Driving to WinStar from Dallas-Fort Worth: your guide around the I-35 work
The trip to one of our houses usually starts with somebody's playlist. Football weekends at Gridiron Legends begin with the pregame show on the radio. A Casino Royale trip has someone in the passenger seat reading out blackjack strategy. The Lucky Cowboy crowd puts on George Strait somewhere around Denton and doesn't turn it off. Then everybody reaches Gainesville and finds out the last stretch of the drive is a construction zone.
It's a big project, and it's going to make the drive better when it's done. Until then, a little planning keeps it from eating your Friday night. Here's what's being built, how to time the drive and where to check conditions before you leave, plus a way to skip the drive altogether.
What TxDOT is building
The Texas Department of Transportation is widening I-35 through Cooke County and across the Red River into Oklahoma. The stretch that matters most for a WinStar trip is the one TxDOT calls Phase 2: from just south of US 82 in Gainesville, north across the river, to about a mile into Oklahoma. Construction on it started in the summer of 2024, with a groundbreaking that August.
When it's finished, that part of I-35 will be six lanes, and the contractor says the corridor is being built with room for eight. The river crossing is the headline. Two new I-35 bridges are going up over the Red River. The old northbound bridge will be torn down, and the old southbound bridge will stay in service as a frontage road.
That's one piece of a larger plan. TxDOT's full I-35 project in the area runs about 22 miles, from FM 3002 in southern Cooke County to mile marker 1 at Merle Wolfe Road in Love County, Oklahoma, and it's being built in phases. So even after the river section is done, you may see crews farther south on the same drive.
What the drive looks like right now
From the Dallas side, the trip is easy until Gainesville. North of US 82 you're in the work zone, and it looks like what you'd expect from a highway being rebuilt in place: concrete barriers, lanes that shift from one side to the other, and new pavement next to the old. Exits and ramps move as the work moves, so the exit you took last spring might be in a different spot, or closed for a night.
We'd skip printing a list of closures here. They change week to week, and a list that was right when we wrote it could send you the wrong way by the time you read it. The two sites below are where TxDOT and ODOT post them, and they're worth a look the day you leave.
One habit helps more than anything: in the work zone, follow the signs, not your phone. Navigation apps sometimes lag behind a lane shift or a temporary exit, and the signs on the ground are what the crews just set up.
When to leave DFW
The construction itself isn't the main thing that slows the drive. It's the construction plus everyone else heading north at the same time. A few ways to avoid that:
- Beat Friday rush hour, or wait it out. Leaving the Metroplex in the middle of Friday afternoon's commute adds city traffic to the work-zone traffic. Leave before lunch, or eat dinner first and drive up after.
- Look at WinStar's calendar. A big show at Lucas Oil Live or a holiday weekend brings a lot of other drivers headed to the same exit. If your trip lines up with one, give yourself extra time. Our WinStar events page lists who's playing.
- Saturday morning is a good option. If your group can't all leave Friday, a Saturday morning drive gets you to the casino with the whole day ahead.
- Arriving late is fine. Check-in at our houses is by door code, so whether you pull in at 3 in the afternoon or close to midnight, there's no front desk to catch.
Check conditions before you go
Texas side: DriveTexas.org is TxDOT's official road conditions map. It shows construction, crashes and closures across the state, with live cameras. TxDOT also released a new DriveTexas app in August 2026, which is handy for a passenger to watch while someone else drives.
Oklahoma side: ODOT posts Oklahoma road conditions at OKRoads.org and in its Drive Oklahoma app, and links its traffic cameras from the same road conditions page.
A quick check of both before you leave the house takes two minutes and tells you whether you'll want to leave a little earlier.
Or take the train
If nobody in the group wants to drive, Amtrak's Heartland Flyer runs daily between Fort Worth and Oklahoma City, and it stops in Gainesville, Texas and Ardmore, Oklahoma along the way. It has a café car and coach seats, and you look out at the Red River instead of the bumper ahead of you.
The timing matters for planning. There's one train a day each way. The northbound train leaves Fort Worth in the early evening, and the southbound train leaves Oklahoma City in the morning, so plan on riding up in the evening and catching the southbound train home on your last day. Check Amtrak's current schedule and fares before you book, since times can change.
The train has had good news this year. In August 2026, Amtrak announced that Texas had approved a $4.2 million TxDOT fund transfer to keep the daily Heartland Flyer running while the Texas Legislature works on its next budget.
One thing to sort out before you go: the train doesn't stop at WinStar. You'll need a ride from the station to your house, so line that up ahead of time, especially for an evening arrival.
The payoff
Every trip through the work zone gets you a little closer to the finished road: six lanes from Gainesville over the river, on two new Red River bridges. For anyone who makes this drive a few times a year, that's a real change.
And at the end of it, you're not looking for a parking garage. Our Morning Star Lane houses are a minute from WinStar, and our River Ranch Way houses are about a mile and a half away. Pull into the driveway, punch in the door code and start unloading the cooler.
Pick a theme for the trip
Every house we host has its own theme, and the drive up is when the trip starts to feel like that theme. Casino Royale is set up for a high-roller weekend, a short drive from the gaming floor. Guy's Night Out is built for a group of friends, with a big-screen TV inside and the grill going out back. Lucky Cowboy Lodge on River Ranch Way leans into the Western side of Red River country. Gridiron Legends has a 100-inch TV with NFL Sunday Ticket and a turf field and goalpost in the backyard.
Each house sleeps eight across three bedrooms, with a full kitchen, two full bathrooms and free parking, so the whole group arrives in one place and stays there. On a day you'd rather not get back on I-35, that kitchen means you don't have to.
Before you leave, check DriveTexas and OKRoads for the day's conditions. Then book your house directly with us, and if you're coming up on the Heartland Flyer, tell us when you book so we can help you plan the last few miles.