Family Overview: Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas

Together, Dallas and Fort Worth create a sprawling megalopolis that combines urban sophistication with Western lore, a place where you can mix the urbane samplings of first-rate art, science, and history museums with a taste of true cowboy culture.

Drovers wearing 1870s brush cuffs and vests drive a dozen head of cattle twice daily down Exchange Avenue in the heart of Fort Worth's Stockyards National Historic District. The event honors the era when cowboys moved wild longhorns along the Chisholm Trail through the city to Kansas. For another dose of authentic Texas living, head to Cowtown Coliseum's weekend rodeos to watch barrel racing, bronco busting, and bull riding. And to find out about those often-forgotten people who shaped the West—women—browse the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. At the facility's Discovery Corral, little kids can explore a tack room, sit at a "campfire," and saddle a pretend horse.

Also in the city's Cultural District is the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. Indulge your inner explorer at Lone Star Dinosaurs, a high-tech, 8,000-square-foot paleontology exhibit. At the Field Site, kids create rubbings of fossils and rock patterns; at the Lab, kids use digital imaging to see and learn more about what they observed.

The Fort Worth Zoo, in a family-friendly setting with frequent benches and shade, features kangaroos, buffalo, and Komodo dragons (the largest species of lizard). Plus native critters abound at the Texas Wild! exhibit, including foxes, ferrets, prairie dogs, rattlesnakes, river otters, bobcats, and coyotes. Kids can learn about another kind of native species—currency—on a tour of the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing Western Currency Facility, where 50 percent of the country's paper money is printed.

In Dallas, a good place to start exploring is Fair Park, home to six performing arts venues and nine museums. Among these are the African American Museum, home to a large collection of folk art; the Dallas Aquarium, known for its sea horses and daily 2:30 p.m. animal feedings; the Women's Museum, with exhibits on pioneering female politicians, scientists, and artists, among others; and, created from a merger of the Dallas Museum of Natural History and the Science Place, the Museum of Nature and Science, where kids can construct a wireless network and discover T.rex, Acrocanthosaurus, and other fierce dinosaurs that roamed the region eons ago.

The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza (formerly the Texas School Book Depository) is Dallas' number one attraction, the place where Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired that infamous shot in 1963. Gradeschoolers and teens learn more about the life and impact of John F. Kennedy. For parents and grandparents old enough to remember where they were when they heard of the president's assassination, the trip is part pilgrimage, part quest to understand the murder, the crisis, and the investigations that followed.

Experience the fun side of the megalopolis by strolling the 66-acre Dallas Arboretum, a colorful patchwork of lakes, lawns, sculptures, and gardens that provides a countrified escape within city limits. Head southwest to the satellite 'burb of Arlington to splash through Six Flags Hurricane Harbor or tackle the thrill rides at Six Flags Over Texas.

Tip: At Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, in nearby Glen Rose (Plano), 1,000 animals roam free through 1,800 acres. Lanky giraffe lope alongside your jeep, and you see herds of zebra, kudu, sable, and blackbuck.

Recommended Side Trips: Plano, Austin