Wes and Erica's vacation photo album // Carrollton, TX // December 2022

When you're 38, you get excited about -- beef jerky case at Buc-ee's, a gorgeous quilt at Not Your Mama's Quilt Store, and gazebo at Historic Downtown Carrollton

Last week, we took my annual birthday trip to Carrollton Town Center. ☕🍙🍜🍨🍣 We ate lots of yummy Asian food and did our shopping, per usual, but new this year was the addition of fabric shopping! 😄 I found three fabric stores in the area, and Wes found an authorized Gundam model kit retailer. First, pictures of food, then shopping...

We got into town mid-afternoon so we started with a light lunch. We went to Frankseoul for Korean hotdogs. I got the "half & half dog", which was part hot dog and part mozzarella stick rolled in a crispy batter. They had a bunch of dipping sauces; I got honey garlic, hot sauce, and ketchup. For dessert, I got a dalgona ice cream sundae. 🍨 It was sooooo good!!! It was soft-serve ice cream topped with caramel and bits of dalgona cookies. The cookies were a little too sweet by themself but tasted great in the sundae. Wes got a sujeongwa drink, which is a cinnamon punch. He was so excited that they had it because he hasn't had it in ages and can't find it anywhere. 

We went to dinner at Too Thai Street Eats. It is the best Thai food I've ever had and the restaurant had a nice vibe, too. I think this is my favorite restaurant we visited this year. I got the boat noodles with beef. I asked for a 1.5 - 2 spiciness level but it was still too spicy for me to drink the broth. For our appetizer, we ordered the pork Thai sausage. I thought they were really good but Wes said they had too much ginger in them. He got the pad Thai and said it was good but didn't share my opinion of it being the best Thai restaurant. 

The next morning, we went to 99 Ranch for breakfast and groceries. There is only one place I've found in OKC that has congee with bits of preserved black eggs in it, and its only available for dim sum. 😒 Since we rarely get dim sum here, I wait literally all year to get my bowl of congee from 99 Ranch. It is always my favorite breakfast. 🥣 Wes got a pastry with all of his favorite ingredients - coconut, raisins, and almonds. We bought lots of chips, candy, and other non-perishable grocery items. My mom only uses a specific brand of egg noodles (that has 2 chickens on the packaging 🐓🐓). Cao Nguyen stopped carrying them so she's been lamenting each time we go over to her house for won tons. We found that exact brand at 99 Ranch so, of course we stocked up! LOL

For lunch, we returned to BCD Tofu House. It was my favorite restaurant when we visited for my birthday last year. I was so excited to return but was underwhelmed this time around. 🙁 It had to have been what I ordered because Wes said his meal was just as good as last year's. I got the soon tofu with tripe. I was worried it would be too spicy so I ordered it plain. It was definitely plain... too plain. It didn't have any spice in it and it tasted gamey because of the intestines. I should have stuck with seafood and a low spiciness level. 

We wanted an afternoon snack and had way too many options to choose from. There was a boba cafè, a place that made crêpes, and an ice cream shop that I was interested in. We decided on none of those. LOL We went to Coconut Paradise. I don't even like coconuts! 😅 This place was absolutely amazing. It's decor is so adorable, the owner is the nicest man ever, and the coconut jelly desserts were so good! 😋 I told the owner that I've never tried coconut jelly so he told us all about them and offered samples. I tried the matcha flavor but ended up with chocolate. The coconut jelly is like a pudding but not as thick. The one I got was topped with Oero bits, M&M's, chocolate syrup, mochi balls and coconut flakes. It didn't really even taste like coconut. Wes got the coconut espresso. He said it was good but wish he got the coconut Thai tea in hindsight. 

For dinner we went to Kura for sushi. It is a sushi train restaurant. The wait was super long and the food was just so so. I think people went for the price. It was only $3.75/plate. I always want sushi on my birthday because it is one of my favorite foods but we haven't had much luck. The place we went to last year also wasn't too impressive. The conveyer belt sushi concept is a fun novelty. And they had a robot with a cat's face that played music while it delivered drinks to the table. That was actually my favorite part of our dinner! 😂 I felt like all of the good sushi items came out after we were already full. If you get 15 or more plates, you get a free prize. We only had 7 but the waiter gave us a prize anyway. He must have sensed it was my birthday! 

