The Metroplex, Properly

Dallas and Fort Worth sit thirty miles apart and have spent a century politely declining to become the same place, which is the visitor's good fortune, since the run between them now covers cattle culture, world-grade museums, old-money shopping, and lately the headquarters of American golf. This route runs west to east, wants three nights, and is best in spring or fall, when North Texas behaves.

Start where the West begins, as the city has said about itself for generations. The Stockyards still run a cattle drive down the brick street twice a day, which sounds like theater and is, and is also genuinely the herd's descendants on the ground where the trade happened. Spend the afternoon in the Cultural District, where the Kimbell's galleries would anchor any city in Europe, and take dinner and a two-step in the Stockyards, since Fort Worth does not consider those activities to be in tension.

Move east for the polished chapter. Dallas keeps its treasures in a downtown Arts District of name-brand architecture, its old money in Highland Park Village, which has been calling itself the first shopping center in America since 1931, and its best mornings on the Katy Trail, the rail line turned promenade that stitches the good neighborhoods together. One serious dinner here, booked ahead, since the city takes its tables competitively.

End north of the cities on the prairie where the PGA of America moved its headquarters and built two championship courses to keep itself company, with a resort attached to serve them. The golf is open to visitors and books like the destination it has quickly become, so reserve the tee times when you reserve the rooms. Play the last morning, eat one more plate of brisket somewhere honest on the drive out, and concede that the Metroplex contained more than you had planned for, which is what everyone concedes.