Texas - Dallas-area Credit Card Tour??

Looking for suggestions: I want to ride from central Dallas for two days, 40-70 miles/day, and end up in a semi-interesting, semi-civilized place (not a campground). Would apppreciate any suggestions for a safe route, and a place to stop along the way--would like to go in early November. I know that Waco and Paris are both about 100 miles away, but don't know anything about the route (just moved to Texas!). I can google a map, of course, but wanted to hear from anyone with direct experience/advice. THANKS!!

Don't go through Ennis and stay away from Hwy 287.

I have no idea about the route, but I would suggest Dallas to Jefferson.
JEfferson is a neat town with some nightlife and stuff to do.
According to Google maps, it's about 160 miles.
And when you get there, there are a couple of historic hotels that have great restauraunts.
http://stillwaterinn.com - great, great restauraunt.
Please let us know if someone comes up with a good route, as I'd like to do the same thing at some point.

Dallas is in an interesting location, bio-zone wise. to the East you can reach piney woods and rolling hills, or hardwood forests. To the North or South you can get either wide open prairie or in patches, remnants of the ancient "Cross Timbers" woods - that's one of my favorites.

To the West, as you leave Fort Worth, there's a pretty dramatic / sudden transition to open rolling western-style plains / prairie / brushy terrain.

Better than online maps, I recommend you pick up a hardcopy of "The Roads of Texas" which shows every tiny litttle county road and all the small towns. When I go exploring, I make a xerox of a page and go ramble.

Hmmm...Paris, Tyler, Waco all fit in the distance criteria.
I can't think of what to do in Paris.
Tyler has a decent zoo for a "small" town. It also has the rose gardens, which were closed the last time I was there in February, and likely are in December as well.
Waco has the old suspension bridge on the Brazos, a Dr Pepper museum, the Texas Ranger museum (the law enforcement guys, not the baseball team).
On our randonneuring routes, most of them are just on assorted FM roads, so pick out a likely route that zigzags in the general direction and take off.
To cut the miles down or increase the range, consider taking DART or DART/TRE to their outer limits and ride from there.
Hillsboro, Canton, Commerce, Bonham would all make okay stop-over points.
Bonham has the Sam Rayburn house that you can tour.
Canton is probably full-up on First Monday weekends.

Thanks for the suggestions to date. I had posted the same question over on the Touring forum, and just got an interesting response---two days to ride from south Dallas to Glen Rose, stopping in Cleburne, 40+ miles/day. Check it out over there, just search "Dallas" in the title (I am not smart enogh to make a hot-link...)

Hico, TX, the birthplace of Jesse James! It's southwest of Fort Worth, it should prove to be a good 150 miles (on the back roads) one way, and is fairly populated.

Glenn Rose area is very nice.