Wes & Erica's vacation photo album// DFW, TX // August 2025

We took a quick trip to Texas in August to see Ghost on their Skeletour (for Wes) and to see the Return to Infinity: Yayoi Kusama exhibit (for me). I've been told, more than once 😖, that our vacations seem like an exhausting to-do list instead of a relaxing experience, so this time those two activities were literally all we did -- no extra stops, no last minute plans.😊 (I actually also wanted to go to Fuzz Lab, but their hours are weird & there wasn't a location near our hotel, which meant we'd have to stress to fit it in, so we skipped it.) We got to spend quality time lounging around in our nice hotel and I got a lot of crocheting done on our downtime.

Probably the largest sandwich I've see in my lifetime. I ate about 3/4 of it.

Wes has a couple of coworkers from the Dallas division of Paycom so we're always getting good restaurant recommendations. We had lunch at Weinberger's Deli in Grapevine, TX. (Downtown Grapevine is super cute, and I would have wanted to walk around their historic main street, which is railroad and dinosaur themed, if it wasn't 102℉ that afternoon.🌞) The deli was packed, even though it was around 2pm when we got there. Wes got Morgan's Turkey sandwich, which had both turkey & pepperoni, and I got the Vera Cuban. There are soooo many different sandwiches on the menu; it was hard to choose but I went with vera because it had cilantro on it. 🥪 We both liked our giant sandwiches, but also both wished we had gotten something else (Wes the muffuletta and me the lamb special). Wes saw a billboard for Grape Fest, advertised as the best wine festival in the region, annually in September in Grapevine on our drive out of town. 🍷 It's been added to the 2026 vacation itinerary! 

We went to Nando's (Dallas location -- about an hour away but so worth it) for dinner. 🐔 I learned from No Such Thing As A Fish that the Nando's franchise is the world's largest buyer of South African art because they decorate each of their restaurants with art made by indigenous artists... like they actively seek out native & emerging artists to feature in their various locations. So, of course the first thing I do when we walk in is look at all the art on the walls! 🎨 The menu even had art on it and a QR code that takes you to the artists from that location's social medias. That aspect of the restaurant is super neat, and the food was delicious, too! 😋 I rarely see livers on offer so I got them (even though I much prefer gizzards). OMG they were so tasty!! Wes isn't a huge fan of livers, either, and he agreed that they were very good. They had several sauce options to choose from; I got the Peri-paradise sauce over the livers and the Peri-ranch over the Brussels sprouts (Wes went with medium). We also sampled the lemon & herb sauce, which Wes really liked but I didn't. We got the Naughty Nata (Portuguese custard tart) for dessert, to-go because we were stuffed but couldn't turn down a sweet treat. LOL

I should have taken a picture of the fighter jet/airplane decor inside. It was definitely a theme restaurant. 

The next morning, we had breakfast at West Side Café, an airplane themed diner that is close enough to some sort of base or training facility that we could hear jets flying overhead while we ate. 🛫 Not sure if they built it there on purpose to really lean into the theme. LOL I wanted to try their bacon, cheddar & chive "tater kegs" but they're only served at lunch. (My newest foodie goal is to eat a tater keg -- a large tater tot stuffed with something yummy.) I ended up with Mama Sue's hashbrown casserole and French toast instead. The food was okay. I liked that their syrup is warmed up and Wes liked that his bacon was hickory smoked instead of Applewood smoked. 

We had no plans until dinner that evening, so we stopped in Café Azul on our way back to the hotel to get coffee to sip on the rest of the day. ☕ The little coffee shop looked so familiar but I don't think we've been before. I got the Mexican mocha and Wes got the churro latte. We stayed in Fort Worth's Cultural District, and right across the street from the Kimball art museum. I checked their website to see if they had any good special exhibits but nothing peaked our interest. Again, it would have been fun to walk around the area if it wasn't 100℉. Man, I HATE summer. 😠 Ugh.

