Diane does Dallas

Thursday 26^th May to Sunday 29^th May 2016

Having been to Dallas before we knew a bit more of what to do – first up catch the blue bus to the hire car centre and within 20 minutes of walking out of the arrival area we were driving off out of the garage and onto the freeway.

Our last trip was a bit disastrous, we ended up heading towards Fort Worth – this time with maps at hand we arrived at the hotel within 30 minutes – almost downtown Dallas.

We managed to settle in and have a bit of a relaxation before heading across the road for a bite to eat – the problem with so much air travel is that the diet takes a back seat to convenience and that cannot be good.

All we needed was a lovely serving of potato and cream soup and a toasted cheese sandwich – probably not on the higher part of the list of most nutritious of meals but it hit the spot.

Diane managed a couple of pancakes as well – she seems to be enjoying the American diet.

Not only is the air travel upsetting our diet but even on short trips we are feeling the tiredness setting in – just having to make sure that we are in time for the flight means that we arrive way too early.

Our first night in Dallas we be having dinner with Sara’s mum Dede and her husband Faan (an ex-South African, who at least knows about cricket), Sara’s uncles Dean and Jim – we have all met before and they are really great people and we desperately wanted to catch with them all again.

 

from left: Jim, Dean, Diane and Dede

We met at Dean and Jim’s and then drove over to the restaurant, Dunstan’s, which was a little way away – a lovely Italian place which served really great food.

We had a lovely evening which really was way too short but time constraints made it difficult to arrange to be able to get together and we were so pleased that they all found the time.

Friday was a bit of a free day for us, and so we enjoyed a bit of an extended sleep-in; but not too late to miss breakfast, which in most places (well, all places) is heavily on the American-style and we would be surprised if it wasn’t.

The weather overnight had been pretty grim – it had rained most of it and in the morning it was still coming down a bit; so we had no early plans to go out in it, although we thought that a visit to Fort Worth would be good – we had been before but wanted to see a bit more.

Diane also had more food on her mind and fancied a visit to a seafood restaurant that is a favourite of Sara’s as well as Dean’s and where we had been the last time in town.

It is called Lefty’s, apparently because when they first started up they used to buy the lobsters and crabs that only had one claw and weren’t good enough to sell for the big bucks – this kept their costs down and therefore their prices – so that they could build the business.

 

Ready for lunch at Lefty's...

Anyway, we had the lobster bisque as a starter (sensational, just like the last time) and then we tried different seafood pasta dishes – at the end of it we could hardly move with the quantity and it was all superb both for taste and price.

...and not disappointed either

The rain had stopped by the time we came out, so the drive to Fort Worth was in sunshine – we still managed to find traffic but also managed to find our way out of it. Fort Worth is about 50kms west of Dallas and still retains it’s cowboy image, so the place to visit are the historical Stockyards where there are plenty of cowboy themed places to spend your money as well as plenty of restaurants (mainly steakhouses) – after the lunch that we had just had, food was not on our mind, but seeing all of the places was.

 

Very much a bit of a tourist mecca, but you will see so many
people walking around in the full gear

  

Something that we would all recognise from watching TV in our
childhood - no sign of John Wayne at all

We also managed to see the cattle drive down the street – just for the tourists, these days – but it was along a street lined with parked cars and the guys in the saddles did a good job of preventing a stray longhorn veering and damaging any of the vehicles.

 

Just taking a stroll with the livestock...

...just down the main street - as you do

the quinessential Texas Longhorn

This is the start of the Memorial Day long weekend in America – a rememberance of fallen military personnel from all wars in which the US was involved – similar to our Anzac Day and on the same level of observance.

We have been impressed with the high regard in which all military personnel are held in America and acknowledgement of the service that they are asked to perform (whether they think it right or not, they do their duty).

Back to town and we encountered all of the people trying to make an early start for the weekend – so a little bit more traffic on the road.

 

With so many roads, flyover roads amd more, it should
have been less congested. This is one of the smaller
junctions

Saturday turned out to be the best day, by far. The sun was out early and it stayed out all day. We had plans and arrangements to catch up with Sara’s dad Mike – he is one hell of a nice guy (pretty much just like me!!).

Over a coffee, he mapped out the day that he had planned for us – it was a tour of the north section of greater Dallas – primarily around where he and the family had lived in the Dallas area.

So we saw the schools and house of Sara and the boys younger days – it is amazing that every decent sized high school starts with the football field and stadium and then decides on what else should go into building up a school – only kidding, but the football stadium holds 19,000 people every Friday night and cost $60 million – Football is big in Texas.

Mike is involved in commercial real estate so were visited a couple of things that he is doing at the moment – some great stuff happening there.

Mitch loves this place in Allen, Texas and with a name like that, why
wouldn't he. Anyway this is Mike with Diane

Diane has a fascination with American school buses and
when we saw some in the school parking lot - and open -
well she was like a kid in a candy shop

Got to sit in the driver's seat as well

Mike showed us around his local town centre of McKinney, which to me was exactly like we have seen on so many shows over the years of a medium sized town in America, not the big cities, but just like any town.

