Goin’ on an adventure!!
It was a glorious, rainy early morning. Kevin and I parked in 9F (we reviewed this so many times that I still remember) and I practically (okay, I did) spun my way inside of the airport. THIS WAS SO EXCITING!!! We relaxed in the lounge until the last possible second — “Go big or go home”, they say… and we weren’t going home because we had practically just gotten to the airport. — As we ran to the gate we heard our names over the loud speaker. Perfect timing. WE WERE ON OUR WAY TO TEXAS!!!!!!! ….with a not-so-quick layover in Atlanta.
The first flight went well. But as we headed to our gate for the second flight we couldn’t help but notice the board said “New Orleans”. Huh? Is this plane going to New Orleans?! Everyone in the boarding area was just as confused as we were, but then the announcer came over the loudspeaker and cleared everything up… Flight 4099 has been canceled. CANCELED, Y’ALL. Not delayed, but full-on canceled at the exact moment we were supposed to be boarding.
Kevin and I looked at each other and I started laughing so hard I teared up. WHAT. After waiting in line, getting out of line, and waiting in line again, we finally talked to a representative who gave us a couple of options. The best one was (not to take a plane back to Ohio but rather) to stay in Atlanta for eight hours and then catch the 6pm flight to Dallas. The flight itself was going to take longer than usual due to weather and needing to be rerouted. We were just hoping it wasn’t going to get canceled altogether…again. We snacked on the veggies I’d brought from home as we took the metro into the heart of Georgia. We interacted with a lovely metro-station attendant who helped us buy our tickets. So far this trip was so fun (!) and had us on a plane, surfing on the airplane train, and now on an actual train.
And thus, our weekend in Dallas began in Atlanta. What are you supposed to do in Hotlanta (but actually Coldlanta at the early hour we got there) in the morning after a canceled flight? We choose the traditional route… an Israeli breakfast.
Shakshuka– traditional Atlanta cuisine?
After our shakshuka that left me #shook because it was amazing, we left to do some more exploring and stumbled into Piedmont Park and Atlanta’s gay pride festival. Now normally, in Pittsburgh, we don’t stumble upon Pride; we joyfully anticipate Pride; we prepare for Pride. And not knowing about Pride in Atlanta, as Kevin simply put it, we showed up “looking like squares.” No sequins, no bright colors, no tutus, no rainbows all over our bodies….it was a shame. We did our best to make ourselves as visually PRIDEFUL as possible (although, to be clear, we wear Pride in our hearts ALL THE TIME) and picked up some sweet, sweet swag.
Stickers and beads — quick! Blend in!
We continued to walk around Piedmont Park in our make-shift Pride gear, but, as the day wore on it became clear that not being covered in sparkles and colorful garb wasn’t our only fashion faux pas. Turns out that Coldlanta really does turn into Hotlanta in the afternoon. IT WAS SO HOT, and Kevin really regretted not bringing a pair of shorts — but hey, in his defense, we most definitely thought we’d be in Dallas at that very moment where the temperature was much lower.
We stumbled upon these hot clear balls full of, what turned out to be, good exercise and great fun. We signed up, got a running start, rolled around, built up more of a sweat, and emerged laughing and giggly. I mean….Do I use this as an accessory for the furries next year?
Human hamster balls.
After ditching our balls, we left the park and settled on a new pair of wheels…one we’d seen all around town. Scooters!
We’ll just leave these here for the professionals.
….We totally underestimated this thing. Honestly, Lime scooters are a great idea, but neither of us possessed the talent to do the “full” (er…1/12) Atlanta city tour that we had dreamed. We weren’t skilled enough to turn our heads when we were in the wrong lane. Cost wise, it was efficient but for us but that’s where the efficiency ended. Wanna know how far we shakily got? See below.
The Lime scooter challenge: Last longer than 11 minutes.
So instead of scootering, we decided to walk around the city. We saw some sights (including a web MD office) and took the long way (not the pretty way) to the puppet museum. You know, for variety’s sake.
Once our 8 hours in Atlanta were over, we headed back to the airport, gave our extra metro passes away, caught our flight, and had some snacks: we split a sample-size Laura bar, a nectarine, and a tiny bag of pretzels. Not a Texas sized meal, but then again, we weren’t in Texas yet. We still felt hungry and had enough time to RUN into the Atlanta lounge where we picked up some much needed fuel.
Kevin kept reminding me that our vacaion hadn’t started yet. “Vacation doesn’t start until we get to Dallas.” Great news!
And we finally did it, we made it to Texas 🙂 All smooth sailing from there, right? Oops. I booked the rental car from the wrong airport. Sigh. What a novice mistake and meant even more time between us and downtown Fort Worth. We sleepily brainstormed, problem solved, and eventually figured it out. We headed out on the town and saw some of Fort Worth… at least the part that we likened to Pittsburgh’s Southside. Here it is:
So different at night and during the day.
We couldn’t bring ourselves to party in Fort Worth. We’d given Atlanta our all and…well, we had seen Fort Worth at night. That was all we could muster until the next morning when it felt like we’d hit a RESET button. A new day that I got to start with a Texas steak.
Chom chomp chomp.
After we were finished breakfast, we decided to hang around a bit and see what this place had to offer.
