Dallas and the Texas State Fair

The second weekend of October, I went on another road trip but a much shorter one this time to Dallas! The 200 mile drive seemed like nothing compared to the 1000 mile drive to Iowa and it was nice. I went with my boyfriend Kevin as a part of our epic date weekend and we had such a blast! Friday night we went into downtown Austin to Stubb's and saw an incredible show by Monsters of Folk. We got there relatively early and snagged a great spot towards the front. Once the crowd filled in though, I was still too short to see the band as a whole but I managed to watch one band member at a time, switching my stance and finding new windows in the crowd to look through. Kevin, who stands at 6'3 in comparison to my 5'1, would lift me above the crowd occasionally so I could see everyone at once which was incredibly sweet and helpful. After the show, we went down 6th Street and met up with one of his best friends Cody and Cody's family who were visiting from California. We had a couple of beers and I taught Kevin how to Texas Two Step which he picked up pretty quickly. We then drove back up to North Austin and slept, awaiting the next branch of our weekend adventure: Dallas.

Expecting chilly weather, we dressed for the occasion but ended up taking the top off of the car and changing into shorts once we got there because it had gotten so warm. The drive up there was nice and relaxing. I napped a bit in the first hour and we fed our nostalgic tendencies by playing bands we listened to in our most vulnerable and angst filled teenage years, which mirrored each other nicely. After we arrived in Dallas, got lost in Oak Cliff, and then continued to drive around looking for parking for an hour, we managed to snag a wonderful spot in someone's back yard that was converted into State Fair parking, and started the couple block walk to the fair. Upon arrival, we bought coupons to use for rides and food, actually worrying that we had bought too many. Little did we realize all the amazing rides they had there and by the end of the day ended up buying at least four times as many coupons. The first thing we did was spend the entire first batch of coupons on way too much food. We got a turkey leg, two hot dogs, french fries with cheese, two beers, and a water bottle. The turkey leg was great and Kevin enjoyed the "I am man, hear me roar" aspect of carving into a massive amount of meat with his teeth. We sat in a gravel offshoot of a garden to eat and therefor had to balance our food in our arms to not get it in the gravel. I laid one hot dog on each leg as I sat indian style but in an uncoordinated movement to take a sip of beer, one hot dog rolled off of my thigh face down into the gravel. We were a bit devastated and buried it.

After eating, we bought more coupons and went on a couple of rides. Even just waiting in the queue made me crazy homesick for Disney World. Of course the State Fair, as impressive as it is, doesn't come close to Disney but just that all too familiar feeling of being in a theme park with people you love to be around was consuming me. The rides themselves were pretty intense and a bit scary. I had to put on a brave face though and I'm glad I did because they were a ton of fun. One we went on, called Rock-It, was especially thrilling. I was really scared waiting in line and was sort of regretting my decision to get on it, but once we rode it, I had my arms up in the air and it was amazing. I think I was less scared than Kevin was in the end, although he'll deny it.

After that, we went and sat down to relax for a bit after that rush of adrenaline and took cute pictures.

We hung out for a bit, walked around for a bit, and waited for the sun to start setting so we could ride the largest ferris wheel in North America when the Texas sun wasn't slowly baking us as we rotated through the air. First we rode the Texas Skyway, walked around a bit more, then it was time to wait in the line for the ferris wheel that seemed to go on for blocks.

 

The ferris wheel was unbelievable. It's 212 feet tall and just when you think you're as high as you can possibly be on a ferris wheel, you look up and see that you're only half way to the top. Its exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. The family we were with helped tame my fears as they were hilarious and really friendly, which was an excellent distraction from my unwarranted and unavoidable fear of heights. 

 After we were far too exhausted to continue at the fair, we found a hotel off of the interstate and crashed for the night. The next day, we headed back into Dallas to explore downtown before going back home to Austin. First stop was energy drinks and sunscreen because poor Kevin attracts the sun to his face with uncanny ability. Did you see all of those adorable freckles? We filled the parking meter with all the change we could find and then set out walking around the historical district of downtown Dallas. After a couple of blocks, we asked a hotel doorman how far the Kennedy assassination site was and walked that direction. Along the way, Kevin is geeking out about all of the history surrounding us and we run from one side of the street to the other taking pictures while he impressively recites the significance of each historical marker or statue. After a brief visit with Rosa Parks' statue, we walked a bit further and found the grassy knoll and the site of Kennedy's assassination. We took pictures, read all of the historical plaques, then sat in the grass for a bit contemplating the severity of the situation at the time. If something like that happened in front of me to our president now, I don't even know what I would do. Lose faith most certainly. The historical plaque on the Texas Schoolbook Depository read that this was the building the shot was fired from but because nothing was ever proved, the word allegedly was included in the phrasing, a word someone believed in very strongly as they carved into the plaque underlining it and peeling back the metal.  After Kevin filled me in on all the details I had forgotten since I had learned them in school and we strolled around for a bit longer, we headed back to the car and began the drive back to Austin.

On the drive back home, Kevin played me some music I hadn't heard before which is always nice. Once we got to Carl's Corner, we decided to pull off the interstate and see Willy's Place, a combination gas station, restaurant, and saloon put together by Willie Nelson. We had seen it on the way to Dallas but didn't have time to stop so we made a point to on the way home. We walked around the gift shop, Kevin bought some gifts for his parents, and we sat and had a couple of beers in the saloon. We started making conversation with some of the truckers passing through and talked about where they'd been and where they were headed. One of them was really sweet and asked us when our wedding was. haha. After we finished our beers, we got back in the car and headed the rest of the way home to Austin. It was such a fun trip and an amazing date adventure weekend. I can't wait to go on more with him <3