Wes & Erica's vacation photo album //DFW, TX - Art//March 2026

We went to the 🎈Balloon Museum: Let's Fly Dallas🎈 after lunch on the first day we were on our trip. It was a Tuesday around 3pm. Taking vacation in the middle of the week with no other public or school holidays is my absolute favorite! Besides us, there was only a pair of teens, another couple, and like 2 or 3 families at the art exhibit, and we all came in staggered times, so we had each of the rooms (mostly) to ourselves. Although, ironically, I kind of wish there was another couple or two with us in some of the rooms because several of the immersive activities were for multiple people, so it was hard for me to play by myself (Wes was too cool to join in 😒). Each room housed a balloon and/or air themed installation. I took pictures of each one with descriptions below, except for 3 - a VR video we watched (there was nothing to take a picture of), the one above of the inflatable polygons (it was pretty boring), and a room with an upside-down red tree (also boring). 

MY FAVORITE!!! OMG

The first room we entered was the best. It was a tunnel of mirrors with changing colors. I could have stood in there forever; so so pretty!!😍 Like, how do I get one of these installed at home? LOL The swirling lights were made by AI using tons of data from Excel spreadsheets. I texted my boss & coworker that I literally can't get away from Excel, not even on vacation! LOL

You can't walk from a bright mirrored tunnel into a dark room with two weird objects and not feel a little let down. 😕

The next room was pretty disappointing after the light tunnel. It was a giant Fleur de Lis with a kaleidoscope in the background. The kaleidoscope was made from images of naked dolls and the placard read that it symbolizes how the artist is truly exposed when we view her art.

The placard stated that this must have been what dinosaurs danced under. 🐉

As weird as the Fleur de Lis room was, the next one was the worst. 😑 I mean, the art was cool but the concept behind it was a bit creepy. It was a humungous disco ball that slowly inflated and deflated. It looked really neat and the entire room reflected it's light. The creepy part is that it represents the female orgasm. The artist said, Her Joy, over & over again and it played out of a speaker at the base of the ball. The tone and inflection of the words elongated as the ball inflated & deflated. The speaker was loud so we heard it the next few rooms, too. It felt like we stumbled into someone else's intimate moment and really should go, but we couldn't leave.

I tried to take some pictures to show how small I was compared to the inflated faces but I'm not sure if my lackluster photography skills did the trick.

Next, we walked into a plain room with some cartoon faces. We were meant to feel small amongst the giant smiles. The ceiling was domed inward to make the illusion work. 👀 An aside, I am the very slow and annoying museum goer who reads each placard, which is why I remember all the artists' intents and concepts behind each room. I won't read it if the art is self-explanatory, but I definitely will with this contemporary stuff. 

The next room reminded me of Yayoi Kusama's work, and I was really glad to get into a room that I enjoyed. (I wasn't impressed with anything we saw after the initial light tunnel, and I started to worry this was a waste of our afternoon.) I loved the feeling of standing in the middle of the glass balls; I must just like anything with mirrors. 😀 I think it was after this that we went into the VR room. We watched a video where we flew through Balloon Land (it reminded me of the Candyland boardgame) with inflatable versions of landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, and I think at one point, the Queen ate us. LOL The rest of the rooms were great, and the immersive/interactive part of the exhibits really ramped up. Oh, and I think the room after this was the first one where you could no longer hear the Her Joy orgasm blaring in the background. Yay!🎉

 🦋There was a giant LED butterfly hanging from the ceiling in the next room. You had to sit on a bench with some buddies and swing to light up the butterfly and make its wings flap & change colors. Wes wasn't super into it (or in to this this part of our trip in general) but I couldn't operate the butterfly by myself, so he had to help. There were lots of patchwork pillows scattered around for spectators to lay back and watch the butterfly take flight. Since we were the only ones in the room, we couldn't swing and watch, so we skipped the watching part.

These weren't supposed to be anything but they reminded me of a tardigrade floating through space.