I've never been a fan of bologna but the slices we got on the meat & cheese plate were really good. Wes was not impressed.

Our next meal (late lunch... early dinner... whatever meal you eat at 3:30pm) was at Taste of Europe, another restaurant recommended by one of Wes's coworkers. There is a small grocery store with Eastern European foods at the back of the restaurant. The market had some interesting things that we wanted to try, but nothing was going to keep well in the car while we were out & about. I tried a chicken kiev for the first time. It was good and I loved the lemon butter. 🧈 I could dip anything in that stuff! LOL I tried one of Wes's perogies. It was so heavy; no idea how he ate all 10 of them. I guess we wouldn't be having dinner until late night after the concert so it was a good idea to have a nice meal beforehand. 

The Ghost concert was a phones-free event (so no pictures for the next few paragraphs😢). The concept was terrifying at first (no phones... what if there's a terrorist attack, medical emergency, bad weather??!?! 😳), but it ended up being okay. Ghost's frontman claimed that not having your phone made you "more engaged with the band", but honestly, I think it was to protect his proprietary material -- no concert footage leaked on YouTube. I may have been a bit more engaged but I was also 100x more anxious. 😵 The concert was at the very nice & CLEAN Dickies arena. The employees placed our phones in Yondr bags for us as we walked in, and there were more employees outside of the arena waiting to unlock our bags as we exited. I thought the process would be more chaotic, resulting in a crush... and none of us having a phone to call for an ambulance, but it was very well organized. Kudos to the Dickies arena staff! 👍

Wes loved the concert; Ghost is one of his favorite bands, and that's all that really matters. My opinion is just blah, blah, blah, noise. 💀 This was our second time seeing them live. (First concert was at their 2022 Imperatour) I thought that maybe the first show wasn't amazing because the venue wasn't packed and our energy was off (it was in Lincoln, NE... not exactly a hotbed for heavy metal music). But this time, the Dickies arena housed a sold-out crowd and the vibe was top notch, and I still felt like Ghost wasn't having the time of their lives like we were. 😑 I guess my main problem is that it sounded so rehearsed-- exactly as they do on Pandora; at one point I wondered if it was even live. I know, its a weird complaint that the band sounded too good but that's just me. 🤷

Overall, the show was fun & we enjoyed ourselves.  I've become a Ghost fan over the years and I could recognize the hits. 🎶They played a few of the songs that Wes really likes that they didn't play the last time we saw them; I think he really likes the new Skeletá album so it was a good tour to go to. We wanted t-shirts but the merch line was insanely long before the show. I volunteered to step out during a lull to grab the shirts we wanted, but by the time I got the merch booth, our sizes were sold out. 😒 We had planned to get sushi after the show (Blue Sushi Sake Grill was just 10 minutes away), but it took ages to get out of the parking garage and back onto the main street. We settled for Taco Bell on the way back to the hotel instead; their taco pizza was no replacement for delicious sushi, but beggars can't be choosers when it comes to dinner at 11:30pm.

Hands down the best breakfast I've had in a while!! 😍 Definitely the best mimosa I've ever had.

The next morning, we had breakfast at Lucile's. 😋 We've been keeping a list of restaurants to return to each time we're in Texas; Wes has Hurtado BBQ and Blue Sushi Sake Grill, and I'm adding Lucile's. We ate off the breakfast menu, but I'm dying to try their lunch & dinner options. Lucile's is a cute little house built on a median and inside is filled with open air New Orleans vibes. Super cute decor and very  welcoming. Wes said his bacon was cooked perfectly. I got the crab lump benedicts, with huge lumps of fresh crab. 🦀 Everything we got was so good!

After breakfast, we headed back into Dallas for the art museum. It was still kind of early when we got there, so we got street parking right in front of the museum. 😁 I don't think we've ever been so lucky with street parking. We were only planning to visit the Kusama exhibit, but our tickets came with free general admission so I paid the max time (2 hours) so we could walk around. We got back to the car literally as the parking app's timer went off!

