Oct 28, 2023
Written By: J.Couch
We got up early and tried to get out of Denver before the snowstorm hit, but we didn’t quite make it. Due to the snow and icy roads, it made for a harrowing white-knuckle drive from downtown to the airport, we almost ended up in an accident on Pena Boulevard. Luckily, we made it through with no issues. We parked and rode the bus to the airport, it was fairly quiet for a Saturday morning and TSA for once was pretty quiet. We ended up catching an American Airlines flight out of DEN to DFW, which was running late due to the snow. After we pushed from the gate, we were delayed even more due to having to de-ice before we took off. Once we got above the clouds it was a beautiful sunny flight.
We made it into Dallas late morning and headed directly south down to Waxahachie to check out their street fair called Texas Country Reporter Festival. It’s about an hour drive south from the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, but easy to get there. By the way, it is pronounced [“Wawk-suh-hach-ee” or “WOK-sə-HA-chee”].
This Waxahachie fair is a once-a-year fair on Oct 28th, where they shut down all the downtown streets and put-up vendor tents with arts and crafts, jewelry, food trucks, a music stage, plus they open the doors to all the brick-and-mortar shops. Parking was a little tricky, there were people everywhere and paid parking lots if you wanted to pay to park closer. But we were able to find a place a couple blocks away and just walked into the old downtown area. We were amazed how many vendor tents there were, the website says that there are over 350 booths. It was huge and they had a little something for everyone.
The weather was overcast and cool, but still seemed a little humid. Luckily, we were between rain storms so it was dry at the time and nice cool day to walk around. We walked down past the center square and down towards the river. We checked out most of the booths and inside some of the local stores. They have a really neat historic building right in the middle of town with the town square around it. This is the Ellis County Courthouse that sits in the courthouse square and was built in 1897, and is the fourth one to stand on this site. The building looks to be made mostly out of red sandstone (actually Pecos red sandstone) but I found it was also made with granite and limestone as well. There are faces carved into many areas of the facade.
We did find a couple antique stores to explore but I didn’t find any postcards this trip, maybe next time. It was a little overwhelming as to how many booths they had and how many people were there. This is a pretty big event, too bad it is only one day of the year. We walked back up to the square and stopped by the stage and listened to the music for a bit, but there wasn’t a lot of room to sit. The street was already pretty full.
It was very cool to see and explore this part of Texas. I think they do have other events throughout the year but I think this is their biggest. It was a good experience and we enjoyed getting to see the cute town of Waxahachie. Tomorrow, we explore more of the Dallas Texas area.
Thanks for wandering with us,
The Wandering Couchs
