Wes and Erica's vacation photo album // St. Louis, MO // September 2023

The reason we went to St. Louis in the first place - to see Babymetal in concert

This was by far the most leisurely vacation we've taken. Wes and I always struggle a bit with vacations; I want to see & do EVERYTHING so I cram our day full of activities, and Wes, on the other hand, likes to relax and take a more laid back approach to our trip. He is also more practical when it comes to timing. (I know we can't possibly do a million activities but just stubbornly refuse to accept it 😞) We didn't make it to a couple of things I originally planned for us to do, so we had time to meander around town and I actually really enjoyed the slower pace... maybe Wes is onto something after all. 

We had a late start to out of Bentonville to St. Louis (we slept in, had a late breakfast and then ended up chatting with the hotel clerk for ages) so wouldn't make it to the city until mid to late-evening. Instead of trying to rush, we spent the day at our half-way point -- Springfield, Missouri. The plan was to stop in for gas, our bathroom break and a quick snack. I also needed to get that tokidoki Unicorno figurine!! I was looking up where the Barnes & Noble is (I got my Unicorno -- the Sagittarius one♐) and there just happened to be a fabric store nearby. 😊 We went to FM Stores. It is a gigantic store with all sorts of fabric. There was a quilting cotton section (not my preference for designs, but I did enjoy all the dog prints. I got a border collie one to use for Athena's next dog bed), a tiny garment fabric section, and the rest was upholstery & utility fabric. I wanted to get some fabric for me & Andrea's matching outfits but didn't find anything that would suit both of our tastes. I was a little disappointed (mostly because it was so cheap... if there was fabric I liked, we'd be in trouble LOL) but still glad we got to go fabric shopping. We also stopped in the Battlefield mall and I got a puzzle titled "100 Pooping Pups," it is a picture of exactly that and I laughed and laughed when I saw it. Can't wait to make that to display on our wall! 😆

Dunaway Books in the South Grand district. The bookstore smelled so good, ahhh... old book scent!!

I originally planned for us to visit the Missouri Botanical Garden but it was another hot 🌞day when we arrived, so we explored the South Grand and Central West End districts instead. We still ended up walking around quite a bit outside but we got to take breaks in the stores with air conditioning. We stopped in Garden District STL (an adorable gift shop in South Grand). The owner was genuinely nice and not just trying to convince me to buy things, though I still ended up buying a lot. LOL She brings her dog, Oolong, to the store with her so that was an added perk. At first, he was a little shy but after some chin & ear scratches he became my best friend. 🐕 We stopped in Dunaway Books next and they had a shop dog, too! 😍🐶 Their dog was a friendly puppy who followed us around and then brought me a toy. We also went to Wolfgang's Pet Stop, which was the only store we visited that day without dog. Ironic. It sadly didn't have a lot of treats or toys to choose from either. 

So glad we stopped in this little gift shop! (Garden District STL)

The World's Largest Chess Piece, recognized by Guinness World Records, and another large (and maybe more impressive) piece in the gift shop made from tons of regular sized pieces.

We visited the World Chess Hall of Fame. I don't play chess but Wes does. I was mostly excited to see the World's Largest Chess Piece. ♜ I wasn't sure what to expect but I at least thought I'd see some historical chess boards/pieces and portraits of champions. Nope, that is part of the permanent collection which is also reserved for private viewing. Instead there were two other temporary exhibits on display for the public. 

The first floor was an entire timeline of T.S. Elliot's life as it relates to the game of chess. I haven't read much of his work (just what was assigned in high school literature and who remembers that?😅) so I knew nothing about him. Apparently, he is a famous St. Louisan and he wrote his poem, The Waste Land, as a chess metaphor mirroring what was going on in his personal life and society in general. Pretty interesting exhibit!

The silver costumes were worn by Katy Perry's dancers during her Super Bowl halftime show. Her dancers are so TINY! I thought they'd be taller and more muscular but those outfits are like a size 000.

I was much less impressed with their other exhibit. It was supposed to be a showcase of how chess features in music. It seemed like they found every picture of a musician playing chess and album cover with a chess piece on it, then printed it out and hung it on the walls. It felt lazy and uninspired, or maybe it was just because I came from the T.S. Elliot exhibit, which I thoroughly enjoyed so was underwhelmed by what I saw next. I did like the chess-inspired costume pieces though.

The wings on the Angel of Harmony statue have wind chimes! I wish it was a breezier day so we could hear them.

