the area. He once took a three week canoe trip down the Brazos River before they built some dams on it, and then he wrote a book called Goodbye to a River. This is a most excellent book that I highly recommend! A lot of folks come to this area to enjoy our rivers. They bring canoes and kayaks and tubes to float in. There are some places in town where you can rent these things as well.

We dogs don’t need canoes or tubes. We can have a good time just splashing and swimming! And some people like these activities as well, but some folks like to have some kind of vehicle to propel themselves down the river.

There are also two lakes in the county for fishing and boating activities. I understand that they provide for some pretty good fishing. I’ve never been on a boat before. I’ve tried some fishing in my river. I hear that it’s supposed to be a relaxing, meditative kind of activity, but those fish are too quick for me and that makes for a stressful, frustrating kind of activity.

Big Rocks Park on the Paluxy

Along with the water enthusiasts and the rock hounds and the camper folks, we get a lot of bikers riding through the area. The motor kind and the pedal kind. There are some really tough hills that challenge the best of them. There is a ranch called the Solavaca Ranch that has created some trails for mountain bikers and they have BIG events several times a year. In the fall we have the Paluxy Pedal for those bikers who prefer riding on the roads. Participants have a choice of distances to ride from 29 mi. without “the Wall”  up to 80 mi. with “the Wall”. I’ve not ever seen that Wall, but by the time those bikers pedal past our house they’re looking pretty tired.

The Wall – google image

Solavaca Ranch

And then there are the golf courses! We have 2 courses to choose from if you are into golf. I don’t play golf myself, my Mom Person says golf balls are too small for me to play with. So I can’t tell you a lot about our golf courses except that they are very popular. There are LOTS of golfers in Glen Rose!

I think that pretty much covers the local activities available for the energetic folks. But I’ve got a lot more to tell you about! Later —

For your reference if you’re ever out this way – some useful links —

Glen Rose CVB
Visit Glen Rose website

Rhodes Canoe Rental –
Low Water Canoe Rental –

Squaw Creek Reservoir
Wheeler Branch Reservoir

Squaw Valley Golf Club

And a clip about that book – Goodbye to a River

And another of Mr John Graves himself –

Older Than the Dinosaurs

I recently had a great surprise in the mail! A package to me! Just me!

I won a raffle from Kid Lit Reviews way back during Children’s Book Week! That lovely Ms Sue Morris sent me this book and I see that it was personally stamped by her cat!

I was particularly excited about winning this book because I kind of have a connection to it. The book is Wisteria’s Show and Tell Spectacular: Older than the Dinosaurs by Susan Grigsby with pictures by Alexandra Miller. It was published by Shenanigan Books in 2012. Ms Grigsby has a great website with teacher guides for this book. Just click her name.

It’s show and tell day at school and the theme is Something Really Old. Wisteria has a history of creating disasters with her show and tells so she is especially intent on a good showing this time. But what can she find that’s really old? Well, she is very lucky to have a neighbor who is a geologist. And she is also lucky to have a backyard full of fossils and cool rocks. She ends up with a great show and tell history lesson and gets an A, but it is not exactly smooth sailing — I won’t tell you what happens, but it involves an old dog!

Now my special connection to this book is that I am also lucky to have a yard full of fossils and cool rocks!

You see Glen Rose, Texas (where I live) used to be covered by a big ocean millions of years ago. And when that ocean dried up it left behind millions of marine fossils and petrified wood and limestone cliffs.

And — way back when, we had dinosaurs roaming around. In the early 1900s dinosaur tracks were discovered in the bed of the Paluxy River. The river that I play in all the time! Since then scientists have made a big todo about these tracks. Some were dug up and sent to the Smithsonian Institue, several Texas colleges and quite a few museums. We have a great book  that has a lot of information about our dinosaurs.

Discover Texas Dinosaurs was written by Charles E. Finsley and illustrated by Doris Tischler. It was published by Gulf Publishing Co. in 1999.

Luckily some of the tracks were left where they were found and you can visit Dinosaur Valley State Park and see them for yourself!

We happen to live just down the road from this park. It’s a great place to camp and hike and play in the river. It’s a popular place for folks who like that kind of thing. And there seem to be a lot of people who do!!

So, you see why I was excited to win this book about Wisteria and her old rocks?! You should check it out and come visit us in Glen Rose. Dinosaur Capital of Texas!

And here is a fascinating video of Mr R. T. Bird taking away our dinosaur tracks in 1937.