DAY 05 - No Rest For The Wicked

This morning we woke up to what I would suspect to be a typical glorious blue Texan sky without a single cloud in sight. We must be still getting over our jet-lag as we managed to sleep in until just before 0900h which just so happens to be the exact same time that breakfast ceases to be available at the La Quinta Inn Hotel. It was sheer determination that got us across the line in time (well, some of us anyway) for breakfast. It seems; however, that the funky Texas-shaped waffles that we experienced at the Spring Hill Suites are not so unique...but that doesn't make them any less yummy.

Today was intended to be a rest day; but as mentioned in yesterday's blog, we needed to complete our Grapevine Mills shopping experience, so shop we did. Compared to yesterday, the shopping was great as (a) it wasn't a weekend and (b) students, adults and parents were at school/work. These factors reduced the shopping population ten-fold. We managed to catch some great bargains including shoes, clothes and many things that we really don't need.

http://www.simon.com/mall/grapevine-mills

After shopping and lunch we needed to run a few errands including finding a Post Office, which we located and arranged a package to be sent to Anchorage, Alaska. We then decided to go and check out 48,000 seat open Ballpark, Globe Life Park, home of the Texas Rangers Baseball Team.

Globe Life Park, Arlington, TX

We then headed the short distance to check out the 80,000 seat AT&T Arena, home of the Dallas Cowboys, the third largest stadium in the NFL (by numbers). It can actually host 108,000 fans with 28,000 standing.

In case you were wondering, that's AT&T Stadium in the background

We then headed back to La Quinta Inn so that we (okay, I really mean Maureen) could catch up on some laundry requirements. Schuyler, Josh and I headed out to a Best Buy shop to look for headphones for Joshua and we picked up dinner for the family on the way home.

For the record, Bob (the GPS) and I got on pretty well today with only one slight detour of no real consequence. I actually think we can make this work.

Out-and-about in Arlington, TX

We'll, that's all folks. Tomorrow we are heading out to Shreveport and Tyler about three-and-a-bit hours east of Dallas.

DAY 04 - Can You Feel The 'Love'

WARNING: This post may contain lots of aircraft pictures; you have officially been warned.

Woohoo! We finally got a chance to sleep in today and catch up on some long overdue sleep.

After finally crawling out of bed at around 0930h, we got ourselves ready for the day before heading to level two for the usual breakfast routine; however, this morning there was an astounding twist. Texas-shaped Waffles...yes!...you heard me...Texas-shaped Waffles. Who would have thunk?  Oh and I also had Cranberry juice and nothing else.

After packing up the room and then the car ready for our move to Fort Worth, we went for a family stroll through downtown Dallas to revisit the JFK Memorials in daylight. 

If you look carefully you can see a lonely Maureen
waiting for us to get back from the carpark

The visit to the memorials in daylight was very good and it provided greater clarity and perspective. Also giving me greater perspective was the exact-same tour guide that gave me the low-down last night. We visited the Sixth Floor Museum and souvenir shop, managing to pick up some real nice stuff.

After this we headed off to lunch adjacent Dallas-Love Field. For an aircraft loving tourist like me, I couldn't think of a more appropriate name.

Hey Kyle, can you please get a shot of me in front of the JFK Monument?

I didn't know that Dallas had trams

After lunch we headed to the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Dallas Love Airfield. The Museum is pretty much a monument to anything Southwest Airlines. It contained some awesome exhibits including the Vought V-173 "Flying Pancake" which was designed by Charles H. Zimmerman and was an American experimental test aircraft built as part of the Vought XF5U "Flying Flapjack" World War II United States Navy fighter aircraft program.

It also contains the Apollo 7 Capsule which flew in Earth orbit in 1968, flying 163 Earth orbits in 10 days 20 hours and 9 minutes, traveling a total distance of 4,539,959 miles.

It also contains a Southwest Boeing 737 aircraft called Spirit of Kittyhawk. The interesting thing is that the aircraft is oriented half in and half out of the museum. We also managed to see the tail of an Alitalia Boeing 787 parked in another adjacent hangar.

