Erica & Lacey's vacation photo album // Dallas, TX // April 2024

If you thought Lacey and I drove down to Texas just for the yarn crawl (Pictures of neat stuff and some accompanying thoughts...: Erica & Lacey's vacation photo album // North Texas Yarn Crawl // April 2024 (ragsreborn.blogspot.com), you'd be wrong... there is so much more for us to do while we were down there. 🚗 Were we exhausted from driving around all day to different yarn shops? Yes. 😅 Did that stop us from doing a scavenger hunt in an immersive art exhibit and walking around downtown Dallas? Nope. 

Deviled Egg Co - Denison, TX. 

One of the best and most unique restaurants I've been to in Texas. Everything we got was so delicious!! 😋

Neither of us had breakfast and we only did a quick Starbucks stop in Ardmore, OK, so we were starving when we got to our first destination for lunch. 🍴 We had lunch at Deviled Egg Co in Denison, TX. 🥚🍸 They had the best deviled eggs that we've ever eaten. Literally. OMG!! The eggs were SO GOOD 😋 We each ordered a cocktail, Brussels sprouts for an appetizer, and three eggs to share family style. We got the smoked salmon (we both agreed it was the best by far), the jalapeño popper, and the Ceasar salad (which was a little underwhelming compared to the others). Lacey noticed that they mixed cream cheese into the egg yolk. Her husband is a bit of a home cook so she was taking notes so he could replicate the sprouts and eggs at home for dinner at a later date. I do not cook so I just had to savor everything at the restaurant. The eggs and cocktail were just what we needed to start our day of yarn shopping! 

Giant Eyeball - Dallas, TX

When we were mapping out our trip, I noticed a landmark labeled "Giant Eyeball" near our hotel. 👁 We took the 5minute walk to it after we checked in. I wasn't sure what to expect but I didn't think it would be so literal. LOL We ran into some other tourists and tried to figure out how to get into the lawn, but I don't think it's for the public. Still a neat photo opp.

Sweet Tooth Hotel - Dallas, TX

Speaking of photo opps, strap in because there's about to be a ton of pictures! 📸 Our next stop was Sweet Tooth Hotel. It is an interactive art installation. You can buy regular tickets and just walk around, or you can buy the scavenger hunt to look for clues in each of the rooms and get a prize. We chose scavenger hunt! It was a cool experience but 1. it is set up for selfies, TikTok videos, and aimed toward influencers, which we are not, 2. the first room is amazing but the installations get less and less artistic, and 3. there is a bar connected to the "hotel" and I'm pretty sure you're supposed to enter the rooms drunk (or at least buzzed) to fully enjoy them. We were completely sober so probably didn't have as much fun as we should have.  

The first room (inside of an elevator) is a crocheted bakery tea party. It is the most creative, adorable, whimsical, and well-made amigurumi I've ever seen. 😲 I've never seen anything else like it, so I have no comparison point but I'm still going to claim that this is the best crocheted room! It was also perfect for our yarn crawl. The shelves were stocked full of cookies, donuts, cakes and ice cream. 🍦🍩🍪🍰 And the table was laid out perfectly for a garden tea party. I wanted to stay in here forever! 

The clue inside of the room was to count the toy mice. I was so taken in by the amigurumi that I wasn't even paying attention to the mice. Luckily, Lacey was on it. There are nine. 🐭 I loved that this was the first room we saw, but it also kind of sucked because every room after it was a letdown. It's hard to top a crocheted bakery! 

We went into the second elevator and entered a neon pink bedroom. There was a phone on the desk with a fake phone book. I saw a telephone number for "Red Phone" but I didn't dial it. In hindsight I probably should have because I think we missed a room in here. There was a door behind the curtains by the Sweet Dreams bed. I tried opening it, but it was locked. 😠 I saw some streamers caught in it so there is probably something behind there, but I couldn't figure out how to get in. Lacey didn't share my curiosity, so we moved on. The clue in this room was to count the giant worms. There were 2 but they were so meh that I forgot to photograph them. 🐛

We walked into the closet and was in the bathroom. This was when I realized this entire installation is for photos and social media. It was a big room but there was hardly anything in it. Just a few items that you can pose by. The scavenger hunt clue was to count the legs, but this room had none. I saw another door, but it was "locked." We weren't sure what to do so I left to ask the front desk attendant. She said to push through the shower. I took it literally to mean the golden showerhead, so I started banging through the wall (trap door, maybe?). Much more sensible Lacey suggested that we try the locked door again. Turns out that I'm just too weak to push a door open so I thought it was locked when it was only heavy. 😖 I bet this is the same thing that happened when I tried opening the door behind the curtain in the bedroom.