The next room had a row of giant inner tubes and nothing else; it was completely white with some gentle music in the background. 🩰The artist described it as a "mesmerizing ballet", which sounds ridiculous, but I felt it. The inner tubes slowly undulated with the music. It was really simple but one of my favorite rooms in the museum.

Super hard to manage the ball on my own, but I did it!

After the peaceful tardigrade dance, we moved into a room of chaos. 😲This was the first room where I wished to discard my introvert ways and play with strangers. LOL The room had an extremely large beach ball with charcoal nibs sticking out. The point was the work as a team to guide the ball around and draw a picture. I was wearing a white shirt (that I sewed myself 💅) so I probably shouldn't have been playing with charcoal, but the museum employee told me there was a wash station right outside this room. Wes didn't want to play so I was on my own. The walls and ceiling were completely marked so I wanted to draw my picture on the floor.✎ It took a lot of effort to bounce the ball all the way down, but I managed a couple of lines. LOL

An inflatable city was in the next room, or at least what the artist imagined an inflatable city would look like. 🏨We were encouraged to walk around, over and under all the "buildings". I liked the colors & geometric patterns, and the eyes were cool, but this probably isn't a city I'd move to. LOL The tunnel out of the city lead to one of those desk perpetual motion machines, like the one with the balls that swing back & forth.

I really wished I had someone else to play with in this room because I couldn't push all the balls in time to get their perpetual motion thing going. 🏃I ran around like a madwoman swinging them all but couldn't manage it.🏃 Right as I was leaving, a small child & her mom came in. I almost went back to see if the mom would help me but I was also afraid that all the balls I left wildly swinging in there would knock over her child, so I quickly fled the scene. 😰

I brought home a pink souvenir Ginjo magnet. She lives on our fridge now with all our other travel trinkets.

Next, we entered the alien land of Ginjos. Their giant eyes followed us as we walked around their whimsical land. 👀 They were made from those stand-up punching bags so they wobbled about as we walked by. Wes noticed that the mural on the wall was one continuous painting. I assumed that it looped around but all four walls were different. Wes said this was the only exhibit that he actually felt "immersed" in. I, on the other hand, am a sucker and eat this stuff up.

This is probably tied with the Excel spreadsheet light tunnel as my favorite room in the museum.

The next room was a cyclone.🌪 I didn't get it at first because we walked in right after one ended and before it started up again. The balloons started swirling and flying all over the small room! I know it was just balloons and air, but the effect of them combined with how small the room is was just so neat!😲 Wes told me to walk right in the middle of it for a perfect photo op (ok, I came up with the photo op part, but don't I look cool in the top left picture!) Wes really doesn't like installation, contemporary, or immersive art but when pressed, he did admit that this room was his favorite.

❤Emo ❤Disco ❤Ball pit❤

After we left the cyclone, we walked down a long hallway to the grand finale! It was an enormous ball pit with strobe lights & disco balls that flashed in a light show every 10 minutes ❤ I am an only child so I'm used to playing by myself, and am comfortable in my own company, but man, did I wish for some friends to frolic around in this with me; in fairness, Wes was a good sport and did jump in for a bit. Regardless, I still had a blast wading through the balls, tossing them in time with the lights, and laying back to watch the show.

I wasn't 100% in love with the Balloon Museum-- some rooms were lame, but the rooms that I did enjoy, I truly ENJOYED 💓 And Wes & I got to be pretend Texans for the day. LOL The lady at the ticket counter asked if we were TX residents. I said no, and she asked if we'd like to be. I assumed she was wanting us to donate to the Chamber of Commerce or an art fund, but when I asked her to clarify, she was like, if you say you are, you'll get a discount. So, we lied and saved $8. 😂

The reason why I decided on Dallas in March was for the International Surrealism exhibit at the art museum. The starfish wearing the high heel was my favorite piece in the collection. 👠 The other 4 paintings were also super neat!