Our last meal was breakfast before we headed out for home. We got pastries from 85℃ Bakery. Always a good breakfast! 🍪 We got a little extra for the road home. too! Of the places we ate at, I would want to return to Too Thai Street Eats and Coconut Paradise for seconds. I already picked out restaurants I want to try for next year's birthday trip (a Vietnamese place, a different Thai place and a restaurant called Mad for Chicken -- because the name cracks me up).

Now onto reason #2 for the drive down to Texas... shopping!! Wes and I are mostly minimalists but this is the one time a year we really shop. There are very few things that I like so normally shopping bores me but when it comes to fabric, washi tape and stickers, I lose all self control. LOL We spent the first day going to all the shops at Carrollton Town Center. I got tons of washi tape & small gifts from Teso and Daiso, face masks from K-Pop + and, of course, my tokodoki Unicorno 🦄 Sadly, Teso and Daiso didn't have as much tokidoki stuff as they did previously. 

We went fabric shopping our second day. The first shop we went to was Urban Spools. 😍 It is my new favorite fabric store. It has super contemporary and modern prints like Sewciety in Norman, OK, but it was about three times as big. They had a lot of Ruby Star Society prints and there was an entire shelf of Alexander Henry prints!! I saw a bunch of different designs that I've only seen online. I wanted to buy two yards of everything but I controlled myself. I wandered around the store twice and picked out my absolute favorites to buy. My prized purchase is two yards of Endless Love by Alexander Henry. The print is of two Victorian lovers in the English countryside but they're skeletons.

After Urban Spools (which is in Dallas), we drove to Plano to visit Not Your Mama's Quilt Store. The owner was incredibly nice. I told her this was our first time in because we're from out of town. She gave us a quick tour of the store and free bottled water. She claimed to be a modern quilt store but I don't think they had as much unique fabric as Urban Spools. It was a nice mix of traditional and contemporary fabric. I recognized some of the fabric from the Road to Oklahoma Shop Hop I did with my sewing club friends this summer. I saw a lot that I liked but knew I could purchase it in OKC so I didn't buy much, just a few fat quarters.

While we were in Plano (which is way closer to Carrollton than I thought it would be), we went to HobbyTown USA. I guess there are HobbyTowns all over but this one is special because it is a flagship store for Gundam model kits. A quarter of the store was devoted entirely to Gundams. 🤖 I have never seen a Gundam tv show or have any interest in model kits but this place was pretty neat. There were tons of models! The wallpaper (floor paper?) on the floor was printed with Gundam pieces and there was a gigantic model RX 78-2.

The last fabric shop we went to was back in Carrollton. The Old Craft Store is a very traditional quilt shop (all florals and fabrics in your grandma's sewing room). I didn't like any of the prints. The owners were kind of rude, too.😑 The two women followed us around like we were shop lifters. One of the women seemed annoyed when she asked if she could help me find something and I told her I was just looking around. The only interesting part of the store is the antique fallout shelter. There is a room in the back with tons of old canned goods, boxes of provisions, and other general store items. 

And thus concludes another vacation and the end of my 37th year. The highlight of my year was finally making friends in my sewing club. 😁 I've been a member of The Oklahoma City Chapter of American Sewing Guild for probably 5 or 6 years now and I have always been friendly with all of the ladies. But, this year, I actually made a group of friends who I hang out with regularly outside of sewing club, and we've let each other into our personal lives and have become genuine friends (instead of just casually sewing... which we do plenty of that together, too!) 

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

The last time we were in Dallas (probably 2018 or 2019), I discovered that there was a 99 Ranch - my favorite Asian grocery store, and Wes discovered there was a Kinokuniya - his favorite Japanese bookstore, in the city of Carrollton. They are both in a shopping center with lots of cute shops and tons of restaurants. We decided that the next time we travel to Texas, we'd spend a weekend in Carrollton to eat and shop. We were going to do this for Lunar New Year 2020 but had to postpone due to COVID. Then we were going to in August, but Zephyr got super sick the day before we were supposed to drive out. So, FINALLY, we went for my birthday. This was over a month ago but I'm just now finding time to journal. 

