Road Trip To Texas

This blog will take a little more of a personal turn than the last one did. Since Dallas Comic Con is a huge thing, I wanted to give that recap its own space. However, there were other parts of the trip that happened, and I wanted to give them a little bit of air time too.

We left after work on Thursday with the plan to stop halfway and stay the night somewhere. The drive was nice. We listened to Welcome to Nightvale, which is weird and random enough to be enjoyable for both of us. We also got to use our fancy new K-Tag through the tolls. Up until recently, you had to buy the K-Tag and then buy the tolls as well, but since we didn’t travel enough to actually warrant a tag, we never got one. At the Kansas Sampler Fest, they had a booth. As it so happens, K-Tags are now free! When you sign up, they take your debit information and take a monthly payment based on how many tolls you use. If you don’t use at least $10 in a month, it rolls over to the next month. Since that was definitely more our speed, we signed up.

We stopped in Oklahoma for some Braum’s (because I love Braum’s and we don’t have one here), then kept on until we found a hotel. We had no luck in Guthrie and then we almost had no luck in Edmond. I’d wanted to use some of my Wyndham points for a free night, but it didn’t happen because there were no Wyndham hotels where we stopped. Yes, I know I failed to plan, but I wasn’t entirely sure when we’d be ready to get off the road. We stopped later than I wanted to anyway, and most hotels were booked. We found one empty room at a Hampton Inn and paid way more money than we wanted for it. But now we’re Hilton rewards members, so we might be able to use that to our advantage at some point in the future.

The room was comfortable and we were back on the road earlier than we’d anticipated. In fact, the second part of our drive was a lot shorter than we’d planned for. Besides the fact that road construction wasn’t horrible, we were also driving during a low traffic time. There was only one place in Fort Worth where traffic slowed to a crawl and it didn’t last long.

Our first day was spent visiting with family, eating at local restaurants, and grabbing a couple geocaches in the area (which meant we scored our Texas souvenir…whoo!). Our second day was Dallas Comic Con and a trip to Whataburger.

We left early Sunday morning and made the long trek back to Kansas. However, we got in a couple roadside stops. In Davis, Oklahoma, we stopped at a place that makes fried pies. Think hostess snack pies, but better. I got a cherry pie and Jon got pecan. We passed another one up near Tonkawa. In hindsight, I kind of wished we’d stopped again. They were so good! We also stopped at a local diner in Blackwell, OK to have lunch. The regular fast food joints get old after awhile, and we usually find great food at good prices at the local places.

We actually made good time getting back home, but I was tired and sore for a few days after from walking around the convention and from sitting for so many hours driving. It was a blast though, and I’m glad we made it down. Road trip season has started, and this was a great way to kick things off.

A.

Field Trip Friday – Texas Vacation Day 3

To continue with our trend of culture and fun, we visited the Forth Worth Museum of Science and History on field trip Friday. We didn’t realize it was going to be field trip day until we got there and the parking lot was filled with school buses and lines of elementary kids waiting to get in.

Normally, I would have driven the other way, but I really wanted to see the museum, so we found a parking space and braved the super loud museum and the groups of children. As someone who doesn’t consider myself a “kid person,” I actually thought it was cool how excited they all were about the exhibits.

There were some cool things to see and a lot of hands on things we probably would have done if not for all the kids. We avoided the Titanic exhibit due to cost, but we did stop in the Cattle Raisers’ Museum (a museum inside of the Science and History museum…very inceptionesque).

Our next stop was the National Cowgirl Museum. I was bummed that we couldn’t take pictures except for in the lobby. It was still a great experience. The special exhibit was Maverick quilts. Upstairs we took goofy digital photos and watched a short video on cowgirls.

Our final stop was the Amon Carter American Art Museum. At this point, we were pretty exhausted. Remember me saying I wasn’t great at walking? Well I pushed it. We parked in a parking garage that was halfway between the Amon and the science, and that added so many steps. So by the time we got to this last one, I was hurting.

So as much as I hate to admit it, we kind of copped out of the Amon. But we did get through most of it and got some good pictures.

