Dallas Cowboys

After spending a whole day in Dallas, I am convinced no honest-to-goodness stereotypical cowboys live here.  I wanted to see men wearing Stetsons, Wranglers, belt buckles, and cowboy boots.  I've mentioned before that I love wearing my cowboy boots so I made sure to bring them on this trip.  In fact, I wore them all day yesterday and I was the only person on my Sunday evening flight bound for Dallas wearing boots.  That kind of bummed me out but I figured I would see people wearing boots today.  Nope.  Well, my uncle Michael did.  But that's it.  No other boots to be seen today.  I've been told we're more likely to see cowboys in Austin so I'll hold out 'til then.

Anyways...  I'm sure you'd like for me to get off my cowboy rant and tell you about my day.  My mom and I only had plans to meet with our family at the hotel and we had about an hour to ourselves in the morning so we headed downtown to the infamous Dealey Plaza where JFK was assassinated.  It was kind of surreal to be there as a tourist almost celebrating such a tragedy.  What surprised me was seeing that they have a white "X" painted in the middle of the street in the spot where the fatal bullet hit.  I took this picture of the book depository while standing on that "X."  When I get home I want to find some JFK documentaries on Netflix or YouTube and watch everything while the layout of the plaza is still fresh in my mind.

Not sure what to do with the family, we were happy when one suggested going to Saltgrass Steak House.  I ordered chicken strips and swapped out the fries for a mini cast iron skillet of macaroni and cheese.  The chicken tenders were cooked perfectly but I did not care for the mac n cheese and only managed to eat one noodle.  My mom liked it though so people with normal palates would probably enjoy.  Everyone went back to the hotel after lunch where we digested our large meals with good conversation.

As it got later we needed a change in scenery.  Several hours had passed and some of us were starting to feel hungry so we went downtown to the Iron Cactus Mexican restaurant and tequila bar.  I didn't find any of the entree items appealing so I chose to have dessert and boy did I make the right move!  I hope I can find a place in Portland that does Rollo de Canela because it was amazing.  Basically cheesecake wrapped in a crispy cinnamon/sugar tortilla and drizzled with caramel sauce.  Mmm...  My mouth is watering just thinking about it now.  

Off the food for a minute...  Today was truly special getting to spend so much time with family.  While I'm looking forward to moving on to Austin tomorrow, I'm a little sad to be leaving Dallas without doing more touristy things and really checking it out.  To wrap things up, today's mention will be in honor of our fallen thirty-fifth president.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles - and Buses Too!

Texas trip day one.  Being a new transplant to the Portland area has one big disadvantage - I don’t have any friends close enough to beg for a ride to the airport 40 minutes away.  And since Eddie was at work, I was SOL and on my own.  I decided to give the whole Tri-Met system a try and found a bus & light rail schedule that would work to get me to the airport on time.  I walked a half mile from my apartment to the bus stop and paid $2.30 which covered my bus and light rail fares.  It was a 40-minute ride from my house to the Beaverton Transit Center where I caught the light rail.  The lady driving the bus was awesome.  A couple of her regulars boarded the bus while I was on and she was super friendly with all of them and she’s one of those people who just loves their job - even though you might expect someone in that position to not love their job.  Then I hopped on the light rail and saw parts of Portland I had never seen before and really enjoyed relaxing during the 1-hour trip.  BUT...  I was way too cautious with my planning because I was paranoid something would go wrong so I planned to get to the airport three hours before my departure time.  Needless to say, I was quite bored at the airport.  But PDX is a really nice airport.  And now that I know Rogue has a restaurant in one of terminals, the airport is even cooler in my book.

Not much to say about Dallas so far.  It was well after 10:00 P.M. when we checked in so we just ran up to the room to throw our bags down then went to the lobby bar for drinks and a snack.  We also met with some family members that I haven’t seen in over twelve years during my last trip to Texas.  And since I’m running on just three hours of sleep, I am going to bed.  And because of this my media mention will be lame (my lack of creativity is lame, not the media mention itself).  So my mention is the title of this blog.  What a classic!  “You’re going the wrong way.  You’re gonna die.”  ....  “Wait, how do they know where we’re going?”  Love it.  But going back to the title of this blog, I did in fact travel by all four of these modes of transportation today.  Busy, busy, busy.  Let’s see what tomorrow will bring.