Sunday, January 31, 2010

TEXAS!

Even titles are bigger here.
We had one more stop before leaving Oklahoma. Halfway between Dallas and Oklahoma City is Ardmore, OK, where my uncle Leo lives. We arrived on Sunday to burgers and dogs and the AFC & NFC championship games.
It was great getting to spend time with them. It's been a while since I'd seen my cousin Levi, and even longer since I'd seen Heather, And I'd never met her little munchkins here.
The next day Uncle Leo took off work and we went fishing. It was a little cool and windy, but a nice bright morning nonetheless. We pulled in a few small bass between us but Nikki had the only real keeper. We let it go too when we headed out since it was the only one. Not before Nikki named it Cathleen.
Well we spent a second night n Ardmore. Uncle Leo grilled steaks and we rented some movies. The next morning we hit the road for Dallas.
On the way we stopped for a $4.99 Chinese buffet. Ever eaten sherbet with chopsticks? Not so easy.

Sexy.

We pulled in to Dallas on tuesday afternoon. Driving into town we passed by the the G. W. Bush expressway, probably the most convoluted sting of tangled concrete I've ever seen.
Our first stop was the big red building on the right.
Yeah, it's called the "Big Red Courthouse" for obvious reasons. Except that now it's a museum that used to be a courthouse, so why it's not called a the "Big Red Museum" is beyond me. But they have a visitor's information center, so we thought it'd be a good place to stop.
The first thing we did after hearing the visitor's center worker's suggestions was check out this big recreation of a of a cattle drive in the middle of downtown.



Apparently each one of these statues cost $1 million dollars. And they still have more to put in.
Texas doesn't believe in recessions.
We found a place to park near the free trolley that runs from one end of town to the other.
We rode it all the way from the Southwest part of downtown to the Northeast.



On the other end of town we found the Uptown Bar and Grill (or maybe it was Grille, it was a pretty shnazzy part of town)
We walked around town for a little while checking out the sights.

Later that night we met up with Nikki's friend Kelly. her and her friend Blaine took us out to the Doublewide.
Yes, it's a bar made to look like a doublewide trailer, complete with thrift-store couches, stuffed animal heads, and velvet pictures on the wall.
Oh yeah, and a line of toilets in the outdoor patio.




We spent the next day with Kelly at her place near Fort Worth, just 30 mins east of Dallas.
After that we drove down to Houston. Spring to be exact. We met up with my old friend Justin Raddatz and his family.
After showing us around town on Friday, which included a stop at his work for Fajita Friday, we saw the giant president heads

Same pose, different locations, or green screen?


Justin helping Adams with a little thing he had hanging there.
Those are giant Beatles in the background.
The Raddatz family at the mall. Justin, Alissa and little Ada.

This is probably the greatest gift basket I have ever seen. As you can see it included Corona, Fritos, beef jerky and pork rinds. Nothing says I love you like pork rinds. Or is it coronary disease?


This is Kilo, another member of the Raddatz family.

We also spent some time at the park. Here's Coco going down the slide. After his first attempt it was like when Napoleon went to Waterloo in Bill and Ted's Excellent adventure. He couldn't get enough. He kept running up trying to beat Ada to the top.
We had an amazing time with the Raddatz'. And to cap it all off Justin launched a dozen fireworks into the air. It was glorious.



We head out for Austin today. And then perhaps San Antonio.

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