For a lot of you, you knew I took a 4 day break from broadcasting to have a mini vacation with my girlfriend in Dallas, Texas. I felt it would be nice of me to share with you what we did.
(This is a long post. I hope it’s interesting enough for you)
Our trek to Dallas started on Saturday, September 26th. I was actually streaming Animal Crossing: New Leaf on the Twitch channel. Soon after ending the stream, it was time to pack up. I’m a very last minute kind of person so I rush to pack everything. I wanted to make sure I remembered everything in my suitcase, as our last trip, I was without sleeping clothes. We decided to have dinner first at Texas Roadhouse, whose roots are actually not from Texas.
Soon after, we would make our drive to Dallas, Texas, which is usually a 4 hour drive. The reason we were leaving on a Saturday was to make it to the Dallas Cowboys games that Sunday.
Arriving to our hotel was pretty standard. Find a spot, remember to have all your things, check in, and make way to the room. The hotel we booked was nothing special, we needed somewhere to sleep but these two things stuck out for me:
I also realized that I had forgotten to pack any pants. This followed with laughter from my girlfriend. I’m alway glad to make her happy. Going pantless was an option, but wasn’t considered. Either way, I had to address that concern somehow soon.
The next morning, we made our way to AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys. The place is massive!
A friend of mine describes the experience like you’re at a party. There’s just so much going on and so many people. Another example of it being a party, is that they host a 2 hour post game party outside. My mind was blown. This was my first NFL game ever and despite the home team losing, it was still an awesome time!
Remember those missing pants? Yeah, I did too, with only a few hours on a Sunday to shop, I was on a mission to find pants, in particular shorts. I usually will not wear pants unless I had to. For hours we would go to store after store to find out that shorts were not in season. Down to the last hour, I was able to find shorts to hold me over for the trip, crisis averted.
The evening would end with dinner at a chain mexican restaurant that my girlfriend and I haven’t been to in years and a trip to walmart. Let’s just say we realize why we haven’t eaten at said restaurant for multiple years. At Walmart, we felt it would be a good idea to buy a case of water to avoid having to pay inflated prices for water. There, we found Animal Crossing Amiibo Cards and I couldn’t resist:
The next day was planned for the Texas State Fair, but we wanted to discover what Dallas has to offer. For those who don’t know, Greater Dallas area is made up of several cities. This mostly means lots of driving. Everything outside the State Fair was decided upon last minute. We decided for that later morning / early afternoon to visit the George W. Bush Presidential Museum and Library. The man wasn’t overly liked and I personally didn’t agree with some of the things he did, but I’m a huge fan of history and learning.
President Bush was a huge fan of Baseball, so half of the museum covered the history of baseball and how US Presidents had an influence on the game. There was a lot of information there that I didn’t come to expect. I personally didn’t even think of the connection between Baseball and US Presidents.
The other half of the museum was the permanent exhibit. It was like a walking timeline of the life of President Bush, from his upbringing to how his legacy has affected the World, both good and bad. The dedication to 9/11 was very heartfelt and I definitely spent a lot of my time here.
The names etched into the walls are the people in memory that were affected by the events of 9/11. Overall the time spent at the library went beyond my expectations and My girlfriend and I spoke about the potential of visiting others. Again, we really appreciate the history.
From there we made it over to the State Fair. We did not realize how large the fairground would be, and we both did not have any idea what to expect. There was plenty to do from food to rides to a full fledge car show of both vintage and modern vehicles. One of the bigger highlights was finding out that Nelly is a Texan. I had no idea.
There is so much to eat at the fair, but I will say some food vendors are just as tricky as the game vendors. Some of the food on the menu is not what you expect. A fried philly cheesesteak sandwich should not come in the form of an egg roll.
My girlfriend declared to be too old as she found a lot of the ride to be too aggressive. I would spend the entire day trying to find a loophole to get on a ride. At the end of the day, she decided to jump on a ride that I thought was too aggressive. We had a lot of fun, that was for sure.
The next day we went back to AT&T Stadium to go on the stadium tour. When we went to Chicago last year, we had the pleasure of touring around Wrigley Field and that really turned us on to venue tours. There was so much detail and knowledge about a venue that is only 6 years old. The tour was 90 minutes and they literally took us all over the play, from the press boxes, to the where Jerry Jones (team owner) sits during games, to the locker rooms, to the actual field. Despite the venue being so young, it contained the memories of a lot of history. This is a place I would suggest going to.
We ended the day at a Nickel Arcade. This place was nothing and not a world renowned venue. As gamers, my girlfriend and I love arcades, especially ones that dispenses tickets. Our favorite are the coin pusher machines, we can stand there for hours on end and have fun on what is a very simple game. The sounds of coins dropping is heaven.
We wrap up the trip with a visit to the 6th Floor Museum. This was at the building where Lee Harvey Oswald worked and shot John F. Kennedy, the US President at it’s time. When you first walk into the museum, you are literally walking on the preserved 6th floor where a lot of boxes of textbooks used to lie. The size of the building is not very large, but they were able to share with us nearly two and a half hours of information via an audio tour.
I felt they did a great job setting up the stage of understanding Kennedy’s legacy and the events leading up to the tragedy. Considering how much controversy surrounds the event, I felt the museum did an excellent job sharing all the information that is out there, leaving it to yourself to determine what you feel is factual.
As I drove us back home, I couldn’t help but look back at our trip and be happy with what we did together. A trip that was originally planned to be just the state fair, introduced us to a lot of things we have no idea existed. This was a great reminder for me to remember to always discover what is unknown and that there are great memories to be had.
After my first day back from work, I remember telling my girlfriend that I was a bit sad that our trip was over, because what I took away from it what a wealth of memories and perspective.