Next was a library with legs hanging from the ceiling. There are five. I love going to these types of immersive art installations, so I know the gimmick is to touch, crawl into, and open everything. 📖 One of the books had a safe inside and the code was mice, worms, legs (9-2-5). Inside was another code for the next room. 

Before we got to the next room, we took a detour into a surveillance room. It was just a room with red lights and lots of CCTV and mirrors for walls. Kinda creepy, kinda boring. Then we went to the bathroom (an actual working one), down a hallway and to the gym. The gym was kind of neat, but we were both dressed up and couldn't play on the equipment. Of the four areas we saw, the public restroom was the coolest. LOL 

The last room was a living room. This time we did dial the phones. 🖁 The telephone number for the yellow phone didn't do anything, but the blue phone had a message for us! Half of the living room was normal, and the other half was painted black with neon green trim -- how did I forget to take a picture of this! The message told us to explore the bookshelf for another dimension. There was another safe in a book and we needed the code from the previous safe (242). That lead to a code word (it was either doorways or bookshelf). Then you open the fireplace and enter a neon desert. 🌵

It was in the desert that I realized this exhibit is better experienced with an alcoholic beverage in hand... and with a group of friends (especially an outgoing one to get the party started). There were lights, mirrors, and loud music. 🎵 Perfect for dancing and posing for silly pictures. Sober me and mellow Lacey just stood around unimpressed. LOL In our defense, we're almost 40 and I'm pretty sure the core demographic of Sweet Tooth Hotel is aged 14 - 27. 

There was one last room, but it was definitely a throwaway room. It was a gigantic advertisement for Topo Chico. The only good part of that room was the bed ... because I was wearing heels and I needed to lay down for a bit. My poor feet! 😭 After our rest, we headed back to the front desk to collect our prize for completing the hunt. It was a motel keychain, actually pretty rad. The front desk area had some merch but I didn't enjoy my experience enough to buy something to commemorate it with. 

Our last activity for the day was dinner. I wanted to have dinner at the fancy restaurant in the hotel since we were both dressed up. We stood around for a while, but the hostess never showed up. 😑 There were other diners enjoying their meal, so we knew the place was still open. Losing patience, we left and walked to a late-night taco place. Uno Más was good, but I think I was still so in love with the deviled eggs we had at lunch that I was making a harsh comparison. Our waiter was extremely soft spoken but spoke super fast. I had to ask him to repeat literally everything he said at least twice. When I was talking to Lacey the next morning, I decided that my shrimp tacos were actually really yummy, and the elotes were, too. 🌮 The rice was weird, though, it tasted like it was either cooked in coconut oil or was flavored with an unfamiliar spice. 

Uno Más - Dallas, TX

I picked out a place for us to go to for breakfast the next morning (Starship Bagels) but it was closed. 😞 We roamed a bit around our hotel and decided to get Starbucks and skip breakfast. ☕ Lunch wasn't far off, and we needed to start day two of the yarn crawl. Before we left, we walked through Thanksgiving Garden. I thought it was Thanksgiving like the holiday, but it was thanks giving, like praising the lord. It was a serene garden but had entirely too many Bible verses littered about. Too in your face and could have been more subtle. 

Thanksgiving Garden - Dallas, TX

The early bird (bottom center picture) certainly does get the worm! 🐦 We saw this bird rooting around in the grass, pick up the worm, and eat it as it was wiggling about. It was like watching a nature documentary!

On the Lamb was in the same shopping center as a couple of restaurants, and we settled on LA Burgers for lunch. It was really tasty. 🍔 My only complaint is that I guess the owner was trying to save money so he didn't have the air conditioning on. It was already 80℉ and very humid so it made our dining experience uncomfortable. It's so hard to photograph a hamburger because all you see is the top bun, but I promise it was yummy. 😋  The curly fries were good, too, extra crispy like I like them! I got the Texas burger, which came on Texas toast with bacon, steak sauce and jalapeños. The jalapeños were all clustered to one bit so that bite was a doozy! LOL

LA Burger - Grapevine, TX

We had to stop in Buc-ee's on our way out, but the one in Denton was too far out of the way. Instead, we went to a new (to us) one in Melissa. It was just as nice as the ones in Fort Worth & Denton. The only thing that threw us off was that the sides of the store where the food and non-food merchandise is was switched. We got snacks, t-shirts, and gifts for our spouses & dogs, gas & bathroom breaks, and then journeyed home. It was a mega fun trip, but in hindsight, I should have given us more time to rest. I'm too old for non-stop activities. By the middle of the second day, we were already getting burned out; and by the end of the day, we were pooped. We just sat in silence in the car trying not to doze off on the way home. We paid for a nice hotel and we should have used it more. I admit defeat now, but will that stop me from overplanning me & Wes's vacation this summer? Probably not. 😅 LOL 