Oh how nice it would be to be a woman spinning yarn in a shop with her husband and cozy dog. #wistful 

The museum also had a pair of shoes that Yayoi Kusama made; she stuffed the shoes with balls of paper-or maybe it was rocks- and painted them, so they were no longer useful. I think it is supposed to represent being saddled down with ills to where you can't function fully as a human anymore.

The Kusama exhibit wasn't really worth the price 😒 so I'm glad we got general admission into the museum as well. I thought it would be larger, but it literally is a 10x10ft box. With no ventilation. There are glass pumpkins all around and the walls & ceilings are mirrors so we were standing in a pumpkin field, completely surrounded. Very cool concept... but there is a time limit and we were accompanied by a museum guard. We could only go in there one time for only 90 seconds. (When we went to the exhibit in Bentonville, we could go in as many times as we wanted and linger for as long as we liked.) I didn't mind the time constraint, but what ruined the experience for me was the guard. She clicked her stop watch when we got in and did not take her eyes off us; she was just doing her job and there was no way for her to be invisible in such a tiny setting, but it was truly distracting. We were free to take pictures & selfies and talk or whatever, but it felt so weird with her there. 😫 I couldn't feel engaged or immersed in my "immersive art experience" (which made me think of the Ghost concert the night before and decide that, yeah, I actually was pretty engaged then after all). 

We tried to find all the new acquisitions since its been a few years since our last museum visit.

The fuzzy pink closet was my favorite! Bottom right: my spoils from the gift shop. I've looked through the Dalí cookbook and there is nothing that I can make as a home chef 😢

We've been to the Dallas Art Museum once or twice before so we just took a quick tour around this time. Wes wanted to revisit the East Asian collection, and I had to say hi to the mummy (I'm obsessed!) I think we saw all the new (to us) pieces, and hit all the collections on the map.

Mummies are truly the best; I am still mad that we missed the Immersive King Tut tour a few years ago.

Check out the amazing detail on these two! 😲

The artist sculpted wind in the one on the left. WIND. How do you sculpt the concept of weather?! It really looks like the man's garment is billowing, and it blew my mind.

The piece on the right is made from beads. Tons & tons of tiny beads!

It was lunchtime after our museum visit. We drove up to Mitsuwa Marketplace in Plano, TX. I imagined it was a shopping center (the website boasted of a food court and Kinokuniya bookstore), but it was actually a giant Japanese grocery store. It was cool to walk around and look, but it wasn't really what we wanted for lunch. The Kinokuniya was a small stall in the store; kind of disappointing 😞 but we can cross another Kinokuniya location off our list. There was another stall with gumball machines, but with blind box figurines instead of gumballs inside. Each cost 3-4 tokens, and tokens were $5 each... no thank you, I can buy a legit tokidoki Unicorno for cheaper than that.

I should have gotten a picture of all the blind box gumball machines.

Luckily for us, we were in the Asian district of Plano and had plenty of other restaurant options. We went to Sichuan Folk, which was just across the street. All the diners were Asian and the menu was in Chinese, so we knew this place would be good. 😄 They had beef soup dumplings, which was a treat (I usually only come across the pork or veggie ones). I wasn't going to get a spicy dish, but I figured I had to since we were at a Sichuan restaurant. 🌶 I got the cold sesame noodles. They were so good but so spicy!! Wes got a spicy pork dish.