We decided it was okay to miss part of the permanent collection, and we did get to see the special exhibit there, a series of enlarged photos. Next time we’re there, we’ll make Amon Carter our first stop.

By the time we were done,  Grandma L and Cousin S had already scoped out a lunch spot for us, and we met them at a place called Fireside Pies,  a trendy looking place that makes gourmet pizzas.

Delicious.

We ended the day by relaxing at the house with some TV, reading and knitting for awhile before the cousins came back over with chicken dinner. We ate and chatted for a few hours before finally calling it a night.

Art Immersion – Texas Vacation Day 2

It’s easy for J. Felbs and I to get lazy during vacation, especially when we’re visiting a city we’re not familiar with and when we have a comfy place to stay and watch TV. This time around, however, we decided to get out of our comfort zone this time and visit some museums in Fort Worth. We didn’t plan this ahead of time. It was kind of a spur of the moment decision at breakfast, but one that proved to be a good one.

We started with the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

The museum was beautiful and we enjoyed walking through all the galleries. There was so much to look at and we kept finding rooms and hallways, like a cool, art-filled maze.

Like with anything that  involves pictures, even though I liked looking at all the art, I only took pictures of the things that really resonated with me, which meant that in many cases it was the art I found to be a bit creepy.

After that, we went to the Kimbell Art Museum across the street.

At the entrance of the Kimbell

The feel of the Kimbell was different from the feel of the Modern. It felt smaller and warmer in décor, though not necessarily warmer in atmosphere. Don’t get me wrong, everyone was super friendly (one of my favorite parts of visiting Texas), but there was definitely a more serious feel to the gallery.

We decided to leave the other museums until the next day to beat rush hour and what seemed like ominous weather. We headed back to Grandma L’s and relaxed for awhile before meeting up with more family for dinner at a restaurant called Frescos.

Besides the awesome feeling of hanging with my husband and actually getting out and doing something, I was proud of the amount of walking and standing I did. I definitely felt like I was able to get past the mobility issues and really enjoy seeing things outside of the norm. Day 2 proved to be just as successful as Day 1, if not more so.

The Road to Texas – Vacation Day Zero and One

We’ve been trying to get to Texas for several months, but the timing wasn’t right. We finally made it happen with an extended weekend vacation south while J. Felbs was on Spring Break. We left after work on a Tuesday, heading to Wichita to stay the night and break the long drive up a bit.

On the way, we listened to The More You Nerd which was like reconnecting with old friends. It’s one of our favorite podcasts, but due to technical issues with computers, internets, and iPods, I hadn’t been able to upload in a long time.  Wichita brought a trip to Braum’s and a couple games of MtG, where I learned the importance of taking my brother-in-law out in a match as soon as possible.

Besides the weather being nice, we got a little adventurous on the road trip the next day. First, we stopped at a small BBQ joint called Stevenson BBQ. The hearse in the parking lot was a little unsettling, as were the scary bathrooms. But the smell of BBQ was wonderful and the food ended up being delicious.

Pretty sure this used to be a Braum’s

Order up at the front counter

Brisket sandwich and fries

We decided to go off the beaten path and have an adventure, so we drove into Paul’s Valley, Oklahoma and visited The Toy & Action Figure Museum. It was so cool. There were, of course, action figures of all kinds, including some horror figures from some of my favorite movie franchises. There was a neat playroom where people (mostly kids, but there were some adult costumes too) could dress up and act like a superhero for awhile. There was a Bat Cave that had everything Batman and a corner that featured Oklahoma cartoon artists. It was fun to geek out on all the displays. 

One of my faves! It was kept behind a glass case. This was probably good.

This was only part of the many TMNT memorabilia

Our side trip, road work, and rush hour traffic put our arrival time a little later, but not too late. We got in, visited with Grandma L, then ate dinner at The Porch, a local homestyle restaurant in Burleson.

We ended the night watching Duck Dynasty (which cracked me up) and Bates Motel (which intrigued me and made me sad I don’t have cable).  All in all, a successful first day of vacation.