There was a large central area around the courthouse, which used to house the prison in the basement.

Lots of small businesses - this is the type of America that I would like to see more of and whilst they might appear all too similar, they have their on special characteristics - really loved being able to do what we did. 

Thanks Mike.

The central courthouse

Spotted this old ambulance - I recognise it from older TV shows, but these days
it is being used as a hearse

It must mean something different in America and is simply the name of a shop,
but could resist a bit of a chuckle at this sign

It is a great thing for us to be able to meet and enjoy the company of Sara’s whole family and to have them respond to us in the same manner – it is really like having another family – at least being part of another family and we are genuinely happy to see them all.

 

If you thought that the TV show Dallas wasn't filmed around here - WRONG!
Here is the front entrance ...

...and the long drive...

...and the homestead itself.

We had such a great 3 days in Dallas; we will be looking forward to the next time that we can visit there and hopefully being able to see them in either the UK or in Melbourne.

But it was time for us to say farewell to the US for this trip and fly back to the UK – if only at least for me to get back to work and pay off the credit card.

As we have done on the boat for so long, we looked at the weather reports for our last morning – Sunday – rain and very likely thunderstorms – don’t like the sound of that so best to get going early, return the car and sit it out.

It was not ridiculously early and we did decide to have breakfast at the airport and the plane was on time. The first flight was a quick 3-hour flight to Newark to then connect with the flight home (overnight) – the first was on time; the second left a little late but we arrived about 15 minutes early into Birmingham…just a little tired.

An Introduction to Dallas

Tuesday 25th November to Wednesday 26th November 2014

It would seem logical to most people that after such a long plane trip across so many time zones that a little bit of rest would be the order of the day - at least that was what I assumed was part of the plan for the day, but I hadn't included mother and daughter together and the lure of shopping in not only a different city but a different country.

The words seemed to come out like "we will go out for a bit of a drive and see a bit of Dallas  and then come back for a bit of a rest before we go out tonight".
We had already made plans to have dinner with Sara and her dad, Mike and then go to see the Dallas Stars v Edmonton Oilers hockey game. They were going to drop by at 5:15pm.

So after breakfast we headed off towards Dallas; the traffic was a bit heavy on the freeway into the city so we turned off and found our way around to the southern side and from there the navigators decided that we could park and have a stroll around.
 

The First Baptist Church of Texas - not even the purple shiny
stuff could convince Diane to attend

The beginning of Dallas - no mention of JR however

It may have been the birthplace, but today it has fame for other reasons

JFK was assassinated in Dealey Plaza and there are many many
tourists around - especially behind the grassy knoll

Directly behind these two beauties and across the road is the
grassy knoll

Parking spot located; enough change found to give us a couple of hours; off we walked with a rough idea of where we were heading.
Whilst it was sunny, the air was quite cold and when in the shade it was only the air temperature that we had.

There is a quite extensive light rail (tram) system here and we haven't, as yet, used it; along the way we found maps designed to help people unfamiliar with the city to find their way around and from one of these we headed south towards the tourist information office.
We found the office and in the process we realised that we were directly across from Dealey Plaza - the location of the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. A memorial has been erected and information about that fateful day carefully laid out so that you can easily understand the basics of what happened and where.

Diane decided that she would tempt Dallas traffic and stand in the location of the impact of the fatal shot - which is clearly marked on the road.

Timing dictated that we needed to return to the car before we had it towed away.

X always marks the spot - in this case the location when the bullet
hit the President

It was sometime during this walk back to the car that I believe that the conspiracy was hatched between the two of them - Diane and Sam conniving to have me drive them somewhere other than back to the apartment - their plan to do some shopping.

Confronted with the fait accomplii I was left with no option but to drive.

Stopping and parking at Highland Park Mall we had the obligatory Starbucks coffee - a brief prelude to the main event.

Onward we went towards Galleria Mall and lunch was included somewhere in there.

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..." -
especially the Visa card statement

The shopping bags laden with their goodies weighed heavily on the walk back to the car, so heavy in fact that additional transport was contemplated.

We headed back a bit after 4pm without thinking really that much about the time - at least  not until we hit the traffic - a bit of bumper to bumper stuff and it seemed to be on every road we took.
Somehow, and I am not sure how, we made it back at 5:13pm - about 3 minutes later Sara and Mike were knocking on the door. So much for a bit of a restful afternoon.

Sara had been waiting quite a while to have us meet her family and Mike (her dad) was first.
Just like his daughter, Mike is an outgoing kind of person and very personable - someone who you would find difficult not to like.
We headed into Dallas and found the restaurant El Fenix - a TexMex place and we have to say that the food was really good. Wouldn't mind going back there again sometime - Thanks Mike for a truly lovely meal.
 