After the museum visit, we headed to Grapevine Mill which is an awesome outlet centre. It was so huge, that we will need to finish seeing it tomorrow. However, getting there was a bit traumatic with Bob and I disagreeing again with the directions and actually managing to retrace the same mistake twice. I would appreciate if anyone knows of a good GPS counsellor. Oh and speaking of counsellors (or something slightly related), we saw a sign on the side of the road advertising non-contested divorce legal services for...wait for it...$199 without kids and $299 with kids.

Well we are finally in our new hotel, the La Quinta Inn at Fort Worth. That's all folks.

Lorenzo, I think Alitalia is missing one of its B787s

The weather today over Dallas Love Field

DAY 03 - Let's Go, Mavs

Day 3 kicked off with a less-than-ideal sleep-in due to my parking the car in an overnight carpark that required me to move it out at 0705h. Needless to say, I discovered a new word to describe the thing we commonly call an alarm clock.

Once we were up it was downstairs for breakfast, with the usual hotel fare that we have become accustomed to in previous trips States-side; stale muffins and bagels, cream cheese in a disposable pack usually reserved for tomato sauce (oops, sorry, ketchup) and mustard, three types of juice, chicken sausages and scrambled eggs. I figure that a review from Gordon Ramsey wouldn't go especially well.

We commenced our travels with a spot of shopping at a large Mall which contained a Macy's, because Macy's was having a giant Sale...because it's Saturday. All in all most of us collected stuff we wanted and everyone was happy. We then decided to head back to our hotel with a plan to park the car, have lunch somewhere local (and uniquely American) after which we would walk to the American Airlines Centre (Stadium) to enjoy a Basketball match between the hometown Mavericks (aka. 'the Mavs') and the Golden State Warriors of Oakland, California.

All was going well until the GPS (let's call it Bob) and I had a disagreement; you see, Bob wanted to take us home the correct way, and clearly I didn't. However, without any complaint whatsoever, Bob tried hard to resurrect the situation, however, Bob was unaware of a traffic jam that really was in a jam (i.e. not moving whatsoever). So then I managed a funky U-turn and kept driving in the opposite direction, in spite of Bob's protestation ("make a U-turn"), until Bob finally relented and came up with a new suggestion that got us back home.

So we had Subway for lunch before hurriedly walking to the Stadium.

The match was great despite the Mavs (who we were all rooting for...yes you heard me correct) losing to the spirited Warriors who led from the start and stayed there. The view of the game was great, albeit our vantage point was up in the hypoxia section which is somewhat higher than nose-bleed section.

Check out the funky American Airlines planes in the Foyer

Welcome to 'Hypoxia' section

After the game, we headed back to the car and out for dinner and some night shopping, before heading back to the Hotel and stepping out for some night photography. 

This is for Mr Aquire

What the heck? JJ's here?

Dallas is really quite pretty at night and I felt quite safe when walking at night. 

A McDonald's Restaurant in the shape of a Happy Meal???

Our Hotel in Dallas

Beautiful buildings and features and lots of people out enjoying their Saturday night. I walked all over the place before stumbling across a scene that looked strangely familiar. I had stumbled down Elm street and found the famous Texas School Book Depository from which the fateful bullet was fired and ending the life of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy on 22 Nov 1963. 

Two bullets hit the President that day, although an elderly man spoke with me at length about the third bullet that was fired that day. As far as conspiracy theories go, this was very interesting as was the bit that included Woody Harrelson's father. 

I'd tell you more, but then I'd have to kill you, besides, I'm not even sure who reads this crap. 

Anyhow, time to tuck in after a long and great day in Dallas, Texas. I hope you at least enjoy the pictures.

A stunning memorial to President John F Kennedy

The view of the place where JFK was assassinated. The famous 'Grassy-Knoll' on the left and the
Book Depository further up

Taken from the 'Grassy-Knoll'

The exact spot where the second bullet fatally hit the President of the USA