Buc-ee's - Melissa, TX

Wes & Erica's Vacation Photo Album - San Francisco, CA (Chinatown) - August 2022

One part of our vacation that Wes & I were equally excited for was San Francisco's Chinatown. We were both anticipating all the delicious food (although I didn't get to eat as much as I had hoped to), and I was pumped for all the shopping. We left the hotel early to get a full day of sightseeing in and realized as soon as the Uber dropped us off that Chinatown's sleepy shops don't open until 10am. 😑 We wandered around and window shopped for about an hour. We went into the visitor's center as soon as it opened to get a map and picked out all the things we wanted to see and do.

We spent most of our time just walking around and looking at all the murals. There were so many!! I also loved all of the decorations on the buildings. We got a little turned around, so I think we walked around the same blocks over & over again. LOL It got busy pretty quickly and we were soon surrounded by a ton of other tourists, as well as locals. It was so weird hearing snippets of everyone's conversations in Cantonese. I used to speak it fluently, but I'm embarrassed to admit that I've forgotten about 50% of it (even though it's technically my native tongue) 😅

We went into a handful of souvenir shops; got something for our house, my mom & stepdad, and that was the extent of our buying. I really wanted a pair of jellies, but the shop didn't have them in my size. 😞 And I'm not completely sure they were for sale; they didn't have a price tag and they were the only pair sitting on a shelf of slippers. I also wanted a zodiac stuffed animal of a Rat (1984, baby!! 🐀) but I couldn't think of a place to put it, so I passed on it as well. Travelling with just one carry-on bag (and no checked luggage) is not conducive to souvenir shopping. Wes isn't a shopper and I quickly discovered that all of the shops sell almost the exact same thing, so we didn't buy much. I think it was more fun to just walk around and look at everything. 

There were a handful of things we wanted to see while we were in Chinatown. One was the Tin How Temple. I thought it was a tourist attraction that you could go into, but it's only open to members. It did look very nice on the outside, though.

After "visiting" the temple, we switched gears and headed for the St. Mary's Cathedral. ⛪ We got in at the tail end of midday mass. I'm glad we didn't barge in at the middle of mass or during communion. Wes isn't religious, and while I was raised Catholic, I don't practice anymore. We stayed toward the back while the priest finished up and then the church opened up to visitors. 

The Cathedral was the first in the Chinatown area and it's endured some natural disasters. You can tell from the inside that it definitely is old and has been through some rough patches. There was damage to the ceiling and some stained-glass windows. But it is a beautiful church. 

We were so lucky with timing the whole day. We got seated & served at the dim sum restaurant just before the lunch rush started, we got to the cathedral right as mass was ending, and we beat the line at the fortune cookie factory. I don't think we waited in line for anything. 👍

I normally don't like fortune cookies and give them to Athena & Zephyr when we get Chinese take-out, but the fresh ones from the fortune cookie factory were so good! 🥠 The fortune cookie factory was at the end of a very narrow alley. We walked by a few times and kept missing the turn into Ross alley. Ross alley is one of the notable ones in Chinatown (I think just because it's old). The factory was tiny! It had a gift shop at the front, the employees working on display in the back, then you make a U-turn and get a free fortune cookie on your way out. It was one of my favorite things we saw all day even though the "tour" took less than 5-minutes. LOL

I saw a Chinese American heritage museum on the directory at the visitor's center and added that to our list of places to visit. I also saw a bunch of signs for a Bruce Lee exhibit. For some reason I didn't put the two together until we got into the museum. The first exhibit (unrelated to Bruce Lee) was a textile exhibit. The dresses are made from shopping bags and some other materials--don't remember what and I also forgot the artist's intent. 🤷 I expected there to be some historical exhibits, but the rest of the museum was dedicated to the Bruce Lee exhibition. 

I am aware of the cultural phenomenon and significance of Bruce Lee, but I haven't seen any of his movies all the way through, and I didn't know much about him as a person. It was cool to read up on him and see all the movie memorabilia. The exhibit also had some of his original artwork and writings. Wes likes Bruce Lee's movies and seemed to enjoy the museum. 