Sara's dad - Mike and myself with Sara

Sam and Diane

Sam had already ordered and paid for the tickets for the game, so she and Mike headed off to get them whilst the Sara, Diane and I waited at the entrance.
A lot of fans for the Stars were there, as you would expect; not so many for the Oilers.

The only other US sporting event that I had seen live was a basketball game in Detroit, over 30 years ago, but I do enjoy hockey from the few games that Sam and I have seen in Melbourne.

It is a bit more high-energy charged than what I had seen before but it was a great spectacle and end-to-end action; interspersed with the cheerleaders doing their thing and the "ice-girls" clearing the loose ice away.

Hockey is one of those sports where not a lot of goals are scored and those that are usually come totally unexpectedly - thankfully there are the replay screens.

just a few of the regular fans

In the end Stars won the game 3-2 and the home crowd was happy - as were we with the experience.

Mike kindly dropped us back at our apartment and we were asleep in double-quick time after a first up day in Dallas.

The following day Sara had made plans for us to meet her mother and step-dad who live in Fort Worth - about 30 miles away.
Before that however we wanted to find a optical prescription maker who might be able make new glasses for both Diane and I - we had had our eyes tested prior to leaving Australia in the anticipation that glasses would be cheaper in the US and that we could get them in time before we left.
After a couple of tries and a couple of malls we found VisionPlus who were able to make them and be ready the same day - we wouldn't be able to pick them up until Friday as we were out for the rest of the day and Thursday they were closed.
So we paid for them and would see them on Friday when they opened at 8am.

Mike dropped Sara off with us - there seemed to be a bit of a smile on his face - this time perhaps in anticipation of a peaceful day.

We headed off down Interstate 35 towards Dallas and just half way there we needed to turn off this road due to heavy traffic and managed to find our way around to the highway heading towards Fort Worth.

Along the way we came off for a close up view of the Dallas Cowboys stadium - which is huge structure with a retractable roof and capable of seating 80,000 spectators - we were mighty impressed with it and it was of a comparable size to our own MCG - albeit that the 'G doesn't have a roof, yet.

I am not sure what I expected on the drive between the two towns/cities - I guess that it might have been a bit more countryfied but there is a lot of development - both business-wise and also residential.

Downtown Fort Worth appears in the distance as we reach the city limits; the profusion of freeways remains for same for this town as they do elsewhere - the exits and signs still remain a bit confusing to someone not used to this level of signage. I would imagine that as time goes by it would be clearer and probably would help if I had a better idea of exactly where I needed to go.
The situation, I guess, is the same in all cities/towns across America for anyone travelling from out-of-town.

The amount of road works being undertaken in both Dallas and Fort Worth doesn't help either, but the positive side of this is the improvements being put into place.

We pulled up at the house of Sara's mum and went inside to meet Dede - she is a lovely woman and it is easy to see from where Sara has inherited her beauty.
The house is where Dede grew up as a young girl with her two sisters, Mimi and Judy and brother, Dean.

We popped out for some lunch and then drove into downtown Fort Worth to visit the Water Gardens - a haven within the centre of town on a 4 acre site where anyone can come and sit and escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life - a place to sit and relax.

Easy to see where the beauty comes from - Sara with her mum

We did feel the effect of the gardens but we needed to carry on down to the historic Stockyards.
Fort Worth grew up as a cattle town - the railhead was here and it was to Fort Worth that the great cattle drives of 19th century south-western USA headed for the cattle to be shipped north-east to the more lucrative markets.
FW grew much more quickly than the nearby rival of Dallas and it wasn't until Dallas became a banking/economic centre that it started to outgrow and later overtake FW and became the larger city that it is today.

Fort Worth has retained it's town charm and retained a fair degree of being much more relaxed.
The Stockyards enhance this and to take advantage of this area there are many tourist attractions that relate to that time, but also restaurants building upon the unique Texan cuisine; the style of Texan outfitting; and the Texan history.

not quite Texas longhorns yet - but don't give up girls - you can
still be cows

It was so obviously touristy, but also so obviously delightful that it is hard to resist.

Apparently a trip to this area is not complete without a visit to Billy Bob's Texas Bar B Que and have a drink here as well; a look at the indoor bull-riding ring; and take a few photos as well.

The indoor bull-riding ring

We were joined by Dede's husband Faarn, who is South African by birth but now almost an American citizen - he is just about to undertake the final process to finalise this.

We decided upon dinner at Riscky's BBQ - enjoying more of the cuisine from this area of the US - I am beginning to think that there is something obsessive about BBQ and beef for Texans.

As usual the meals were all delicious; well presented; and excellent service.

It was time for us to start heading back home and we are very grateful to Faarn for leading us back to the Interstate 30 - there is almost no way that we could have found our way there.

Diane did her thing on the trip back and found a shortcut which saved driving all of the way into Dallas and then come back out again.

I think the early starts and late nights is starting to have its toll on us - all three of just managed to fall into our beds and none could remember much after that.

We are extremely appreciative to all of Sara's family whom we have met so far for their friendliness and really making us feel very welcome - but there was more to come.