There was a boba place next door so we got drinks for the drive home. I got my standard go to... the strawberry matcha latte.🍵🍓 I liked that it had chunks of fresh strawberry in it. Wes got a fruit tea, and he said he didn't like the chunks of fruit. Opposites attract, I guess. 😆 We had to order from a kiosk, which forced us to customize the drinks. No forgetting to add boba, or questioning the sugar level or how much ice you want. I think all boba places should install these because I can never hear the cashier, who always mumbles, over the loud trendy music. LOL

🚗We went to Buc-ee's to fill up on gas & snacks and take our last potty break before the long drive home. We usually try to leave town mid-morning, but decided to stay a bit later since it was summertime, so the sun would be up longer. My night vision has majorly deteriorated but traffic was fine and we got home before it got too dark. 🌓Another Texas trip in the books! And a relaxing one at that. So long DFW, see you next year for Grape Fest! 🍇

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

Lacey and Erica's vacation photo album // McKinney - Dallas - Norman // September 2022

Lacey and I have been friends for over 20 years now but we have never travelled together (that I can remember... Lacey - any thoughts on this?) As mentioned in yesterday's post, we were absolutely determined to see My Chemical Romance on their reunion tour. ❤ Since the concert was in Dallas, TX, I decided to make a little girls' trip out of it and spend 2 days away. Not only was this our first time travelling together, but it was also our first time travelling without husbands and dogs... and we had a blast! Lacey, if you're reading this, I'm proposing an annual road-trip with just the two of us!! 😄

How cute is Lacey's dog, Priscilla??! Too damn cute!!

We have crochet nights a few times each month at my house where we choose a project and work on it together. 🧶 I had no desire to drive around Dallas so my plan was to take us to a yarn shop, buy a bunch of supplies, and crochet all day at the hotel until it was time for the concert. I did a quick Google search before our trip and found the highest rated yarn shop in the area. It was McKinney Knittery in McKinney, TX. We got to Historic Downtown McKinney around lunch time. Downtown was adorable with lots of tiny boutiques and restaurants, ample parking and little to no traffic. AKA heaven!!! 😍

We had lunch at Cadillac Pizza Pub before shopping. We both got their lunch special which was a personal pizza and small salad, and we celebrated our safe arrival into Texas with cocktails (any reason to have a drink with lunch, right? 😆 LOL) The pizza was really good and my caprese salad was delicious. 

Time to shop!! McKinney Knittery is a gigantic yarn shop. Half of it is specialty yarn of all types and colors, and the other half of the store is fabric!!💓 My two favorite things!! 💓I didn't like the fabric as much as I thought I would. It was mostly traditional quilting cotton. The designs were cute but they didn't have the more modern contemporary prints that I prefer. The yarn, on the other hand, was spectacular!! I have never seen so much yarn! Of course we wanted to buy it all but, we stuck to the supplies we needed for the two projects we picked out (a skull granny square pencil pouch and a Japanese knot bag). I still ended up with five skeins and a bunch of other goodies. Funny story: we saw Moon Drake yarn at the shop. The owner of Moon Drake is an independent yarn entrepreneur in Oklahoma and former acquaintance of ours... and her yarn was highest priced in the entire shop, but I wouldn't have considered it the best colored or quality! 😆😶🙊

One thing that I despise about specialty yarn is that it always comes in hanks. It's a fancy way to display the colors of the yarn but it makes it so hard to unravel into a usable ball. The extremely friendly employees at the knittery offered to roll our yarn into balls for us with their little spinning machine. While we were waiting for them to do that, we wandered over to the next boutique, Ettiene Market. It is a handmade soap and kitchen accessories store. It smelled amazing!!

After we had our fill of shopping, we headed to the hotel. Lacey booked us a room at the Lorenzo hotel. It was the coolest place!! It is an art themed hotel with random paintings, sculptures and installation art scattered all over the place (inside and outside of the building!) The best exhibit was a small white room at the corner on the first floor. The entire room was collaged in a multitude of white objects. It was all 3-D and had color changing lights. 😎📷 Perfect photo opp!! 

The Lorenzo hotel is famous because it is where Tina Turner went when she finally had enough and left her abusive husband, Ike. They were originally staying at the Hilton, which was across the highway downtown. They got in yet another massive fight and Tina Turner said that was the last straw. She snuck out of the Hilton, ran across the highway, and took refuge at the Lorenzo (it was called something else at the time.) The hotel is very proud of its history and has Tina Turner memorabilia displayed throughout. 