The other museum we went to, while still my idea, was more Wes's style. The next morning, we headed downtown for the Dallas Museum of Art (with no pretend resident discount 😒). There were two temporary exhibits that I wanted to see - International Surrealism (Wes was actually pretty excited for this one, too) and Constellations (contemporary jewelry). Our tactic of going on a weekday completely backfired on us, as it must have been school field trip day. The museum was overrun by teens😖; there was probably at least 2 or 3 high schools there. Luckily, they were all behaved and old enough to have assignments so instead of running around, they were walking with their teachers and completing their worksheets.

Along with the temporary exhibits, the museum just acquired some pieces by Roy Lichtenstein. This was the complete opposite of yesterday's experience -- Wes is a huge fan of the pop artist, while I was just meh. 😂  

I immediately recognized the Miró and Dalí (top) and Wes gravitated toward the Massons (bottom)

We headed into International Surrealism first. 😵 Salvador Dalí is the only Surrealist I am familiar with, but I like the movement so I knew I had to know some other artists. I didn't see anything familiar until I saw the Miró. Wes likes André Masson, and there was a couple of his works on display, too. Hard to see in the picture above, but his drawing of the hand holding the mermaids is a good one.

🎨 I won't ramble on about the Surrealists and how much I admire their imagination and ability to literally paint their random scattered thoughts, so above are some more works and we'll move onto the next exhibit.💍 Actually, just as we were about to walk into the jewelry room, a huge group of students went in... so we veered away and revisited some of our other friends at the museum. 

Wes & I have been watching the Lost Treasures of Egypt on Disney+ so it was cool to see the artifacts here on display and kind of know a little bit about how the archeologists come to find and study them.

I had to say hi to the mummy (there was a group of students who were also very impressed by her) and Wes went to the Japanese and Hindu art rooms. 👹 I'm glad we've already seen everything on previous trips because it was difficult to navigate with a bunch of teens running around everywhere.

The middle left broach and bottom necklace was all over the DMA website & Instagram for promo, so I assumed that we'd see them along with a handful of other pieces but there was SO MUCH MORE in Constellations. 

After a quick run through of the second & third floors of the museum, we headed back downstairs for the Constellations jewelry exhibit.💠 I assumed the exhibit would have a couple of really innovative and creative pieces ... like "a couple" as in maybe 10 or 20. Oh no... there was probably over 500 pieces of jewelry on display.💎It was insane and probably way too much to take in in one go around. 

One of my pen pals collects pressed pennies; Lorie, I couldn't find a pressed penny machine on our trip but I took the picture of the penny necklace (top left) for you! And the bottom right pin cushion broach and center sewn cloud necklace #yaysewing ✂

As we walked in, a museum staff member was folding these gigantic pieces of paper into accordions. She told us they were the descriptions for each piece of jewelry and asked if I wanted one. I wish I took a picture of me holding the foldout paper because it looked ridiculous. 😂 Imagine a cartoon of a stereotypical tourist holding a comically large map. At first, I read the description of each piece of jewelry, but it got too overwhelming after the first 15-20 items.

The exhibit was organized into where on the body the jewelry would be worn. So, all the necklaces in one room, headdresses in another, then all the rings, etc. I liked that part, but within each room, everything seemed haphazardly displayed. 😫 When I was following along with the foldout, I had to go from piece #3 along one wall to the complete opposite wall to find piece #4. You know how most museums try to tell a story and guide the viewer through each exhibit with a path; it might not be a marked path, but it still subconsciously guides your eyes & feet... well, there was absolutely none of that here. I had no idea where my eye was supposed to go toward and I felt like I must have missed something because I was just bouncing around from the wall to the center of the room back to the wall.

Wes wanted to show me the top two pieces - the necklace made from real cicadas and the necklace made from egg cartons. I liked the bottom display that showed jewelry made from everything in an egg carton.

One more gripe and we'll move onto the pros. The rooms were HOT😡 not like, oh it's a little warm in here, but legitimately hot & stuffy like the thermostat was set to 80℉ and it was physically uncomfortable to be in there (maybe the materials and gems needed to rest at a certain temperature?). I started sweating toward the last leg of displays, but I paid my $20 and I was going to look at each piece of jewelry. So I powered through. LOL 

I really liked how the artists stretched the boundaries of what "jewelry" could be. 💎None of the pieces could be worn in a practical setting but they just looked so damn cool 😎 I especially like the pieces that were made from unconventional materials, like egg cartons and recycled plastic bags. I'm ending with what I felt were the most spectacular pieces (above).