Our last stop while at the Central West End was the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis. I haven't been a practicing Catholic in over 20 years but I still love going into old churches. The architecture is amazing and I still get emotional looking at all the art inside. ⛪The basilica is literally made of mosaics. There were tons of them, and even a mosaic museum in the basement. We didn't visit the museum but I spent a lot of time looking at each and every piece. I really appreciate and am in awe of all the time and effort spent assembling a mosaic. We had gotten Starbucks before entering so Wes had to stand in the vestibule and hold our drinks while I spent probably way too much time inside. I told him that if this was my regular church, I would never pay attention during mass because I would be too engrossed in the art the entire time. 😂

And finally the reason for our trip to St. Louis. Wes heard that Babymetal would be on tour this summer so I looked up dates to see if they'd be coming near Oklahoma. I don't listen to metal and have never even heard of the band, Babymetal, but am always a willing participant to any concert. 🎤The concert was at the St. Louis Music Park. The venue is an outdoor ice skating rink but if you tell anyone that you're going to see a concert at the ice skating rink, they'll look at you crazy. This happened several times on our trip.😂 Anyway, the Music Park is great!! They had the cleanest bathrooms I have ever been in. (Not just clean for an outdoor venue, but clean in general) The seating chart was good and we had a very nice view of the stage. My only complaint is that the chairs didn't fold up so it was difficult to move when someone needed to get in/out of the aisle. Oh, that and the food was bad - my nachos were super stale. 

It was neat that they had a coffee truck parked out front for those of us who didn't want overpriced Budlight.

I personally did not enjoy the concert at all. My favorite "band" was the opening act. It was a heavy metal guitarist named Jason Richardson. I assume he is a part of a band but it was only him on stage playing guitar over his band's songs. It was like karaoke but for guitar. Nevertheless, he is super talented. 🎸 He had to stop his set a few times because people were getting too rowdy in the mosh pit and I think at one point someone fell down. It's nice that artists watch out for fans nowadays... completely different from my college concert-going days. 

Babymetal

Babymetal was weird. I need to preface this by saying 1. Wes loves them and said they put on an excellent show. He is the main authority on heavy metal so I trust that this was a good concert but I just didn't like it, 2. I don't know anything about J-pop or their artists' performance styles, 3. their backing musicians were absolutely amazing... I just wasn't sure about the 3 gals in the band. So it went like this... their musicians start playing their songs and then three harajuku girls pop out onto stage and start dancing. Only one sings and she has a very high pitched cartoony voice. The entire performance is put on and feels very fake; even when they wave to the audience, you can tell they were told to stand exactly on this mark and wave twice to the right and twice more to the left. Wes says that's how they're trained in "idol school" and they aren't allowed to add personality to their performance. Very strange.  

Dethklok

The next band, Dethklok, was terrible. Another band I have never heard of so Wes had to give me the rundown. The lead singer developed a cartoon on Adult Swim about a fictional band named Dethklok. It did every well so he made the band into a real thing and now they put on live shows. Their entire set was songs from the cartoons with accompany snippets from the show. It all went over my head. I am a prude who doesn't get the humor on most adult cartoons (I never liked Daria or Aqua Teen Hunger Force), and am generally not a "fun" person so I am 100% the opposite of their target audience, but I think Wes does fit into their demographic and even he wasn't super into it. I think it enjoyed it but wouldn't go again (and he was there to see Babymetal; any other band would be less than). I found it to be weird, vulgar and noisy ... not loud, but NOISY. 

So the concert was a huge bust for me but we had one more day of vacation and I was going to get candy!! 🍬We drove by the Uranus fudge factory on the way back from Audrey's wedding in 2021. I wanted to stop in but we missed the exit. On this trip, I made sure to add St. Robert, MO on the itinerary. Uranus is the perfect definition of a roadside attraction/tourist trap. It looks amazing from the highway but when you pull into the parking lot, it isn't as great as it initially looked. There are a couple of things to do --a sideshow museum, ice creamery, World's Largest Belt Buckle, which actually is cool-- but the highlight is the general store (where all the fudge is). It's basically a giant gift shop. We walked around and did some shopping. I got Butterfinger fudge, and it was good but not the best, and taffy. The taffy was the best part for me. They had a section of the store dedicated to all different flavors of taffy, from traditional flavors to super weird ones. I got a variety but leaned toward the more interesting flavors. It is a fun store that relied heavily on the butt & poop jokes; I got a good laugh out of it. I think Wes found it juvenile. 💩

The World's Largest Belt Buckle, recognized by Guinness World Records

I also got a pressed penny! I've never collected them but one of my pen pals does. I was on the look out for a pressed penny machine at each one of our stops. Uranus was a nice break on the drive back to Oklahoma and I ate taffy the rest of the drive home. So there's our big trip for the year! We didn't get to travel as much as we wanted this year for various reasons, but I'm glad we still got to get away for a few days. We have one more trip planned for my birthday so I'm looking forward to heading out again!

