There have been a couple of times I have ended up in the same place multiple times in a short period of time. I once had to go to Lubbock two weeks in a row. For this time, I would be heading to the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) area twice in a week.
One thing I have found is you know you've been living in Texas for a while when you refer to this area as DFW. Almost everyone in Texas refers to the area as DFW, but anyone who hasn't been here a while will scratch their heads until you say, "Dallas-Fort Worth."
From Austin, DFW is about 3 hours away. It is a bit of a haul to get there. For my first visit, I was going to visit my buddy, Andy. He is a Dallas police officer. Ironically, we have both known each other since middle school. We're both from Marshfield, Wisconsin yet ended up in Texas.
Since Andy is a cop, he has to work on normal weekends. His weekends are typically Tuesdays and Wednesdays. While I was working and traveling to TABC, this made it hard to visit him. Since my departure from TABC and going full time with my blog, it is much easier to drop by during his time off. Visiting him early in the week was going to be my first trip to DFW.
My second trip to DFW was for Victoria's dad's birthday party. Her uncle lives in Plano, and they planned a get together there. We were going to stay the weekend and have a good time. Victoria was actually going to drive on this trip. This meant I only had to actually drive once to DFW.
I packed my trusty backpack to stay the night at Andy's. I then threw it in the 2007 Focus, along with the beer I bought at Which Craft.
I hit the road for DFW. I made a pit stop at 7-11 for gas and some breakfast.
It was a cloudy day when I hit the road. I definitely needed that caffeine I bought as a pick me up.
A while later, I made another pit stop at Slovacek's. I got a little food to eat on my way.
Before you know it, I was by Andy's apartment. We opened up the mystery six pack I bought from Which Craft and then BSed a little bit.
We both had Flying Man wheat beer. It was really good!
After hanging out a while, we thought it would be cool to go to a Dallas Stars game. Andy found cheap $10 tickets. We decided we wanted to drink a few more beers and also save on parking, so we got a Lyft to take us downtown. This was actually my first Lyft experience.
We had some time to kill and were hungry. We walked around a bit to find a place to eat. I took a few pictures and noticed there were grackles everywhere, just like Austin.
Andy liked El Fenix, so when we saw it, we headed over there.
After eating at El Fenix, we walked to American Airlines Arena. As we got closer, we saw a lot more hockey fans.
Soon we were inside the American Airlines Arena. The Dallas Stars were taking on the New York Rangers. This was actually my first professional hockey game I attended. I figured I'd root for the home team and was glad Dallas won 2-1.
Knowing that there would be surge pricing after the game for Lyft, we decided to go to a bar. We planned to have a beer or two and let things calm down. We settled on going to Hooters.
We met some air traffic controllers from Abilene who also went to the hockey game. There were also plenty of other hockey fans around including this guy:
After two beers, it was time to go home. I summoned Lyft, and we were soon back to Andy's apartment. We had two more drinks before calling it a night. Both of the Austin beers I drank after this were a bit sour and I didn't care for them.
Andy's dog Bella also kept us company.
The next morning, we got breakfast at Dallas Diner. It was just down the road from Andy's station. After breakfast, we swung by his station so I could fill out ride along paperwork. That will be an upcoming adventure that I will blog about.
I hit the road and then headed back to Austin. The weather was even more dreary and rainy than when I came there the day before.
I made a pit stop at Buc-ee's for gas. Even with almost 258,000 miles, the 2007 Focus still got almost 36mpg!
I then made it back to Austin and chilled out until Friday morning. That's when I loaded up the trusty backpack again for the weekend.
Victoria was driving, so we made a quick pit stop for breakfast.
It was still kind of cloudy and dismal, like previous drives I took.
In between the drive, we stopped at Czech Stop. We got some more food and then hit the road for the airport to pick up Victoria's brother Michael.
We then headed to Victoria's uncle's house in Plano.
After waiting for everyone to arrive, we all headed to Cantina Laredo. The food here was amazing! It was the best corn tortillas I had! Once we chowed down, it was time to go to work off those calories at Top Golf.
Top Golf was a lot of fun. By the time we were done, it was time to head to our hotel and check-in. We stayed at a La Quinta, the hotel chain I've become very accustomed to. On our way to the hotel, we pulled alongside this Lamborghini. You could tell you were in a richer area of town. The dude driving it was pretty cool.
Once we got settled at the hotel, we went back to Victoria's uncle's place. For dinner, we headed over to Spring Creek BBQ. There was a nice sunset along the way.
After Spring Creek BBQ it was time to go back to the hotel and get a good's night rest. There was a lot planned for the next day. We then got a good night's sleep. In the morning we met again at Victoria's uncle's house.
We were planning on getting a heavy dinner, so we opted for Chili's for a light lunch. Chili's was just enough to hit the spot. We had some time to kill, so Victoria's uncle drove us around Dallas and the suburbs.
After riding around a bit, it was time for that heavy dinner. We went to Kobe Steaks Japanese Restaurant. The food and show we got with them cooking it was amazing! While we got a show of them cooking for us, our next stop was a comedy show. We went across the parking lot to Addison Improv.
The show was good, and I got a bunch of good laughs from it. Once the show was over, we headed back to Victoria's uncle's place. We hung out and ate some cupcakes to celebrate her dad's birthday. It soon got late, and we were back at the hotel.
The next morning we ate breakfast and said goodbye to Victoria's dad. He was heading back to Colorado. We then hit the road. The weather was horrible, and it put Victoria's winter driving skills to the test.
Another weird driving quirk of this drive was seeing the stop and go light signs. They were sideways around Plano and not up and down.
It was nasty on the road, and we wanted to take a break. Lucky Slovacek's was along the way! They had some amazing wifi (actually best I've ever seen for free) and the food was amazing as always! I had a Frito pie and a ham sandwich.
I also picked up a stick of summer sausage.
After Slovacek's, we headed back to Austin. The weather cleared up. It was actually a nice day, especially considering what we drove through. I definitely had a cool week with two trips to DFW. I saw a lot of cool things and even got to eat at Slovacek's twice!