The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

My journey started when I took my first dance lesson in 2014. I fell in with a group of ballroom dancers and learned Rumba, Waltz, Foxtrot, Cha Cha, Salsa and some Samba. I also took One Step, Two Step, Country Waltz, Triple Two Step, Country Swing, East Coast Swing, Jitterbug, and West Coast Swing. I veered away from Tango (too hard!), Blues (too intimate), and Lindy Hop (too exhausting) in my lessons. One Night Club Two-Step lesson gave me an idea of the dance, but I never pursued it.

Classmates invited me out social dancing. Ballroom groups had a once a month dance, but the main choice became country dancing at the local dance hall/ bars. Toward the end of 2017, I found a notice from Ray Benson and Asleep at the Wheel. They were completing a Texas dance hall tour.  The tour was to bring awareness to old dance halls with the hope of restoring or saving them for future dancers.  I was too late to attend any of the dances, but it made me want to see some of these dance halls for myself.

From all the on-line searches and personal conversations, it looked like there were 400 older dance halls in the state still active. This was down from 1,000. I didn’t want to miss out on any. In the three years I had been dancing, at least three halls had closed. I bought a map, put colored tabs with dance hall names on them and set out to see how many dance floors I could put my boots on.  I’m grateful I have a dance partner who is also interested in dancing on these floors with me. We are learning about the area history around the dance halls, and take time to visit attractions near them too.

Friends and family members told me our dance hall visits would make a good book. So I’m starting this blog to document my dance days on Texas dance floors.  Since we’ve visited quite a few this year, each hall will be a separate entry.  Hopefully I can get 2018 posted before 2019 comes!

Let me know what you think. Please let me know of any Texas dance halls you know of, have danced on, or remember hearing about too!  I’m adding to my list all the time!

The first dance hall we visited in 2018 was Couplands.