I loved Fashion Plates when I was younger and almost bought some but didn't.

Wes & Erica's Vacation Photo Album - Country Club Plaza (Kansas City) - April 2022

Wes & I have been married for 7 years!! 💖💟👫💘💕 We went out for a nice dinner on our actual anniversary date and took a quick weekend trip to Kansas City for more celebrations. (Side note: Dallas, TX was my favorite quick weekend road trip destination, but Kansas City, MO & KS has overtaken it; just as much fun stuff to do, restaurants, culture & art but with waaaaay less traffic and construction.) We went to the Country Club Plaza shops in search of a new leather and/or bomber jacket for me. Wes bought me one ages ago when we first started dating and it finally got to the point where it desperately had to be replaced. I should have known that the shops would be showing their spring looks and there wouldn't be any jackets for sale but oh well. 🤷 While we were there, we ate at a bunch of restaurants (my sole reason for travelling) and visited the Sistine Chapel art exhibit (more on that in next week's blog post).

This was our third trip to the Country Club Plaza but our first time to actually spend a day walking around. The Plaza has a mix of high-end shops, restaurants, boutiques, and a lot of outdoor art. We went into a few of the shops but mostly just window shopped. The only things we bought were for the dogs. LOL A majority of the shops close at 7pm so if you really want to shop & explore, it will probably take two days of walking around. 

Since it was springtime/Easter season, there were lots of rabbit statues everywhere. They were each named, which I thought was cute. There was also a "Heart of KC" exhibit where storefronts each had a heart painted in the theme of what they sell. 

Outdoor art is definitely cool, but the highlight of our vacations is always the food. 🍖🍔☕🍪🍗 Our first stop was lunch at Shake Shack. My cousin (who lives in Australia) recommended that we eat at Shake Shack when we took our road trip to Las Vegas about 7 years ago and that recommendation always stuck with me. We ate at the one on the Strip and it has been my favorite burger place since. Too bad there isn't one in Oklahoma. 😔 Earlier that week, Wes & I had a conversation where we ranked fries in order of preference. Crinkle cut fries were on the bottom of my list. I had forgotten that Shake Shack's fried are crinkle cut and I was momentarily disappointed but theirs are sooooo good. I suppose crinkle cut fries aren't the worse anymore. Our lunch was so awesome. I would rank it as the best meal we had the entire weekend. 😋

I've decided that two things I need on each & every vacation is a tokodoki brand Unicorno figurine and boba tea. We got my Unicorno at Barnes & Noble and then headed to Bruu for boba tea. Their drink special was the Anchan strawberry milk tea with rainbow jellies. I had no idea what an Anchan strawberry tastes like but the drink in the picture was really pretty so I ordered it. It was delicious!! 😋 Probably the best flavored milk tea I've had in a while. The rainbow jellies weren't as good as traditional boba but still very tasty. Bruu didn't have any dairy-free options, so Wes went and got a cold brew at Made in KC Marketplace. It was a neat shop that had a café, bar, and all local goods. It had the cutest mugs and t-shirts, jewelry, candles, etc. Great place for souvenir shopping, but we didn't buy anything (we suck as tourists LOL).

For dinner, we went to Fogo de Chão. I was unaware of this highly popular steakhouse, but Wes said it was top notch. Oklahoma has Texas de Brazil so I was at least familiar with the Brazilian churrascaria concept. Maybe it was because we went on prom weekend and maybe it was because the restaurant was insanely busy, but I was NOT impressed. The food was similar to Texas de Brazil; it was good but not worth all the hype. The only things that stood out were that the lamb and chicken were marinated in a different (maybe tastier) blend of spices and they served this amazing grilled mozzarella dipped in honey.  Wes really liked our meal. I did too; I am not saying anything bad about the yummy grilled meats, but the vibe of the restaurant really ruined it for me. 