Wes and Erica's vacation photo album // Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art // September 2023

I saw online that there is a Kusama exhibit on display and knew I needed to go!

We drove to St. Louis, MO via Bentonville, AR because Andrea suggested that we visit the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. While not the biggest fan of American or contemporary art, I decided to go because 1. it has free admission, 2. I've never visited Bentonville, and 3. it was a good half-way point on our drive. 

The Lantern Bearers, largest picture in the top center, was my favorite painting in the museum.

We stopped in the Barnes & Noble in Rogers, AR (there aren't any in Bentonville) so I could get my customary tokidoki Unicorno figurine for the trip. They claimed to have a wide selection online but there was only one lone figurine in the store and it was of a zodiac sign that didn't belong to me, Wes or the dogs, so I didn't buy it. I fully understand that superstitions aren't really true but I ALWAYS get a Unicorno at the first stop on our road trip and place it on my dash so it can "lead" us and bring us luck on the remainder of the journey.  I didn't get one in Arkansas, and when I Googled the first Wal-Mart store & museum (the other thing besides the art museum we wanted to do while we were in town) to confirm its operating hours, I found out it was closed for renovations until Spring 2024. The first sign of bad luck so I was determined to find a figurine asap. 😱

Anyway, our trip to the museum!! 🎨 - The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is pretty neat. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. 😀 I really enjoyed all the large installation pieces. (Installation art is the only form of contemporary/modern art that I really get in to.) Wes & I watched a documentary about artist, Yayoi Kusama, a few years ago that we both really enjoyed. I was SO excited when I saw on the museum's website that they have their very own Kusama installation!! It's a tiny room that is filled with bright color-changing lanterns. The walls & the floor are mirrors so it looks like you're surrounded by a zillion of them. You can go in alone or with your group, but it's really intimate so you don't go in with strangers. You get a minute to stand in there and be in awe. We went through it once together; I loved it so much that I stood in line to go in again by myself when Wes went off for a bathroom break. 

Is this not the coolest thing you've ever seen??!?!😮

Another art I wanted to experience was "the gift of song," a performance piece. There are singers dressed in plain clothes in the lobby who will come up to you and ask if you'd like a gift. If you accept, they'll sing to you. 🎶 Wes didn't want to be sung to so I went out on my own while he stayed at our table to wait on our lunch to arrive. I met the best museum volunteer ever -- an elderly gentleman who knew EVERYTHING about the museum! Firstly, he complimented me on my pants (which I made), then he offered me a Spanish map/guide (they were out of English language ones), and when I mentioned that I came for the Kusama installation, he pointed out a short cut on the map for me. We waited around for the singers to arrive but they didn't, and then the volunteer said he actually thinks he saw them walk away to go on break a little bit before I got there. I could have chatted to him forever about the museum and art trivia, but didn't want to keep Wes & our meal waiting any longer so thanked him and left.

The museum is a giant donut shape with a pond in the middle. I made a bee-line for the Kusama installation and then we walked around the rest of the museum. I stopped in the art studio, which was mostly for children but whatever, and made a "post card" for one of my pen pals. I took pictures of all the art that featured dogs 🐕 and sent a picture of the Italian greyhound sculpture to Lacey (they look exactly like her Prescilla & Wrecker! 😍) One of my favorite pieces was a series of hummingbirds. The artist camped out somewhere in Arkansas for ages studying them. Then they used all their knowledge to paint the most realistic hummingbirds ever. So beautiful!!

You must see these in person to see how detailed and amazing each painting is. This is just a sample; I think there were about 20 paintings total.

After seeing everything inside, we headed outdoors. The museum has several trails to hike and I wanted to take the Art Hike. It was less than a mile, but felt like much more because it was really warm that day (like +90℉ at the end of freakin' September😡). After we finished our hike, I noticed on the map that we missed one of the sculptures that I wanted to see but it was way too hot to go back again to find it.

