Day one in Dallas was pretty uneventful – so tired it was mostly a chill out and planning day. Other than being at our camp spot, we hadn’t planned anything for the next month. Had no real plans for our first week, other than going to an NBA game, getting BBQ and some Mexican. Texas was our oyster and we figured we better plan some activities!

Picked the Dallas city Tour (on one of those hop on / hop off buses) to get an overall know of the city. As we were 5 minutes away from parking the car, the tour operator texted me to say “hey if you arrive 10 minutes early, I can add on the JFK tour as well for free! We like free, and we will be there in 5 minutes. Spent the next hour learning about why JFK was visiting Dallas, how the trip was planned/organized and drove the last mile of his tour, up to the assassination point. From there, also toured the streets and listened to the timeframe of how they found Lee Harvey Oswald. At the end of the tour, you definitely had a lot more questions than answers….

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then got on the Dallas City tour that took us all through 1 sq mile area of the 12 major highlights like the JFK assassination, city hall, farmers market, golden boy statue, Ewing Oil tower, historical west end to name a few. After the JFK incident, it took a long time for the city of Dallas to not be the black sheep of Texas – apparently it took the Dallas Cowboys in combination with Dallas TV show to get Dallas back in the good books (of Texas or the US – I’m not sure which one!)

Picked a couple of tour locations that we wanted to go back. Took an up-close look at the:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we drove back home to Ruby, I will never get used to this quadruple level freeway overpasses!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over the past couple years, we have followed a couple of YouTube Vloggers (Nate & Kara, Dennis & Liz) and both of them are full timers who love adventure and eating. We heard about Buc-cees through their vlogs – let me set the stage for Buc–cees (where all statements end with “in the world”)

– largest gas stations

– largest convenience store (66, 335 feet)

– longest car wash (255 feet of conveyor)

– cleanest bathrooms

– largest amount of gas pumps (between 120-122 pumps)

We had to go and check it out, as the Beaver never sleeps! The closest one to us was about 8 miles north. We were in eye-site of Buc-cees, exiting a U-turn under the interstate, when suddenly, Trixie the Tracker did a 360 on the road! It rained all night and apparently when the roads get wet after not raining for a while, they get VERY slippery. Luckily the opposing traffic had a red light, so we were unscathed, except for my heartrate!

Inside the store there is a takeout restaurant with BBQ food, a bakery, warm roasted nuts, a self-serve coffee area with at least 30 spouts and 100 syrups to add, a massive fudge buffet and a beef jerky buffet! WHAAAAT?! We left Buc-cees with a few more dollars spent than we anticipated!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weekend ended with a trip back to downtown Dallas. We didn’t see everything last week, so we went back to check out the trolley. They have this M-Line (McKinney Ave) free transit trolley downtown. They have 8 trolleys from Australia, that travel on this 2.5 mile track system. The one we got on was named Matilda – she was created in 1926 and Dallas transit authority bought her in 1985.

 

 

 

Sunday night we were at the American Airlines Centre to watch our very first NBA game – Dallas Mavericks against Chicago Bulls!

Had to have a quick consult with my brother-in-law on teams and players, since he is a massive NBA fan.

 

 

We arrived a bit early to get very cheap parking, check out the stadium and assess the snack options.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we were waiting for the game, we wondered “what is a Maverick?”. For those who need to know this is what we found out:

A maverick is an animal, usually a form of cattle, that does not carry a brand. It is a word also used to describe a person who acts free from constrains or from organizational guidelines.
A mustang is by definition a maverick horse.

So there you go.

Dallas beat Chicago – ended Chicago’s 9 game winning streak! Go Mav’s!