Day 6 (2018) - Too Late

Today was a long day of travel and sightseeing, but the day didn't go quite as planned. We woke up early and had breakfast at the hotel and got on the road a little after 8:00. The drive to Dallas is a bit under 4 hours, and I had marked a few places to stop along the way - partly to break it up and partly to see some other unusual things.

The first stop was an hour outside of Houston and, fittingly, it was to see a very large statue of Sam Houston. The statue is just off the highway we were taking to Dallas, and on a cold day in December we were the only ones there (other than a few workers). The statue took two years to build and is visible from the highway, but that would not work for photos. We got out of the car and made the short walk to the statue and took the obligatory photo, which evidently is the most photographed statue in the state. For the most part, the statue is pretty impressive, other than the mismatched letters which drove Debbie nuts. For a statue to be the most photographed in the state you would think they would make a little extra effort to make it all look professional and neat.

The big man, literally

Get the man matching letters, please

We got back into the car for a short ride to the next stop - a house that is built to look like a cowboy boot. And when we got there we realized we got more than we bargained for, since the house next door has a large cowboy hat on it. I can only imagine how the architectural review board in Great Neck would respond if someone went in with these plans.

This would go over well in Great Neck

We took a quick photo and got back on the road, heading to a BBQ place I had noted. This place, called Cattleack BBQ, is only open two days a week (Thursdays and Fridays) and only from 10:30-2, or until they run out of food. That last part was clearly the key part to understand. When we arrived around 12:30 there was a line out the door to get in. I dropped everyone but Amanda off (she was still waking up from her car nap) and found a place to park. By the time she and I joined the others they had already made an announcement that they were out of turkey and beef ribs. And about 2 minutes later they made another announcement that said it was highly doubtful that they would still have food left for anyone standing in line. With heavy heads and hungry stomachs, we left.

I had also noted a drive-in not far from the BBQ place as a backup, so I suggested we head there. The crew was not all that enthusiastic about that idea, so Debbie found a different BBQ place about 20 minutes away called Lockhart Smokehouse. This was actually a smokehouse, where you order by the pound and then get a table to eat it. There was also a line at this place, but at least they had plenty of food. Debbie found a table while the boys and I stood in line. We weren't really sure how much to get, so our first thought was to get a pound each of the brisket and turkey and a half pound of ribs. But as we watched others place their orders we started to think that wasn't enough. When it was our turn I told the guy I needed enough for 5 people, and he started slicing. We ended up with (I think) 1.5 pounds of brisket, a little over a pound of turkey and 1.5 pounds of ribs. We grabbed a bunch of sides - potato salad, regular coleslaw, blue cheese coleslaw (2) and ordered mac 'n cheese and beans. After taking out a second mortgage we gathered up all of the food and headed to the table, where we chowed down on everything.

Before the carnage

I would agree about the sauce, but we kinda needed forks

Starting the carnage

The Menu

The meat

After the carnage

Not surprisingly, we ordered a little too much, but it was clearly better to order too much than too little since by the time we were done the line had basically doubled in size. What was not taken into consideration when planning the trip was that the college football semifinals are scheduled for Saturday, so the town is overrun by Clemson and Notre Dame fans - all wearing their respective school colors. We clearly got there at the right time (a line spoken more than a few times on the trip). After eating too much of the food that we ordered too much of, we threw away the rest and checked out the area a little before heading to the Sixth Floor Museum.

We got to the museum around 2:30, only to find out that they were sold out of tickets for the day. The parking guy we spoke with said it was a bit of chaos today with all of the people from Clemson and Notre Dame in town, and the museum was packed all day. Debbie went to see if there was any way we could get in, but was told no. The only option was to buy tickets for tomorrow at 11:30, but with a flight at 2:50 that would be cutting it too close. We parked in the lot (illegally) and walked around Dealey Plaza a little. We saw the X marks in the street where Kennedy was shot and stopped by a conspiracy table. We then headed to the museum gift store, where there was also a line to get in, and looked around a little and bought a few souvenirs.

Where the first shot hit JFK

And where the second did

Where the shots were fired from

Or was THIS where they were fired from???

It was now about 3:30 and we were in no man's land. We had a tour of AT&T Stadium scheduled for 6:00 and it took about 30 minutes to get there. We could not really think of anything to do so we (reluctantly) headed to the hotel in Arlington. We checked in a little after 4:00 and basically sat in the room until we were ready to leave (although I typed most of this while waiting). I also booked a tour of the Texas Rangers ballpark for the morning, before we were too late and that got sold out also.

We left for the stadium around 5:30 and got there around 5:45. The tour was at 6:00 and they started taking us up the escalator at 5:55. That means we had 10 minutes of standing around right in front of the Cowboys gift shop. Right before the tour was about to start they announced that if anyone wanted anything from the gift shop they should go back down now and do it quickly, as the store would not be open when we finished. So as not to be late, again, today, we ran down and got a few things (Cotton Bowl sweatshirt for Brian and Cowboys t-shirt for Amanda, Ethan opted out).

I paid and hurried back up to the tour, which had just gotten moving. Our tour was very large, filled almost exclusively with fans of either Clemson (in their orange outfits) or Notre Dame (in their green and blue outfits). I truly believe that if we had been on this tour on Monday we might have been the only ones on it. The tour guide was nice and peppy and showed us around the massive stadium - we went into Jerry Jones' small private suite where he watches the games (but not his 4,000 square foot private suite), a regular suite, the Cowboy Cheerleaders' locker room (passing on any jokes here to be safe) and the Cowboys' locker room. We passed by the Press Box and went into the area of seats at field level, which really aren't great seats since you are actually below the field level and behind of the team benches. Not sure what you can really see on game day from that vantage point, but I am sure you can hear a lot.

The calm before the storm

The reason the tour was so full

The place is LAAAARGE

How 'bout them kids?

Just to prove we were there also

After the tour ended and we purchased the obligatory photo, we left Jerry's World and headed to dinner nearby. Dinner was nothing to get too descriptive about, but after dinner we (or 60% of "we") could not pass up the chance to get some warmed up cookies at the cookie store next to the restaurant. Those cookies were pretty much gone before we got out of the parking lot, and we headed back to the hotel for the evening.

Tomorrow we head home, but not before going on a tour of the Rangers' ballpark (which we learned this evening is being replaced in 2020 with a brand new stadium nearby). Then we will head to the airport and fly home. It's supposed to be pretty cold tomorrow (around 37 at tour time) so I am hoping they will show us a lot of indoor stuff.