I wanted to see all the little art galleries that the hotel had, so we walked around (bags in tow) for a bit before settling into our room. I also wanted to do some poolside crocheting since I saw online that the Lorenzo has one of Dallas's best pools, but it was too hot. 🌞 So we just hung out in our super chic room and crocheted only one skull (out of the 4 we need for our bag, and we didn't even start our second project... I always think I have so much more time than I really do). Then it was time to see My Chemical Romance in concert. ❤💀💓 It was SO GOOD!!! 

One of my greatest fears is the terrible traffic in/around the Dallas metro area. 🚘🚘🚘 Luckily, our drive both days wasn't too bad but I knew that traffic in the evening around the American Airlines arena would be hell. To avoid this, we got an Uber to and from the concert. I was telling Lacey how much I love Uber and how Wes & I use it on all our vacations and we've had the best experience with great drivers. Then both of the drivers Lacey and I got were awful!! 😑 To be fair, there were a lot of road closures around the arena and post-concert traffic was insane with cars & pedestrians everywhere, and no one was paying attention to what they were doing. Despite all that, we made it safely back to the hotel for a restful night's sleep.

The next morning we took one last stroll around the hotel's galleries and then headed out to breakfast. ☕ We went to the Maple Leaf Diner. It is an authentically Canadian restaurant. 🍁I have never tried Canadian food and was excited to have it. Both Lacey and I were pretty underwhelmed. We ordered poutine (which my pen pal in Canada pointed out is NOT breakfast food) and hollandaise. I've only ever had cheese curds fried so that's what I expected in the poutine. Instead, they were naked curds that were mostly melted into the bland gravy. I thought my meal was bland overall, but the Canadian bacon was tasty. We had a little time after breakfast, so we headed to Buc-ee's. I needed to get gas anyway.

We went to the Fred Jones art museum on The University of Oklahoma campus on our way home. Despite being an alumni, I haven't retuned to OU in probably 15+ years. So much has changed!! Namely the parking, as in there is none now! We had to park in the paid parking garage; their ticking booth was out of order so we had to download and attempt to use their impossible app. 😣 Anyway, Lacey used to work at the art museum but hasn't been back since she quit. It would have been nice to explore the entire museum but we were short on time and came solely for the Synesthesia exhibit. 

We wore our matching Boredwalk t-shirts!

The Synesthesia exhibit imagined how colors would be if we could use our other senses to perceive them. The aim was to answer the following - what does pink smell like, what does green sound like, what does purple feel like, etc. The exhibit was only one room but it was amazing!!! Most likely one of the hippest rooms we've been in. 😎 The room was divided into yellow, green, blue, purple and pink. Each section was interactive and we were encouraged to walk though everything while touching it.

I really liked the blue section which mimicked underwater coral. Each of the corals were sewn from a different type of fabric. 🧵 But, my favorite was one part of the pink section. It was a tall silo that was made from crochet. The outside had all sorts of crocheted flowers and doilies glued onto it. 💮🧶🌸Once you walked into it and looked up, the ceiling was a kaleidoscope and also had more crocheted items dangling down. Lacey also really liked the pink section but her favorite part of it was the mushroom. 

The silo already looks pretty rad from the outside, but then you walk in and it's this explosion of pink crochet!! I literally gasped! The lighting in the pictures isn't great so you can't really tell how joyful and vibrant the pinks are.

Since I am not an artist or a critic, I'll stop trying to describe our experience to you and just fill the remainder of this post with pictures I took at Synthesia. The Fred Jones art museum is free (parking is only $3) so if you're in the Norman area, you should totally go see this exhibit. It was a delightful end to me & Lacey's trip. I love vacationing with Wes but I had an equally fun time on my mini-vacation with Lacey. It was great to travel with someone who has 100% the same interests as I do. We didn't have to compromise since we both were excited to do the same activities and we were both shared the same vibes. Lacey, my dear, we MUST do this again!! 😀