We had made reservations for 8:15pm but had to wait a while to get seated. Strike one. The restaurant itself was filthy. Strike two. The bathrooms were a disaster and there was food and trash on the dining room floor. The marketplace salad bar wasn't fully stocked, and our waitress forgot to bring out one of the complimentary side dishes. 😒 And, the bar was out of gin so they couldn't make the cocktail I ordered (a featured cocktail on the menu... so I was unsure why or how they could be out of the essential ingredient to make it). Strike three. After dinner, we headed back to the Intercontinental hotel. This has been our hotel for each of our Kansas City trips. Its very nice and literally across the street from the Plaza. You can park in the hotel parking garage and walk, which is the only way to do it since parking and driving in the Plaza is a nightmare. 

Before we went, we took a look at the Plaza directory and picked out the restaurants we wanted to try. One was Sweet Kiss Brigadeiro (a Brazilian bakery). We wanted to go there for breakfast and coffee so that was the plan for the next morning. We waited around until it opened... then waited about five minutes more... and then another few minutes. After a while, we decided that either its hours needed updating or it was out-of-business. So instead, we went to Messenger Coffee Co. for breakfast. We both wanted a chorizo burrito but they were out of chorizo so I got a chocolate chip toffee cookie & a chai tea and Wes just got a cold brew. My cookie was really good, but the chai had too much cinnamon in it. It was my fault, the barista asked if I wanted cinnamon and I said yes. Wes said his cold brew was good but not as good as the one from Made in KC Marketplace.

We also went to the Sistine Chapel exhibit but that will be for another post. We drove about an hour out of our way to go to Auntie Rita's Jamaican restaurant for lunch on our way home. We had planned to go there when we drove to Lincoln for the Ghost concert, but I was horribly sick and we had to skip. We made our way to downtown Salina, KS and everything looked closed. 😓 I checked and double checked the restaurant's hours online and it said they were open, so we parked and walked in. We were literally the only customers in the entire place. It was 3pm on a Sunday so admittedly a weird time to eat but still... I've never eaten at a restaurant where there was no one else in the dining room. The guy behind the counter was extremely friendly and gave us some pointers on what to order since we've never had Jamaican food and were from out of town. I got the BBQ pork and Wes got the jerk pork meal. We got the "regular" size and the portions were ginormous!! I can't imagine what a large meal consists of. We both really liked the food and I even ate the plantains (which I don't like). Wes said that he liked that the coleslaw was marinated in vinegar and blend of spices instead of traditional coleslaw dressing.

Overall, a fun and appetizing weekend getaway. Happy anniversary 💗 and looking forward to 70 more years of being married. 

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 - Lincoln, NE (food)- February 2022

I like to stop at the state line and have Wes get out of the car to take a picture of the "Welcome to <whatever state>!" sign but neither of us were in the mood to do anything fun after driving through snow packed roads of Oklahoma & Kansas. So instead, here is a picture of The Hub Café. 

Despite encountering obstacle after obstacle in the week prior, our first road trip of 2022 is in the books! 🚗 We drove to Lincoln, Nebraska the first week of February to see Ghost play at the Pinnacle Bank Areana. Ghost is one of Wes's favorite bands and the last on his list to see play live. We'll talk about the concert later, but first we must chat about food. 🍔🍗🍝🍨🍳 Trying new restaurants is one of my favorite parts about going on vacation. Sadly, I was sick with a stomach virus during this trip, so I barely ate anything, and we had to skip three of the restaurants I had picked out for us to try. I did not enjoy Nebraska and do not think we'll be returning so let's just hope The Parthenon, Tini Café and Auntie Rita's Jamaican Cuisine weren't as good as the internet boasted. Now onto restaurants that we did try...

The half-way point between Oklahoma City and Lincoln is Salina, KS. We stopped in Bravo Sliders-n-Bites for lunch. The building is small and unmarked (only one tiny sign--it looks big in the picture, but I was standing pretty close to it). I guess the polite way to describe this place is "no-frills" ... and no heating. The dining room was freezing! 🥶 But the food was good, and I suppose that's what matters most. I got a slider with beet slices -- something I've never tried before. Their fries are called Frips, a portmanteau of fry and chip. I got mine dusted with dill pickle seasoning, which was really good. Wes got a cheesesteak slider, a breakfast slider and regular Frips. 