We finished up Chinatown a few hours before our dinner reservation so we Uber'd to Japantown. 🎎 Our Uber was a Tesla, which I'm sure is completely normal but I was impressed. LOL It's probably the hippest vehicle I've ridden in. I didn't know how to use the door handles, so our driver had to roll down the window and instruct me. 😅 San Francisco is as hilly as everyone says it is and traffic was madness, so I am so glad we decided to Uber and walk everywhere instead of renting a car. Anyway, Japantown is basically two malls with a pavilion in the middle. One of the malls has a majority of the shops and the other mall has a majority of the restaurants (and the MUCH cleaner restrooms). We mostly wanted to go to Japantown for the Kinokuniya bookstore. It is the first one in the States. We always go to the one in Carrollton, TX. This one is supposed to be way bigger with a ton more stuff but I wasn't impressed. Probably because I don't read manga or play video games. LOL Wes liked it and bought 2 video game art books. I like the store for its cute stationary and kitschy stuff, which it didn't have as much as I had hoped it would. We walked all around the malls and went into quite a few shops. One was Amiko...an authorized tokidoki retailer. Oh my freakin' gawd!!! 😲😁😍 I was in heaven. I wanted to buy it all, but I exercised self-control and only bought my traditional souvenir of a Unicorno figurine. 

I know the Guo Pei fashion exhibit at the art museum should be my favorite day in San Francisco since that is the reason why I booked this vacation, but I think my favorite day was our day in Chinatown. It was so neat to just walk around and see everything. My favorite parts of Chinatown were the fortune cookie factory, the mural of the Manchurian warriors, our meal at 8 tables, and Amiko boutique (okay, that was in Japantown). Wes said our day in Chinatown was awesome and I suspect it was his favorite part of our vacation as well. And here is a random picture of our hotel (right in the most "beautiful part of San Francisco" as our first Uber driver sarcastically told us), because I have nowhere else to put it in this blog. 😅

Wes & Erica's Vacation Photo Album - Lincoln, NE (musuems) - February 2022

 

American Museum of Speed

International Quilt Museum

International Quilt Museum (but with pictures of quilts this time LOL)

About a month ago, Wes & I drove to Lincoln, Nebraska for a Ghost concert; we also ate some good food and visited a couple of museums. We went to the American Museum of Speed and the International Quilt Museum. We visited one per day but they're both pretty small so if you're short on time, they can be fit into a one-day museum excursion. Both were really interesting, enjoyable and worth going to if you're travelling through.

The American Museum of Speed was advertised as a hotrod and racecar museum but there were a lot fewer cars than I thought there would be. The entire first floor and some of the second floor were filled with automobiles, but the other (larger) part of the second floor was filled with random things like car parts & engines, movie posters (Wes has seen all the car & racing themed movies, I had seen none. LOL) and retro lunchboxes. The entire third floor was a display of vintage pedal cars for children and model & toy cars.  

My favorite "car" was the above pictured solar racecar. It looked crazy and tiny. The driver must have been bone-thin to be able to fit in that slender machine. I've never seen anything like it, nor did I know that solar racing across deserts was a thing so that's why I thought it was so cool. Wes said he didn't have a favorite car but the museum had all of the cars and models that he wanted to see, so he enjoyed it overall.

Another thing that I really liked (and was surprised by the fact that I enjoyed walking through the exhibit) were the pedal cars for children. I usually think model cars are boring but these ones weren't. They looked like exact replicas of what the actual cars were. I'm not sure if kids ride around in pedal cars nowadays but I'm pretty sure they don't do it in cars that looked as neat as these ones. I was very jealous. 

The International Quilt Museum looked huge from the outside but there weren't that many quilts in it. There were several galleries, but we were in & out in less than an hour. There probably could have been more quilts if the ones on display weren't GINORMOUS. I have never seen quilts so large in my entire life (and I see roughly 5-10 beautiful king-sized quilts per month at my sewing club's "sew & share" sessions)!! Only one or two quilts could fit on each gallery wall at the museum. As we were walking through the museum, the main thought running through my mind was, "How did the artists make these without losing any pieces???" People who quilt are so talented and have my utmost admiration. Each quilt on display had won some sort of award. There were all different styles of quilts represented. I only recognized the traditional ones with quilt block patterns. 

The featured gallery was a selection "modern" quilts. They were all really cool and innovative, but my favorite gallery was the first one we walked into. I don't remember the entire story, but the artist's son got really sick and was in the hospital; she started making these fabric collages depicting fireworks and she made them throughout the time he was ill. They were made from both fabric and other mixed media. They were stunning. The gallery had wooden lawn chairs for people to sit in to look at the quilts and it really did give the feeling of staring up at a fireworks show. 

