The stars at night are big and bright...

Howdy from Dallas, Texas!

I’ve been here since late Friday night, and my delightful and generous hosts have kept me busy ever since. The first thing you notice about Dallas is the HEAT 🔥. Sure, North Carolina is also fairly unpleasant in the temperature department for most of the summer, but it usually takes until July and August to have sustained temperatures in the late 90’s, which is what it has been all week. We haven’t had any rain, which has been nice since lots of our activities have been outdoors. I only have one full day left to get the rest of my Texas experience in and I fly out around 10pm tomorrow night for AUSTRALIA!l

Saturday:
We visited the 6th Floor Museum (commemorating the assassination of JFK) along with, I suspect, most of the other tourists in Dallas. It’s a self guided museum with audio commentary. It was fascinating to see how it all went down and hear all the possible conspiracy theories surrounding it.

                     

For lunch, we took a wild Uber ride to the Farmer’s Market and got fantastic tacos and frozen margaritas from Taqueria La Ventana.

        

 
We hopped another Uber and spent the afternoon exploring the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. After a brief trek through a hot and deserted part of the city in search of Starbucks, we took a break  at home before heading out to dinner.
We had dinner at the Pecan Lodge and were pleasantly surprised to find it “not too crowded,” which meant the line wasn’t actually out the door, but still was wound around the restaurant waiting to place  orders and take a seat. The meat was delicious and very smoky and what I was hoping for from  Texas BBQ.

     

After dinner, we walked down the street and got a beer at a local brewery called Brain Dead Brewing. They had a nice selection of their own beers, as well as bottles of others. It had a laid back 90’s vibe to it, but might have been trying a little too hard, especially when the check was delivered to us in a retro Seasame Street child’s book.

Sunday:
Sunday morning we started off the day with a nice walk around the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Gardens. Elizabeth made a friend, Matt tried to catch a friend, and we counted 5 quiceanera photo sessions throughout our walk.

     

         

    

We got brunch at a place called Sundown at Granada and I had my 3rd meal containing brisket (it’s Texas after all) and a cache of mimosas (mostly champagne) which was delicious.
 

           

We came back to the house to chill and FaceTime with Salley and Walt for while, then went to Reunion Tower and took in all the views while enjoying a lemonade. Afterwards, we took a detour to visit Trammell Crow Park and ended up feeling like extras in 2 Fast 2 Furious (you had to be there) but walked around a bit to get some good shots of the city.

        

  

Our evening ended with (more!) tacos, and of course brisket (not complaining).

      

Monday:
We drove to Fort Worth to experience the cattle drive. As soon as we pulled into town, I said, “now THIS looks like Texas.” It was brick paved with lots of signs with bulls, guys with crazy mustaches riding horses, and just the right amount of manure in the air. We walked through the gift shop and the Rodeo Hall of Fame to kills some time for the cattle drive. I took special interest in the rodeo clowns featured in the hall.

      

     

We experienced the cattle drive, which was more of a cattle saunter, and was only about 20 or so cows (so apparently I pictured like 5 minutes worth of cows running in the road, more of a stampede I suppose, but it was very controlled and lower key than I anticipated) but was still cool.


We walked through the museum and all the shops, taking in wonder the variety of colors and designs that exist for cowboy boots (and discussing the lottery we would have to win to acquire a collection of them)

     

We got lunch at White Elephant- a very dark bar with a large collection of white elephant statues, cowboy hats on the ceiling, and swinging doors on the bathroom stalls. We ordered a burger with a fried portobello on top and a beer 🍺 - delicious.


For dinner, I treated Elizabeth to homemade chicken fajita salads (we decided we needed some veggies 🥗) and we chilled with a night in.

Tuesday:
We took the trolley to the art museum and spent the morning walking through the various galleries. We grabbed lunch at the food trucks nearby- I got a trio of sliders from The Butcher’s Son- a braised beef and Mac-n-cheese, a fried chicken, potato, and gravy, and a Nutella, peanut butter and bacon.

  

We then visited the Bishop Arts District and walked through all the shops in that area before returning home for an afternoon affogato.
For dinner, we went to Velvet Taco (yay, more tacos!🌮) and I ordered an annatto shredded pork taco with avocado crema, grilled pineapple, quest fresco, cilantro, and a hibiscus corn tortilla, a slow roasted angus brisket taco with red chili mayo, avocado relish, queso blanco, cilantro, and flour tortilla, shrimp and grits taco with creole mayo, blackened shrimp, crispy pepper jack cheese grits, charred tomato poblano salsa, cilantro and corn tortilla. So yummy!!!

Tomorrow is my last day in Dallas. We plan to do some light sightseeing and grab lunch, but most of the day will be washing clothes and packing and mentally preparing for being on a plane for 17 hours. Dallas has been great, mostly due to the lovely Thackers taking me in. I’ve enjoyed my visit, but I can’t wait until they come back to N.C. so I can see them more often! ❤️