We ate at Villa Amore for dinner our first night in Lincoln. It is a nice Italian restaurant attached to the Country Inn & Suites hotel. We were both pretty confused when our maps navigation took us to the hotel parking lot. LOL The food was amazing! I ignored my stomach troubles and ate so much (probably too much because I was super sick again the next day). I don't think I've drank an authentic peach Bellini until that night. I was shocked and amazed that it had actual peach puree in it (and not just peach flavoring); like the entire peach was blended and juiced into my drink! [Side note -- I am an extremely simply person and easily amazed.] We started with salad, bread (Wes said it was really good) and soup. The soup was a creamy potato bisque. For dinner, Wes had the shrimp and scallop pesto alfredo and I had one of their nightly specials: roasted eggplant with pasta and vegetables in a spicy marinara sauce. The pasta also had chunks of eggplant so double eggplant!! I was just telling Wes earlier that day that it's about time that beets & eggplant burst onto the food scene and this did not disappoint. 

For breakfast the next morning, we went to the Engine House Café. This was the first warm place I've been in since leaving our home two days prior. The restaurant is an old firehouse with exposed brick and high ceilings. Very small and cozy. Their coffee was so good (probably my favorite part of breakfast). ☕ It was a light roast but still full of flavor. I wished they had beans or K-cups for us to buy for home. I got the cinnamon roll, which I thought was way too buttery, and Wes got the standard two egg breakfast. He said the sausage patty was a little thin but he did like that it was crispy. 

We skipped lunch (stomach virus, yay 😑). It was probably 20℉ (or less) but I wanted ice cream. (402) Creamery was only a block or so away from the hotel, so we took a brisk walk for a snack that afternoon. I chose that place for its vegan/dairy-free options (for Wes) but he ended up getting real ice cream and I got one of the vegan offerings. LOL I got one of their Valentine's flavors -- the Breakup Blues, a blueberry and pomegranate sorbet with dark chocolate chunks. Yum! Wes got the snickerdoodle ice cream and he said there were too many cookie chunks in it and not enough ice cream. The spiced waffle cone piece on top was really good, too.

After the concert, we picked up dinner from Boss's Pizza & Chicken. It was the only place open past midnight that wasn't a bar. Its website boasted, "Famous late night eats!", but when we got there, it was a sketchy, old, run-down building with zero customers. There was a sign on the door instructing patrons to enter via the back door (by the dumpster and railroad tracks) when it was past 11pm ... super sketchy. I wasn't expecting much but the food was actually really good. Or I was just really hungry (my stomach started feeling better in the middle of the concert and I actually felt like eating again! Only there was no food at the venue so 😣😞😠) We got the chicken meal from Boss's. I was cracking up at the packaging because the franchisee didn't even bother to use Boss's logo/brand box. I guess Gold'n Plump had some extra boxes he didn't want to throw away. I liked the chicken because it was thoroughly spiced and flavored. Wes said it was waaaay too salty. LOL 

We got back to the hotel a little past midnight and our parking card didn't work. We paid to be able to park at the garage across the street from the hotel during our stay. Wes called the hotel and the night employee told us to (not even exaggerating) park at the meters because its free until 7am. 😶 Instead of offering to give us a new parking card or research the issue, this woman expected us to park my car on the street even though we paid for garage parking and not only that, she also expected us to get up before 7am to either move my car or pay the meter. 😡 Instead, I took a self-serve ticket at the garage and pulled in. We thought we would just clear this up with her in person when we got in. Some things are hard to explain over the phone... surely, she would be more accommodating in person. Nope. She was adamant that we did not pay for a parking card (even though Wes showed her the physical card we were issued) and since I took a self-serve ticket, I now owed an additional $11 to park my car and there was ABSOLUTELTY nothing she could do to help us. Ugh. Luckily, the manager in the morning was a million times more helpful and reactivated our parking card with no problem. 

The next morning, we had breakfast at The Hub Café. My stomach was cured and I was going to eat again!!! 😁 The Hub is a restaurant located on a really nice park/walking trail. Since it was the middle of winter, the park was sort of dead & ugly, but I bet this is a beautiful place to dine in the springtime. The farm-to-table restaurant only uses local ingredients from Nebraskan farms. Everything did taste extremely fresh. Wes said the bacon tasted like the same bacon his great-grandpa used to make when they slaughtered their own pigs. The best bacon he's had in a long time, he said. I noticed the goat cheese tasted different (aka no preservatives) than the stuff we get from the store. I got the roasted beet sandwich and it was ginormous. 🥪 Probably the size of two sandwiches. I thought it was a little bland, but I know they wanted to showcase the natural flavor of the fresh ingredients instead of hiding behind a bunch of seasonings. Wes got a cold brew coffee that he wasn't a fan of but I loved my chai latte. 