Tied for my favorite gallery was the last gallery we saw. A mixed media artist made a children's book titled My Bed. Each page showed a child's bedroom from a different part of the world. The author did a lot of research to ensure the dioramas were as accurate as possible. Yes, they were adorable, but what made me really enjoy looking at them were the materials she used. Along with researching sleeping conditions around the world, she also researched fabric and art materials used in each country. She incorporated the appropriate materials into each collage. She used so many interesting things: feathers, jewelry, hair, beads and other textiles. 

Sorry the pictures are bad. The dioramas were behind glass and there was a glare.

So that concludes our road trip to Nebraska. Next on the list is a spring craft show (Alpaca Farm Days on April 2nd; I'll be posting updates on my social media). We hope to travel more this year but have nothing planned, yet. 

Wes & Erica's vacation photo album - St. Louis, MO - November 2021

Our last destination of the road trip was the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Since I droned on about that for a full blog post already, I'll just post about food here. 😋 Driving through the Midwest was awful; it was boring, the speed limit ranged from 50 - 70 mph and there were cops everywhere. There were some pretty parts with mountains and tress with their autumn leaves... so not ALL bad but I probably wouldn't make the drive again (I told Wes, let's fly next time, and he wholeheartedly agreed!)

Our first meal was at Imo's Pizza. They serve "St. Louis style" pizza with provel cheese and a crispy thin crust. Provel cheese is a mixture of 3 or 4 white cheeses, I don't remember which but Wes said he tasted Provolone and the Swiss cheese stood out to me. I liked the provel, but not on a pizza. It was really creamy (think Laughing Cow cheese spread) and would have tasted better on a bagel or crackers. I liked the extra thin crust. It was like pizza on a cracker or chip. I got a Cesar salad and it was literally covered in parmesan. I have never seen so much parmesan or croutons on a salad!! 

Before we went to the Gateway Arch, we had dim sum at Wonton King. OMG, this is the meal I've been needing in my life!!! 😋🍴 Wonton King served authentic Hong Kong style dim sum. It was so authentic the restaurant even smelled familiar (incense and perfume) ... it brought back memories of walking into an elderly relative's room or the herbal remedy section of an Asian grocery store. I wanted to order one of everything but we settled on a few of my favorites. The stuffed eggplant was the absolute best. 

For dinner that night, we went to Meskerem. It is an Ethiopian restaurant on South Grand. I need to live on South Grand (or at least visit again with more time)!! It was blocks and blocks of international cuisine. All sorts of Asian restaurants, Mediterranean food, pubs, comfort food, you name it, it was there. That street is my foodie dream come true. Anyway, I've never had Ethiopian food before and I liked it. I got the sampler platter & Wes got the lamb dish and we shared. My favorite dish was the carrot, potato and cabbage. I also liked the beef. Wes liked the cabbage, carrot and potato (minus the carrot) and the lamb dish. The food was served with a huge crêpe-like piece of spongy flat bread. I liked it but maybe would have preferred a different type of bread. The only other tiny thing I didn't completely like was that the food was cooked in a lot of ginger. The restaurant had Ethiopian music videos playing on the big screen tv, so that was neat, too.

Even though I was stuffed from dinner, I was determined to explore more restaurants on South Grand. We decided on dessert and went to Hot Box Cookies. Wes got the oatmeal chocolate chip and I got the monster cookie. A monster cookie is a granola cookie with whole M&Ms, chocolate chips and peanut butter. The pictures don't look too appealing but it was a good cookie. 

Our last meal in St. Louis was breakfast at 2Schae Café. The quaint café is on the bottom floor of an adorably historic apartment building. The entire part of town it was in looked like it was full of history. I got the salmon lox bagel and it was amazing. I'm glad we got good food as our last vacation meal. I couldn't imagine ending our road trip with a yucky loose meat sandwich! The half-way point between St. Louis and home is Springfield, MO and I picked out a Thai restaurant for us to stop at for lunch but neither of us were particularly hungry so we skipped. We did stop in Springfield for gas and I went to The Village Yarnery (a local yarn shop). I desperately wanted to stop in Uranus, MO for their fudge but Wes wasn't in the mood to make another stop and we were making good time on the road so we skipped that, too. The trip home was supposed to take anywhere between 8 to 9 hours but we made record time. Wes said we drove for at least 7 hours but I felt like we were only on the road for 5 or 6 (and I should be right because i was the one driving, right? 😅) So, there it is... another road trip done! We had a lovely time with lots of fun tourist attractions, a beautiful wedding and LOTS and LOTS of good food. I plan to return to St. Louis -- there is so much more for us to see, do and eat -- so I'll eventually get that fudge from Uranus!