Texas / LBJ National Historical Park / Gruene [Part 3]

As I've previously mentioned, I'm a bit of an American history nerd. So visiting presidential homes is up there on Emma's List of Favourite Places to Visit on an American Road Trip (I have never made this list; it's hypothetical purely for the sake of emphasising a fact). We've done Andrew Jackson's Hermitage, George Washington's Mount Vernon, and Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.

This time we skipped forward over a century to visit the home of Lyndon B. Johnson while we were in his homestate. It was a National Park, too, and those are also on Emma's List of Favourite Places to Visit on an American Road Trip, so this was like a double whammy of American history goodness.

(as you can probably tell from these pictures, we like to take pictures with signs that tell us where we are. Good bookends, you know?)

Texas / Fort Worth / Austin [Part 2]

Continuing my tale of my roadtrip around Texas with my parents, after we left Dallas we went onto Fort Worth. On our way there we visited Southfork Ranch, which was the exterior filming location for the 1970s/80s TV show Dallas. I've never actually seen the show - I only really know its place in pop culture because of the whole 'who shot JR' storyline. My parents, it seems, watched it religiously so they were very excited - it was one of the definite Must Dos on our planning list. There was a lot of reminiscing about forgotten storylines and characters during the visit!

Despite my not fully 'getting' it, it was fun to get to visit an actual Texas ranch, and the lady who ran our tour was very informative and enthusiastic, so that definitely helped.

Texas / Dallas [Part 1]

Since 2004, my parents and I have been going on road trips around the United States. Back in 2004 we started with a tour of the Deep South, and since then we've done a whole host of areas of America.

Last September/October it was the turn of Texas. We'd all wanted to do Texas for a long time, so we were excited to finally get around to doing it. We went to so many places that I'm not even going to attempt to fit the whole trip into one post, so I'm going to do a series of Texas posts.

Today we'll start at the beginning with Dallas, which was our first point on the trip.

Chatsworth House

As I mentioned in this post, my university friends and I are all spread across the country so we don't get to see each other on too regular a basis. Luckily, the wonders of WhatsApp means we can all talk and arrange meet ups, which are notoriously difficult to sort out because everyone leads such busy lives (the joys of adulthood!). But when we do manage to arrange something, it's so much fun. Most recently, we met up (sadly minus two of the group) in Derby and stayed with Kate.

Pontneddfechan Waterfalls

This is one of my favourite days out I've ever done. Definitely Top 10 (please don't ask me to actually make the list. It's more of a hypothetical list than a real thing). It was one of those days where the weather is perfect for what you're doing, and what you're doing would be pretty great even done in the rain (well ...).

After our successful trip to Rhosilli Bay, Chris and I decided to continue exploring what South Wales has to offer. He'd heard about a waterfall trail in the Brecon Beacons and I loved the idea, so on a gloriously warm sunny day (this was summer last year, I should add!) we set off in search of a watery adventure.



We managed to find the car park with a visitors centre more easily than anticipated, which is always a good start. Although it was hot, I put on my wellies because I try to take any excuse to wear them that I can. It turned out to be an excellent idea. Chris only had trainers on and they were very very wet by the end of our expedition!

Before we even came to any waterfalls we found an area of river with water low enough to just wade through, and climb over rocks. We spent a while there walking along taking photos before we realised we should probably find a waterfall!

The first waterfall that we came across was a fantastic tall thin one that cascaded from a rock above, which we later went onto. This waterfall had a path that ran behind it so of course we had to go along the path and get soaked. The water was so cold that it was literally breath-taking! It was such an exhilarating and fun experience. You always see pictures of people going through waterfalls in exotic locations, but that we could do it here in South Wales somehow added an extra thrill and pleasure to the experience.

Chris decided to swim from the waterfall back to the path, but I stuck to dry(ish) land!

We passed several more waterfalls along the trail - some of them large and plummeting down below us, while others came from above and crashed down onto the river that we were walking alongside. It hadn't rained for quite a while so we were able to walk along the river in several places.

At one point Chris decided to push me, just lightly, but I slipped and ended up far deeper in the water. The rocks beneath were slippery so I flailed about for what felt like ages while I shouted at Chris to pull my bag out of the water so that my phone didn't get damaged! Eventually I managed to regain my balance and pull myself up and out of the water - with a bleeding knee and wellies filled with water. Once I'd ascertained that my phone was fine I was able to laugh about the situation - but only once I'd seen that my phone was alive! I actually still have the scar on my knee as a memento of the day. Thanks Chris.

Interested in visiting Pontneddfechan and doing the waterfalls trail? The best place to start is the Brecon Beacons Waterfalls Centre - the car park for the centre doubles as the one for the trail, and the centre provides some information about how waterfalls form, as well as maps of the area. And of course, there's the all important toilets just across the road as well!