There is also a Frank Lloyd Wright house on the trails. 🏡 I reserved us tickets for 4:30pm, but we got there earlier and the security guard let us in. We were the only ones in the house! The house was originally built elsewhere but the museum bought it and moved it piece by piece onto the premises. Then reassembled it all. We got little mp3 players with an audio tour of the house. The tour spoke a lot about natural light and the placement of windows, but the house was currently being renovated and their windows were covered in protective paper. 😒 So much for experiencing the wonders of natural light. LOL The house was really neat and I liked how the audio tour took us through each room. I especially liked the ultra modern functionally designed chairs. 

The house doesn't look like much from the outside but it was pretty cool inside. No photography is allowed inside, sadly.

We met Hamish, the museum cat outside of the house. The security guard told us that he lives in the neighborhood and likes to visit the house to sunbathe in the driveway and stalk squirrels in the yard. We were at the museum practically all day. We got in around lunchtime and walked out to the parking lot just as they were announcing their closing over the intercom. Reviews online state you only need 2-3 hours but I would plan for much more time. And thus concludes our visit to the art museum.

The next morning, the hotel clerk noticed Wes's Saxon shirt when we checked out. He told us he loves that band and is a huge heavy metalhead. I told him we were on our way to St. Louis to see Babymetal and he told us about every concert he's attended. He was a very nice man, talkative and friendly, but maybe too much so 😐 At one point the phone rang and he just ignored it to keep talking to us. We weren't on an extremely tight schedule but we did have to get on the road. We chatted for a bit longer and I had to end the conversation because he didn't know how to and Wes is too polite. Then we headed out... Missouri bound!! 🚗

My collection of all the artworks with dogs. 💗

Wes & Erica's Vacation Photo Album - San Francisco, CA (Legion of Honor Museum) - August 2022

I follow a bunch of designers on Instagram because I love fashion.👗 I am not a fashionable person and I'm not a consumer of anything in the high-end fashion world, but I do greatly enjoy looking at it. One of the designers I follow is Guo Pei. Earlier this year, she posted that several of her collections will be on display for a temporary exhibition called Fantasy Couture at the Legion of Honor Museum. Right then and there, I knew we'd be travelling to San Francisco to see it. 

The Legion of Honor Museum is modeled after its namesake in France. It is located in the center of Lincoln Park and is a gigantic museum!! I think we spent over three hours there. Luckily, we got in early because it got insanely busy around lunch time. We had planned to have lunch at the museum café, but the line was out the door and down the hallway. Its website stated that everyone was to purchase a timed ticket in advance, but I don't think they followed that rule because the museum felt like it was above capacity. 

Fair warning - I took at least one picture of every single dress that was on display, so this blog post will be 90% photo album---which you've probably already noticed. If you don't like dresses, turn back now! 👗 There were other works of art throughout the museum. Only the basement was dedicated to Fantasy Couture. A ton of paintings were housed on the main, second and (maybe) third floors -- I honestly don't remember how many floors it had. LOL 😅 But, there were MORE DRESSES scattered throughout the museum to accent the other artworks. I found it hard to appreciate the other pieces because my attention was immediately drawn to the gowns. 

One thing that I really appreciated about Guo Pei's dresses is that I understood them. I looked at the dress, then read the description with the artist's intent, and I could comprehend her vision. They weren't too pretentious, philosophical, or political. That's not to say that I thought her dresses were simple, because they definitely weren't. I don't like when designers are too artistic; their garments don't make sense, and the viewer won't "get it" unless they're as enlightened as the designer is. I also don't like the opposite of that when designers try to have an ultra-woke message, and it seems like they're just pandering. I felt neither of those intentions when I was at the Fantasy Couture exhibit.  

Another thing that I really liked about the exhibit is that the dresses looked like real wearable dresses. I like avant-garde stuff, too, but I want my clothes to mostly resemble regular silhouettes. Although I could never add all the intricate detailing and handiwork to any of my dresses, if I wanted to sew one that looked somewhat like what I saw at the museum, I probably could find a pattern for it.