Just as my stomach virus was wanning, I started having painful menstruation cramps. (Oh the joys of endometriosis.) So needless to say, I was back to not eating. We skipped lunch and just powered on home. As I was driving through Kansas, I kept seeing signs for Lindsborg, KS aka Little Sweden, USA. I love making random stops on road trips to explore but we haven't been able to do that much due to tight schedules on our last few trips. Making unplanned stops is one of Wes's least favorite things but I really wanted to visit so he obliged. It would be nice to take a potty break not at a gas station and maybe we could get a snack. The town is tiny and we almost drove through without seeing the touristy part. There were small signs pointing toward downtown but I didn't see them; luckily Wes caught them and we turned toward Little Sweden. It took us less than an hour to walk around downtown and visit their famous Hemslojd giftshop. 

Dala horses are the town's mascot and there were replicas outside of each establishment painted to match the business. It was late Saturday afternoon when we stopped into town so most of the places were already closed. There was supposedly a Swedish cultural museum somewhere, but we couldn't find it. It was still nice to get to stretch our legs and get some fresh air, plus, I enjoyed the giftshop. I wanted to stop in the bakery but it was already closed for the day. So, we got our potty break but no snack. Back into the car we went. We hadn't eaten since breakfast and although I wasn't feeling well enough for a meal, I knew we couldn't also skip dinner. I saw Taco John's when we were driving though either Wisconsin or Missouri last year and laughed at myself. What a silly name; I bet the food is horrible. I saw Taco John's again when we drove through Salina a few days ago but this time, I was curious to try it. We needed to get gas so Wes found us a gas station/Taco John's combo in Wichita, KS.

Taco John's is not good but I wouldn't say it was bad. I rank it alongside Del Taco. The meat in the crispy tacos was mixed with refried bean paste. Good thing Wes got the soft tacos. He said they came pre-dressed with chunky "salsa".  It was a little sad to end our trip with subpar food. But, everything else we ate was good so one bad meal didn't ruin it. Aside from eating, we visited two museums and, the highlight of our trip, the concert. More on those to come!!

Wes & Erica's vacation photo album - Dallas, TX - December 2021

As mentioned in last week's blog post, we did more than just eat & shop on our vacation. Since it was a trip for my birthday, I got to choose all the activities ... and I chose art museums!!! We went to two very different ones - Rainbow Vomit is a new & trendy art installation and The Meadows Museum is your classic traditional art museum.

Getting to Rainbow Vomit was a harrowing feat. We started the day early and made good time driving in from Oklahoma. We stopped in Buc-ee's to buy lunch and ended up staying way longer than expected. Part of it was because I wanted to examine every snack option & food offering before settling on what I wanted for lunch, and part of it was because it was extremely busy and the lines took forever. I bought tickets for 2pm at Rainbow Vomit. It was about 1:15pm when we left Buc-ee's... 45 minutes is plenty of time, right? Absolutely wrong. 😖 Dallas traffic is terrible with construction everywhere. 🙅😠 Once we realized there was no way we'd make it on time, I called (via Bluetooth in my car... another harrowing feat #ihatetechnology) to ask if we could reschedule our visit. The employee was super nice and said, of course, and moved us to 3pm. We FINALLY made it to the warehouse and ate our lunch in the car before heading in.

Rainbow Vomit is a 2-story art installation. The employee described it as walking into a large comic book. It was pretty big but not as large as our Factory Obscura installation. It was actually quite a bit smaller than I imagined it to be. I knew it was completely black lit from pictures off its website, so I dressed appropriately in neon. I was very bright. 😆 I asked the employee where the public restroom was before we went in. She said to go through the ribbons and there would be a door to my left. The walls were painted to look like a black & white optical illusion so finding the door was confusing. LOL The rest of the installation was very similar in theme. The employee encouraged us to interact with the art and touch/open everything. All the art pieces had a door or window that led elsewhere.

