Waco: A Scrappy Yet Fancy Little City In the Heart of Texas

We can't wait to go back; there was so much more to see!

Back in like 1985, my homeboy Rasheed Hatcher told me a story about “The Goatman”, a creature that supposedly dwelled in some spooky location down in Waco, Texas. I think he had recently visited family down in there and when he came back he told me the story.

Supposedly, The Goatman would chase you but if you made it over a certain bridge, he would be unable to follow you across.

I still remember how Rasheed said if you did actually outrun the Goatman and make it to the bridge, he would call out to you as you ran away, saying “Come Baaaa-ck!”. The funniest thing is when he first told me this in 1985, I wasn’t sure if this was real or an urban legend. I am older and somewhat more sophisticated now in 2025, but, I’m still not sure!

These scenes from the mist of memory played in my mind as Lovely wife and I prepped to go down to Ol’ Waco for our 23rd Anniversary.

Waco is a city of about 145,000 people situated an hour-and-a-half south of Dallas. Kim had previously mentioned she wanted to see the Shops at at the Silos down there, so I researched the trip and set everything up.

Arriving at around 4pm, we checked into our Airbnb, a little cottage called The Cozy Carriage House. It was very quaint, and had everything we needed after our 4.5 hour drive. Actually, it was hard to leave its comfortable embrace, but we really wanted to go back out so we could scout the city a bit.

After a while, we finally mustered the energy to quit the Carriage House and venture forth. Oddly enough, by the time we got to the Shops at the Silos, they were closing down.

That’s one thing to keep in mind if you ever venture down there: Waco seems to close early. Nonetheless we walked all over downtown making pictures and memories.

We did find a cool little record shop that was open, and I copped a few albums, including Ice Cream Castles by The Time, Single Life by Cameo, and some Muscle Shoals funk by The Rose Brothers. I’ve never heard of this group, but it’s Muscle Shoals and on the album cover they all have Jerry curls, so I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be good!

Waco is not a very big city at all, but it does have a lot of style and heart. Their downtown area featured many older buildings with a lot of swag and style. I made pics of some of the more interesting ones.

One more interesting note: I actually shot almost all of these images in black and white, but in a first, I added the color while refining them during post. I have NEVER done that before. To me, black and white is timeless, classy, and much preferred when I’m working. But for some reason, I like these better in color.

We walked several miles during this trip, and in fact, we covered two of them in a few hours on that first evening. Knowing we “got our steps in” made that Black’s Barbeque taste even better than it already would have.

On Saturday at around 10a.m., we headed back to The Shops at the Silos. It was actually smaller than I thought it would be, but they did have some cool home goods, furniture, fashion, and knickknacks. Thank The Lord, we some how toured all the shops without buying a single thing! (and the choir in the background sang out “Praise Him!”)