Dallas-Day 1

I believe I was awake by 3:30 AM. We took a 6:15 flight to St. Louis, since the Chicago to Dallas flights looked quite tight. It was only a 42 minute flight to the Lou. We get off the plane and I thought I was in a bus terminal. They have the moving walkway right in the middle of the concourse. Unfortunately, that leaves very little room for people. We were standing in line waiting to board and other people were getting off a plane and we had to move out of their way as they wheeled their luggage through. Undoubtedly, this is one of the most uncomfortable airports I have ever been in.

Thankfully, I dressed up in Dockers black pants and my green and black Jets golf shirt, which allowed me a spot on the plane. We landed in Dallas and boarded a bus to the Rental Car Center, about a nine-minute drive. I don't think I remembered how immense the entire DFW airport is. We got our car from Alamo, and I liked that it included Bose speakers. Bottom line, we just needed A/C and we would have been happy right there.

The drive to the Marriott TownHill Suites in Irving was only about ten minutes east. It was a very standard hotel, nothing too fancy at all. We had a kitchen, which we didn't utilize at all. Unfortunately, I had to go to the building with the front desk to get ice or a drink. Our room wasn't exactly spacious. I slept on a pullout couch, which I have no real problem with. Of course, it wound up six inches away from the end of Mom's bed. So privacy was non-existent. But the room served its purpose.

After getting settled in by about 10:30, we headed southeast on 114 towards downtown Dallas for some grub. There's not exactly much to downtown Dallas, the areas that tend to be crowded are the surrounding towns and the far north end. As we approached downtown, we fought some heavy traffic, so we turned off the road two exits early. I had my GPS, which is not always reliable, especially outside of Illinois. We made a right, when we should have gone left on two different occasions. But we found Commerce Street and took that through the heart of downtown into what looked like a lower-middle class type area with a lot of local dives and car shops. We ended up at Twisted Root Burger, which I watched on DDD many months earlier.

It almost felt like a garage inside with a lot of old-school ads and funny posters. Very distinctive atmosphere. Mom and I each ordered a burger (mine with pepper jack, green chiles, guac, and bacon; Mom's was blue cheese and mushrooms). They had some unique drinks such as watermelon sweet tea and cranberry root beer. I chose the latter and I really liked the touch of acidity from the berry flavor. When we got to the tables, there were three homemade sauce toppings: horseradish dijon, Ancho-chipotle ketchup, and Quincy's granddad's BBQ. The mustard was OK, I'm not a big fan of dijon anyway, it's too overpowering for me. But I loved the BBQ sauce, it was a great blend of tanginess and spice. Now, I never eat ketcup, but if I had no other condiment to use ever again, and I had the ancho ketchup, that would be cool with me. I loved the spice, which nullified the sweetness that I don't like in regular ketchups. I dipped my sweet potato chips in the ketchup a lot. The onion strings got a nice dose of the BBQ.

When the food is ready, they call your name. Actually, it's not your actual name. You get a card with a random celebrity on it. My order name was Little Boy Blue. So when they called on the loudspeaker to come blow my horn, I knew our food was ready. I liked that there were four pickle jars that we could pick from: dill, bread 'n butter, spicy, and atomic. The dill were nice, but I liked that little bit of cayenne pepper in the spicy pickles. Oh yeah, the burger! The meat was increduibly moist, but when you use a 77/23 blend, it had better be juicy. The chile and guacamole complemented each other well and I definitely think my addition of the bacon added some needed crunch. I would absolutely eat at Twisted Root Burger again.

We drove back to the hotel and I let Mom get some rest while I put on my Nick Mangold jersey and headed to Arlington for the Cowboys Stadium VIP Tour. I took 161 south to 30 west. 161 was actually under construction and my GPS did not have the updated roads, so I was a little unsure about where I was going. Thankfully, once I saw the sign for 30, I knew i was okay.

I arrived outside the Pro Shop and took a few photos of the Tom Lamdry statue. There were about 40 or 50 of us on the tour. We began the tour in the 200 level at the 50 yard line in the club suites. Glenn was our tour guide. He's a classic Texas guy. 60-something, slow to speak, good humor, and pretty approachable. We sat in the suites as Glenn taught us about the history of the stadium, facts and figures, etc. We saw through Jerry Jones' private suite, the American Airlines Club, a few of the art murals, the locker rooms of both the Cowboys cheerleaders and players, the Post game room, and the Miller Lite Club, which surrounds the players entrance to the field. But the probable highlight was walking down the tunnel and onto the field. I got to run a few patterns, throw a few passes, and catch a few footballs. I probably would have stayed longer, but I knew I had to head back to Irving. I stopped to get a koozie and I eventually found my car (all those white cars in Texas look alike to me).

Mom and Torri were chatting in the lobby. After a quick greeting, I went back to the room and changed into my Mets gear. We began the drive to Olenjack's Grill, which is just west of the Six Flags/Sports complex in Arlington. What intrigued me was that this place advertised itself as "perfect for foodies craving culinary creations with a tasty twist." My kind of place, wouldn't you say?

We started with two appetizers; cornmeal-crusted oysters and tequila and brown sugar glazed shrimp. Each oyster came on its own silver spoon with a chorizo and bacon relish and a touch of avocado puree. Very solid opener. The shrimp tasted very sweet and came on top of a relish of roasted corn and jicama.

Mom and Torri both had ahi tuna steak salads with an orange vinigarette. as for me, I went a little different. I chose the espresso spice-rubbed bbq ribs, that tasted incredibly tender. My two sides were veggie slaw and grits. I left just a little bit of the grits left, but somehow I ate the entire slab of ribs. We didn't even have room for dessert.

Then it was off to the baseball game. I was high-fiving every Mets fan I could find, I certainly saw a few hundred. Torri was nice enough to buy me a Sunset Wheat and I was amazed to see Leinenkugel beer from Wisconsin at a stadium in Texas. That crisp beer hit the spot, as the sun went down, it must have still been 85 degrees for sure.

As for the game, well, it was more of the same old, same old. After the Mets failed to score in the top of the first, Ian Kinsler leads off and lines a shot to left center. Jason Bay dives towards his left and the ball deflects off of his glove and into center field, where Angel Pagan overruns it, and he falls to the ground. One batter into the bottom of the first, I knew it was over. And next thing you know, Adrian Beltre drills a 2-run homer for a 3-0 Texas lead. The Rangers went on to win 8-1. By the way, and Manny Acosta sucks, he can get out of New York right now.

I didn't even feel like eating during the game. I even passed on the bacon-wrapped hot dog. So around the fifth inning, I tried my first ZeigenBock, a local Texas amber ale. It's darker in color, but still tastes light and refreshing, I enjoyed it. I like it more than Shiner Bock since it does not taste quite as hoppy.

With the game totally out of reach, I walked around the upper concourse and took a lot of pictures. There was a great sunset and I captured some fine shots of the outside of Cowboys Stadium, Six Flags, and the lawns and lakes around the ballpark.

One of the strangest sounds I heard was the "Let's Go Rangers" outside of Madison Square Garden. When I hear the chant, I'm used to hearing it sound tough, passionate, boisterous, aggressive, and very loud. Not this time. And it was led by six shirtless kids around eight and nine years old. Sounded like a chorus of Cutters. I tried to teach them "Hen-rik," but that didn't seem to work.