She also told us that the warehouse held a secret, and it was our job to find it. Spoiler alert -- there are several paintings upstairs. If you open one, it connects to a window that opens into another room on the opposite side of the warehouse. Go back downstairs, into the ribbon entrance, push the walls a bit and open the door, then ta-da!! Another room!! ☁🦄☁ The room was awesome. The walls were covered in clouds. The entire room had lights that flashed along to music. This was Wes's favorite room (he said he liked Rainbow Vomit more than other art installations we've been to) and his only comment for improvement is to paint the ceiling with clouds or a scene from outer space. I think it was just painted white. Anyway, we walked around the secret cloud room, and I continued to open everything. At the far corner in a box on top of a pillar were a stack of magnets that signaled that I found the secret! On our way out, the employee asked if we found it. I told her yes and she said we were the first of find the magnet that day! 

I really enjoyed our time at Rainbow Vomit. I liked all the art and I especially liked that it was interactive. My only complaint - their website claims that it is the premier destination for selfies and a majority of the other tourists were there solely for photo opportunities. It was sort of weird because they'd pose in front of something that was clearly supposed to be opened but they would just take their picture and move on. Hardly anyone cared to find the secret. One woman and her friends even asked me to just tell them there it was (presumably so they can run to it and post a silly Tik Tok). The social media/selfie age is quite sad. 😬 Rant over. LOL My favorite part of the installation was the ribbons and streamers we walked through to enter the exhibit. There was glitter all over the walls and floor, which was also rad. Wes and I both liked the balloon wall and picked out our favorite balloon. 

The next day, we went to The Meadows Museum. It's a small art museum on the Southern Nazarene University campus, similar in size to the art museum at The University of Oklahoma campus. I wanted to go because they had a temporary exhibition of historical Spanish fashion. The exhibit had pieces on loan from the Madrid Museum of Fashion. I was VERY disappointed that I didn't know about this museum when I studied abroad. I feel like I went to every other museum in Madrid... how did I miss the fashion museum??? Anyway, the temporary collection at the Meadows was a bit lackluster. I was expecting several pieces and gorgeous gowns. Besides what I photographed, there were 2 or 3 ladies' dresses, 2 children's outfits and some matador capes. They were very nice and well preserved, but I wanted more! LOL My favorite pieces were the shoes. 👠 They were TINY!! Everything was tiny! I guess humans were much smaller back then, but I never expected they'd be that small. Some of the garments would have been short on me and I'm barely 5'3".

Even though the fashion exhibit wasn't extensive, I am still so so so glad we went because the remainder of the museum was amazing. 😍 The Meadows Museum houses the largest collection of Spanish art outside of Spain and all of the Spanish masters were represented. It was like a miniature Prado. Back in the early 2000s, the Prado had a monthly free-admission day for students. I studied abroad in Spain for a semester, so you better believe that I went to each and every student day. I taught myself a lot about Spanish art history from my numerous trips and I am happy to report that I can still recognize elements in certain artists' work. We walked into the room that housed the Meadows's Greco painting (center right in the photo collage below) and I told Wes, "Hey, I bet that's a Greco. Look at the saint's elongated fingers." Damn, he sure married a nerd. LOL

The museum had a handful of oil paintings downstairs, but the main attraction was upstairs. There were several galleries with religious art and oil paintings. I am not religious, but I was raised Catholic so I can appreciate the storytelling represented by the pieces. Plus, my favorite medium is oil on canvas so of course I'd love everything there. And the attention to detail!! 💓💓💓💓 I stood in front of the painting of the woman in the blue dress holding her shawl (large top left in photo collage below) and stared at it forever. Her clothes looked so real, and the sky is gorgeous. *drool* There was so much to marvel at. The Meadows had a couple of pieces by Goya, Valezquez, and El Greco. There was 1 DalÍ and a few Picassos and Mirós. It was seriously like a mini-Prado!

I'm the type of nerdy museum goer who reads all the informational plaques and enjoys facts & history behind the art. Unfortunately, it has been so long that I've forgotten almost all that I learned from our visit in December. So I don't have any fun facts to regale. It was super amazing nevertheless. Wes enjoyed himself, too. Our only complaint is the lighting. The paintings were hung extremely high on the wall, almost directly under the lights. It was a little difficult to look at the paintings without seeing a glare (and hurting your neck!). 

It was so great to go to Rainbow Vomit and The Meadows Museum. They were both spectacular but so different. I love how art can express so many things and make you feel so much wonder. It was a wonderful birthday trip. I'm crossing my fingers that we can do more travelling in 2022. 🤞