A weekend in Hico, Tx

For Spring Break, our travel was limited to one weekend at a Bed and Breakfast in Hico, Tx about an hour outside of Ft. Worth. My parents came too. Hico is famous for their Annual Steak Cookoff and possibly being the death place of Billy the Kid. The only steak we had was chicken-fried and Billy the Kid was nowhere to be seen. But there were horses!
In a field next to the B&B there were seven horses, and thankfully, the lady who owned them didn't mind that my dad and Casey climbed over the fence to pet them. We fed them lots of carrots, and the horses certainly didn't mind.

Casey gets a horsey hug.
All weekend, dad attempted to ride one, and finally did. It took a lot of carrots.
Each day we had breakfast at the best restaurant in town, the Koffee Kup, just edging out Beans & Taters as our favorite, which despite the goofy name and the fact that they didn't have a commercial kitchen and no less than 9 crock pots in their kitchen, made a great chicken fried steak. Gravy was served as a condiment at almost every meal at three different restaurants.

It's fun to get out of Dallas sometimes. :-)

And as an added bonus, in a neighboring town, Dublin, they were having their St. Pat's day celebration (one of the 3 largest in the state!) so we had to go.
We are not Irish, not remotely. But I think Casey was rather dapper in the hat. Dad gave the 8 year old next to us some competition grabbing up the candy the floats riders were tossing out.

Apparently in Dublin, St. Pat's is cause for many, many pageants because there were at least 10 floats like this one. I think it was one of those "we're all winners" kind of thing, considering the sheer volume of girls on floats in dresses (well a few in jeans) with crowns and sashes. If there was a pregnant girl category, I definitely would have won.

Dublin is also famous for still producing the original recipe Dr. Pepper. Cane sugar only.
I am no Dr. Pepper connoisseur, but this is my kind of float. I'd be the queen of Blue Bell and Dr. Pepper any day.

The only part of the weekend I didn't throughly enjoy was the drive there and back. Casey has a serious lead foot, and I warned him if he drove like that again there would be repercussions.
It didn't work.