We found a great cattle drive — which is most definitely not a cattle parade, mind you. After watching the cattle parade down the street during the cattle drive, we headed towards Billy Bob’s (a bar) that you had to pay to enter. Once paying, finding no one inside (including a bartender who would serve us), we decided to just head out and go to Dallas. Or, more specifically, the Texas State Fair (in Dallas). But not before we rode a mechanical bull, walked all around town, played ski-ball at the White Elephant, and got a life-saving coffee at one of the places I had marked on the map.
Not a cattle parade
Ok…so, The Texas State Fair is, by far, the best state fair that I’ve ever been to. To be honest, I haven’t been to many but, THIS ONE WAS SO GOOD! If I ever make a Superlatives blog, this State Fair will be featured. It started off extra promising when we found FREE street parking. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but we were stoked!
The way this fair worked was that we bought a certain amount of tickets, and then we paid for everything in the fair with the tickets. Each ticket cost $.50 and there were SO MANY GOOD DEALS. Everything was reasonably priced — for example, water was two tickets ($1) and beer cost six tickets ($3).
Giant Cowboy (that moved!)
So I promise that the fair wasn’t only cool because it was economical (although, again, IT WAS!). It also had soooo many games, a sky tram, talks about milking and farming AND AN ODDITIES TENT (so cool) where we saw a LIVE TWO-HEADED SNAKE. I repeat. A LIVE two-headed snake!! (I added the repetition there for 1. Each head and 2. Dramatic effect).
We also saw a two-headed stuffed piglet and conjoined turtles with many legs, but the snake was by far one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. I’d never seen anything like it before. A LIVE TWO HEADED RATTLE SNAKE! Both heads had tongues that flickered out to ‘smell’ the air. It was alive for sure! We kept going back to look at it; there were no pictures allowed inside the tent.
4 coupons is $2. And this is the only photo of the two headed snake I could get.
They also had regular, one-headed animals, which were fun to check out. Including piglets and snakes. Not kept in the same tent. We went to the snake area (of the one-headed variety), and Kevin let me gush about my old pet snake, Namastay (RIP). It was so thoughtful and nice of him to inquire about her so sincerely.
Remembering Namaste.
Other one headed animals included dogs and cats and birds doing amazing tricks like making doors open and flags fly and a separate petting area where we got to pet and feed this zebra…
Kevin, aware of the top AND bottom teeth.
The atmosphere was just so lively and fun. It was a completely different vibe from Fort Worth, and we were both so glad to be there. Not only did we indulge in the animal oddities, but we also indulged in food and beer. We were really surprised that in the land of food-with-lots-of-butter and oversized portions that we found HEALTHY food sans butter (but still in oversized portions) like this mango:
Mango as tall as that guy in the background.
The mango above was SO juicy and SO good. It might be the best mango that I’ve ever had and I’ve lived in the Caribbean #credentials The best mango I’ve ever had was on a stick, at a fair, in Texas. This fairs fare was more than fair…it was remarkable!
Don’t worry, it wasn’t all vegan and all natural, they also had healthy (?) fried food, like the fried avocado (still dairy free). The beer choices were also super unique like this corndog beer (pictured below) and the cotton candy beer (not pictured and also not very good):
Side of mustard.
After all of the mishaps we’d had earlier on in the trip, everything went according to plan. Even the weather behaved for us!! It was supposed to rain all weekend, and during our day at the fair the weather was great! It did start raining at night — actually pouring — but not before we were able to ride the huge Ferris Wheel. We ran back to the car soaking wet (which somehow made running more bearable and fun). It was a super successful day.
Not mad about it!
Happily, our artistic Airbnb was close by and we went to dry off.
The next day, the weather took a turn for the worse and added cold-wind to the rainy mix. So, we decided to do a self-guided driving tour around the city. We drove around downtown, saw sculpture gardens and parks (just from a distance, no need to get out in that really cold rain…brrr!), cool buildings, graffiti, Dealey Plaza where JFK was assassinated, and a suspension bridge that we circled and ultimatly crossed.
Chasing bridges.
For lunch, we had been planning to check out this raw restaurant that I’d been eager to go to. It was near the airport, perfect location for our final meal; but when we pulled up, all the lights were off, and it looked very, very closed. I was short of devastated, but Kevin, the hero, decided to go outside in the freezing rain and check the doors to see if he could get inside. AND IT WAS OPEN!!!! So glad he checked (thanks, Kevin!). It turns out the lights were off because the power had gone out — but luckily we had picked a raw restaurant and they don’t need to cook anything so it didn’t really matter. YAY!!!
I WAS ECSTATIC!!!!!!! And may have over ordered although I loved it all and don’t regret a single dish.
Raw sushi… but like, not the regular raw kind.
Delicious food you don’t even need to cook. These two dishes were the best; raw enchiladas and avocado “toast”.
So after eating this healthy, invigorating meal, and taking some to go, we headed back to the airport. We had what we thought would be a cushy two hours once we landed before Kevin had to be at Arcade for the Improv 101 Class Show that he taught but, in fashion with the earlier parts of this trip, our flight kept getting delayed. We looked at the weather. It was warmer and drier in Pittsburgh than it was in Dallas and we held out hope that we were going to make it to the theatre on time. And we did! With 15 minutes to spare, Kevin showed up at Arcade before his class successfully took the stage to preform.
So, not only did I get to begin my Dallas vacation in Atlanta, but I got to end it cracking up to comedy in Pittsburgh.
- Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?
A Texas-sized smile,
‘mi
Adventuresam 
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