Our second stop on today's trip was Gainesville. We planned taking our sign pictures on the way into town, eat lunch at a "local" place and then visit the factory outlet stores. Things did not go exactly according to plan. Both of the "local" places that we tried were a little TOO hole in the wall, so we ended up eating at Cracker Barrel. Next we went to the factory outlet mall only to find that most of the stores had closed down and moved out. Oh well, so much for that.
This picture was the highlight of our trip (click pic to see larger version). We are making in a habit, when possible, to stop at State Parks along the way on our day trips. We have an annual park pass, so we stop to see what might be of interest. As we were driving into Ray Roberts State Park between Krugerville and Gainesville, I saw movement on the side of the road. I pulled over and discovered that the "movement" was a bobcat! I waited for him to move a bit further from the car and then got out in time to snap this picture. Pretty cool.
I guess being a little further north, Gainesville got more snow than we did on Christmas Eve. There were still snow drifts on the side of the road so Amanda wanted to stop and take pictures.
This was at a not-out-of-the-way intersection in Gainesville, but we had not gotten a good sign picture on the way in. Notice Tex the stuffed armadillo sitting on the sign below Amanda's left elbow. He is our mascot and will be posing in all of our Adventure Across Texas pics.
A picture of the Gainesville courthouse. No, that ugly thing on front has nothing to do with construction. If you click on the picture to see a bigger version, you will notice that it is a fire escape (ladder that leads to a slide). Nice safety feature, just distracts from your otherwise cool courthouse. "Gainesville is home to a courthouse with an octagonal rotunda topped by stained glass, erected in 1910. "The 1912 Cooke County Courthouse was designed by the Dallas firm of Lang & Witchell. The courthouse was designed in the Beaux Arts style with some Prairie Style features and influences from famed Chicago architect Louis Sullivan. The courthouse in the center of Gainesville features black and white marbled interiors and a tall central atrium capped by a stained glass skylight under the tower." The courthouse is undergoing a major renovation project, with many of the city offices moving out to other buildings to make way for the contractors to begin.
The courthouse grounds feature a towering Confederate soldier memorial, erected in the early 20th century by the United Daughters of the Confederacy UDC), topped by a Confederate soldier facing northward, and bearing the following poetic inscription honoring Confederate casualties of war." [Source: Wikipedia]
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