Tugboat's Texas Trip - Day 1, Dallas

In case you were unaware, which many would be, The Tugboat and Chef recently planned and executed a vacation to Texas. Nearly every time we've brought this up we've been greeted with the baffled question of "Why?" It's simple really, I've been hearing about how neat it is down there, how there is interesting history and a very different world view. I looked at my Trip Advisor map of places that I've been and there was a gaping hole in the middle of the south of the USA. I'd covered off parts of the Southeast and also the Southwest but nothing in the South Central. I told Chef ahead of Christmas that I was thinking of doing that and he was interested in joining. We invited She as well, who flatly declined. The planning of the trip was quite passive. We made a list of attractions we each felt worthy of visiting over email, discerned from that how many days we'd need in each city we planned to see along the way, and started booking it. Pretty quick turnaround but that of course meant limited deals and savings. Chef booked the flight and the car with his fancy credit card that has all the perks. This would be helpful later on. The Tugboat found adequate and ideally located hotels. Then the day came and away we went.

We had an early flight and got to the airport in good time, enough in fact that we could stop in the VIP lounge for a free breakfast. Without collaboration we sat down with a number of cream puff desserts on our plates along with our breakfast which led to a hearty laugh. Chef had booked us preferred seats near the front of the cabin together. We had loads of room and enjoyed a comfortable flight. We landed and leisurely got to our rental car. We had opted to pay the extra $15 USD for a premium full-sized car. What we got was a VW Passat; white with OK plates. We were mildly disappointed that such a pedestrian vehicle is considered premium by AVIS but it would do. We decided to try and check into our accommodations despite it being ahead of noon local time. Then we'd make our game plan for the day and set out. We accidentally missed the turn into our hotel and pulled into a large parking lot to turn around. I noticed that the lot was for a restaurant on our list of places to visit. Being near noon, we decided to eat first. The burgers we ordered at Rodeo Goat were some of the best we'd experienced, maybe in our lives, certainly in 2018. We tried a couple of local beers with lunch and made our way to the hotel.

We planned to visit the Dealey Plaza 6th Floor museum for the most of the afternoon with an option to see a local brewery and have dinner afterwards. The experience at the site of the JFK assassination was thoroughly harrowing. We took the self guided audio tour and reviewed the history leading up to and following the famed event. It was more crowded than I would have guessed for a random Wednesday but everyone was very engaged and there was a feeling in the air much like at ground zero in NYC. After the tour was over we went outside and saw the marks on the street where the shots had struck the president and even walked up to the famed grassy knoll.

We decided that since we were there and the next day we'd likely be moving on, we should probably take the time to see everything else that was of note in downtown Dallas, or at least the things that we had noted as worth seeing. We ended up driving one block to see the official JFK monument. 

We spent some time here to take in the powerful monument and explore other neighbouring buildings of interest. The other thing we wanted to see while in the downtown was the Giant Eyeball statue. We got back in the car and planned to drive there, park, take our photo and get moving. We drove by it slowly but never did find a place to park. It being the end of the work day caused traffic to become cumbersome which in turn made circling back difficult, especially with an insane number of streets that you could not turn left on. We attempted to use Google Maps to find our way to a brewery close by, one of the few that was actually open during the week. There was a muddled and confusing batch of instructions all garbled out together where the app asked us to "keep left, turn right, keep left" which caused us to miss our turn. We did end up driving the exact route that JFK made but with a more positive outcome. Eventually, after driving almost out of town and back, we made it to our destination. We got a beer and found a bubble hockey game and proceeded to have a couple of quietly, fierce matches. We stopped for a break before the rubber match and were surprised with a free pulled pork sandwich. At this establishment they serve free food on the first Wednesday of the month. An odd practice that we received with open delight. 

After our snack and our beers at Pegasus City Brewing we left to go back to the hotel without ever having that rubber match. I guess we'll never know who was the better gamesmen. We took some time to find a spot nearby for dinner so we could walk and have a couple of beers afterwards and eventually settled on an establishment called the Meddlesome Moth. It was billed as a gastropub and had a lively, fun look to it with a huge list of local beers on tap. This seemed to be a perfect choice. We ordered a number of dishes and were disappointed by all of the four but one. The chicken skins were amazing. There was a maple bacon slab on a stick served with funnel cake that was promising but the addition of hollandaise sauce to it didn't make any sense and made it weird and unpleasant. The Moth Balls were too dry and the rabbit pot pie was more of a soup with a burned crust. The vibe was very buttoned down and formal too. The atmosphere was very dark. I'm not sure what they were trying to do there but it wasn't what we were looking for. As a result, we left quickly and stopped at Rodeo Goat on the way back for a couple more beers and some chips. I showed Chef what Miller High Life was all about. We had fun there, watching the Raptors win. Strangely, we had the same server as our meal before noon. They must pull long shifts at the goat. After that we scrambled to the hotel for a long sleep to cap a long first day. A good day by any measure.