The more labor intensive dresses had labels that showed how many hours it took to make each dress. Some were up into the tens of thousands of hours!! The labels also showed the materials used. Guo Pei worked mostly with silk and exclusively Swarovski crystals. 

My favorite of her collections is Garden of the Soul. I loved the vibrant colors of the floral motifs. Each dress had so much detail. 😍 There was the dress itself, but if you looked underneath the skirt or inside the sleeves, there would be more crystals and flowers!! I also liked the wigs. Shoes and accessories were an important part of each of her ensembles. One of the placards stated that she liked dressing women in insane shoes with impossible heels to show off how strong her women (models) are. 

My second favorite of her collections is Alternate Universe. Her pieces imagined a world where the animals took over and she advised us to be gentle to all creatures because we never know what will happen after reincarnation. I was astounded by the dresses at the exhibit so I watched the runway show for this collection when I got home. I wasn't as impressed with them when they walked. I think it is because I didn't see all the details and the dresses mostly looked heavy and static on the runway. On the other hand, a collection that wasn't a favorite of mine at the museum, Elysium, walked magnificently down the runway at its show.

One of the dresses had several dolls/puppets sewn in. Each one of her ateliers made one to add to the dress. I thought that was a nice gesture since so many of her dresses are done by hand. I was completely mesmerized by the detailing in her designs. So much so that I was doing the "you're in someone's way so you move left and they move left, and the dance continues for a while" thing without knowing it. The woman who's way I was in glared at me and said some nasty remark before I noticed I was in her way. 😬 LOL I was just trying to get to the next dress! 

Wes's favorite collection is Himalaya. It was a summer collection but the fabric made me think of winter. I guess the colors were summer. Wes said it would be too obvious as a winter collection. The dresses were made from old Japanese silk scarves. She noticed the strange patterns that the embroidery made on the back of the scarf so she used inside-out scarves in her designs. 

I don't remember the name of it, but she had a collection inspired by nighttime in Paris. It was so shocking to see the black dresses. 😮 Everything up until then was either gold or colorful. The back of one of the gowns had a silhouetted scene (like a shadow puppet show) embroidered onto it. It is the bottom right picture in the collage below.

I love everything about the pants in the bottom row of the above picture. 😍 I actually majorly adore both of the outfits on the bottom row. It's weird looking at my pictures again as I type this because I was in a daze the entire time at the museum; I don't even remember taking some of the pictures. It felt like a dream being surrounded by all of the dresses.

I felt so alive and inspired while walking through this exhibit. I told myself that after this experience, I would learn how to sketch (a very far fetched idea ... a toddler draws better than I do, but you get crazy thoughts while you're immersed in something you love, right?) so I could start designing some of my own dresses. As of now, 2 months after our vacation, I haven't drawn a single thing, haven't designed a pattern, and have only sewn a few subpar dresses. 😕 I need to get my motivation back in order!! Wes bought the gallery art book for me -- best souvenir ever but a encyclopedia-sized book is NOT the best gift when you're travelling with only carry-on luggage -- so I probably just need to look through it again to get my brain going.

The last collection in the exhibit was one that she dedicated to her youngest daughter. She designed it while pregnant, and imagined what her daughter would do if her Barbie's came to life. Her models (above) dress a zillion times nicer than my Barbie's ever did! 

After floating through the Fantasy Couture exhibit, we still had time to see the rest of the museum. I took a picture of each painting that I noticed a dog in. There was a mummy on display, which was cool. I really like mummies and artifacts.

We went to the museum on a Thursday and flew out early Friday morning. I still had visions of dresses dancing through my head when I noticed a tiny fashion exhibit at the San Francisco airport! It showed fabric and dresses made from pineapple leaves. Apparently, artists use the hairs on the leaves to weave fabric. How amazing!! 🍍 I am so glad that I got to see the Fantasy Couture exhibit. It is the third fashion exhibit I've seen and I think it is my favorite so far!