Six On, Six Off: Wild West Adventures (with a Parisian Twist)

The scene occurs regularly at well-known honky-tonks and barbecue joints throughout Texas: A bus pulls up and 40 or so French tourists get off. Although they speak little or no English, they are dressed like Roy Rogers -- or Dale Evans -- and they've come to dance.

"They're in cowboy hats, vests, jeans and lots of turquoise -- southwestern jewelry -- and, of course, boots," says bartender Dan Tillia. He recalls a night when the visitors cut up the dance floor at Artz Rib House in Austin and even kept the band on stage an hour past the restaurant's usual closing time.

"They pretty much took over the place," Tillia says. "It was quite a sight."

The man responsible for the revelry is Georges Badoux (right), a former restaurateur who has carved out an unusual niche taking dance students from France on far-ranging, 11-day tours of Texas cowboy country. His Dallas-based company books the guests with the help of a partner in Paris, and Badoux guides the excursions, standing in the bus with a microphone and a speaker clipped to his belt. He shows his clients the sights and whisks them to night spots where they can practice western line dancing in authentic surroundings.

Mindful of the sizzling summers and windy, frigid winters on the wide-open plains, Badoux limits his tour schedule to the spring and fall. The rest of the year he is free to concentrate on his passion: long-distance bicycling on the open road. He trains and takes part in organized rallies that often go 60 to 100 miles and involve thousands of riders, as in the case of the Hotter'N Hell 100 ride in Wichita Falls, Texas.

"I really enjoy it," Badoux says of his six-months-on, six-months-off schedule. "And I put all my heart into it."

The Belgium-born Badoux, who operated a French bistro in the border town of Liege, moved to the United States 25 years ago and owned a French restaurant in Tucson, Ariz. He says he was first exposed to the tour business while on vacation; he befriended a Club Med official in Mexico and agreed to serve as a tour guide for members visiting Tucson and, later, the Grand Canyon.

Being on the road and showing curious travelers the local attractions was fun for him. Eventually, in his late 40s, Badoux made the career switch, selling the restaurant and committing himself to guiding tours. He was escorting visitors through Mexico's Copper Canyon when he met his wife, Keven Ann Willey, an executive at the Dallas Morning News. Badoux moved his fledgling company, Opal Tours, to Texas 10 years ago.

In today's ever-more-global travel industry, enterprising individuals have created encore careers by using their local knowledge and designing trips that appeal to people with very specific interests. Art tours, culinary tours, riverboat tours and walking tours draw enthusiastic followers from Los Angeles to London. Badoux discovered that Europeans -- especially the French -- are fascinated with the American west and the gunslinging culture popularized by John Wayne movies.

"There's a real mystique," says Badoux, now 63. "Cowboys and Indians are a huge, huge thing over there." France alone has hundreds of clubs devoted to western-style dancing, Badoux says.

Colin Gravois, Badoux's friend and collaborator in Paris, attributes part of the fascination to the 1992 opening of Euro Disney, now known as Disneyland Paris, which includes a western-themed restaurant with live dancing. As the French began discovering the place, the employee in charge of the dancing trained instructors who spread the art form. "It took about 10 years," Gravois says, "but it really caught on big-time."

Gravois, 65, who was born in French-speaking Louisiana, in the small river town of Vacherie between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, landed in Paris after serving an overseas stint with the U.S. Army. He turned to tourism after spending much of the 1970s as a feature writer for the International Herald Tribune. His company, America Forever, sends the French on tours of New York, Los Angeles and other parts of the United States. Several years ago, he reached an agreement with Badoux to run the Texas tours together.

"Georges is a good guy, very smart," Gravois says. "He manages the tours, guides them, finds all the best places. There are a lot of details to address when you're doing travel. You've got to have the hotels ready, the meals ready. Georges is an old pro."

Badoux starts the tours in Houston and motors through San Antonio, Austin, Waco, Fort Worth and Dallas. Tourists dance and listen to live music at places such as the Broken Spoke and Billy Bob's. They go horseback riding, take hay rides, shop, and visit historical sites, including the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, site of the John F. Kennedy assassination.

When the country music blares, and French visitors are gussied up in cowboy hats and boots, kicking up their heels on the dance floor, laughs are easy to come by, Badoux says.

"It's really fun," he says. "Every night it's a different surprise, a different story, and we have a blast."

Part 1: Six On, Six Off: National Parks Offer Flexible Jobs, Scenic Work Spaces
Part 2: Six On, Six Off: From Corporate Chicago to "Trop Rock" in Key West
Part 3: Six On, Six Off: Wild West Adventures (With a Parisian Twist)

SecondAct contributor David Ferrell is a Southern California journalist and the author of Screwball, a comic baseball novel.