Earlier this year Kevin and I decided to just go for it and book a trip we'd been talking about making for a while ... a trip to Dallas, TX to visit Kevin's uncle Mike. Neither of us had ever been to Dallas and with my two days off from work for the 4th of July holiday it was perfect. This might sound a bit silly but I was a bit nervous since this was the first time we were on our own for rental cars, driving in a new city and the like, usually Kevin and I are just along for the ride on trips. So starting off Thursday I was a bit anxious but things were smooth like ice. Uncle Mike wasn't able to meet us right away because he had to show a few houses to clients so we went and chilled out at our hotel (yay for the the Hilton Garden Inn Dallas Market Center for letting us check in early!!). It was decided that we'd meet up for lunch at the Pecan Lodge.
Lunch was amazing and if you're really interested in the barbecue check out my post from last week about the Pecan Lodge v. Lockhart Smokehouse. Then we headed to the Sixth Floor Museum. I knew we had to go see this museum and I was not disappointed. Unfortunately we could not take photographs on the actual 6th floor where a majority of the exhibits are but their website has a great overview of the exhibits. I found it fascinating that the majority of the exhibit was told through photographs and every visitor was given an audio guide because of this the exhibit was a huge wealth of history, sometimes it was even a bit of a history overload.
As a museum person it's interesting to compare an event like presidential assassination and how different the information you have is, like comparing Lincoln's to Kennedy's. With Kennedy's there is so much photographic and even video evidence that it makes it easy for the visitor to get immersed in it. On the 7th floor you were able to take photographs and then we went outside to the plaza to see the X's where the shots hit along with just enjoying the beauty of the plaza area.
After our visit Uncle Mike just drove us around for a little while and gave us a tour of Dallas. It was neat because we really got to see all of Dallas. Went by Uncle Mike's first house when he moved to Dallas, went through a number of different neighborhoods, and got to cross the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. These were just a couple of the things we saw! We caped off the night with some fabulous upscale Mexican at El Bolero, just a two minute walk from his apartment. There was a special rose sangria, it was amazing.
We kicked off our second day with a visit to the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden. Clearly in this case a photo is way better than words so here is a little photo dump of our morning at the Arboretum.
Lunch at local burger spot, Rodeo Goat, was followed by a trip to Reunion Tower. We loved the views from the Tower but I was definitely a little freaked out leaning out to get some good photos! It was nice to see all where we had been and to get a birds eye look. Maps and layouts definitely tend to make more sense that way!
So that's all for our first couple of days in Dallas. We had a few more adventures but I didn't want to overload too much on the photos!
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