You can't drive by a Buc-ee's and not stop in, so the one in Denton was our first stop. We got there around lunchtime on a Saturday and it was packed. We bought snacks, souvenirs, and lunch... all the things you need to buy when visiting a Buc-ee's. LOL I got a hotdog with dill relish and some potato salad for lunch and Wes got a Lunchable-type thing with cubes of cheese, salami, grapes and almonds. We ate it all before I could take a picture. 

Our next meal was dinner. 🍣 One of Wes's friends from work suggested that we go to Blue Sushi. It is his favorite sushi place and gave Wes a stellar review. I was so pumped to try this place... and it was not as good as I had hoped for 😔 Wes said his friend probably likes this place for its vegan options. I think he likes this place because it's a hip restaurant to impress his girlfriend. LOL I'm almost certain that the patrons dine at Blue for its ambiance and not its sushi. I would compare it to Sushi Neko in OKC. The coolest part was the front room & bar that was Godzilla themed. 🐉 It had murals of scenes from the old movies. We weren't trendy enough to be seated near the front; the hostess sat us in a different dining room that wasn't themed.  

The best part of our meal was the shishito peppers we got for our appetizer. One of my rolls had cilantro in it and the other was rolled in tempura beet flakes -- the two best parts of my dinner. Wes said he liked his sushi alright but there wasn't anything special about it. I was kind of bummed after dinner, so I wanted dessert to compensate. There weren't many places that were both nearby and still open so instead of dessert, we decided on coffee. I am so glad we did because Civil Pour was so good. ☕ I got a caramel apple latte that tasted exactly like the lollipops. 

The next morning, we headed out to our Asian shopping center excursion. We had breakfast at 85℃ Bakery. We've been here before and loved it so had to go again. Dine-in wasn't available, which was actually better because we got to heat up our pastries at the hotel. They would have still tasted amazing at room temperature, but I prefer them warmed up. The potato croquette I got was SO freakin' yummy!! 😋

We spent a majority of the day wandering around the shops. It was a really good shopping day. 😁😍 I bought a ton of snacks, goodies for my pen pals, and even Wes (who never shops) bought a couple of things! Of course, we had to take a boba break so we got drinks from 7 Leaves. I got the mung bean milk tea. It was delicious, no surprise. It had bits of crushed up mung beans and reminded me of the mung bean cakes I liked when I was a kid. 

Next meal was lunch (We did do things in between meals; in case you were wondering. We went to Rainbow Vomit 🌈 and the Meadows Museum, and they will be chronicled in the next blog post.) Wes really likes Korean food but it's just so-so for me. 😕 I try to find different Korean restaurants each time we travel in hopes of finding a dish that I really like. And it worked... I found my favorite Korean dish on this trip!! We went to BCD Tofu House and all they serve is soon tofu soup. It was the absolute best Korean food I have ever eaten. Wes really liked it, too, but he didn't agree that it was the best he's had (he's had the homecooked stuff and you can't beat that).

Soon tofu is soft tofu. The soup is made with lots of different spices, ginger, onion and scallion. Chunks of tofu are added to the broth and then you get your choice of meat. I got the combination with beef, shrimp and clams. You get to pick your spice level (I'm a wimp and got 1 🌶pepper). The soup is served boiling hot in a clay pot with a side of rice, traditional Korean side dishes--one was a whole fried mackerel 😋--and a raw egg that you crack into the soup. The restaurant had televisions playing informative videos about how to cook the soup, the proper way to eat it and BCD's annual spicy soup eating competition. 

For dinner, we had Pakistani food at BBQ Tonite. 🍛 I was still pretty full from lunch so I don't think I liked the food as much as I would have if we hadn't eaten a ton just a few hours previously. We shared the beef seekh kebab and rice with lamb. Wes really liked the spice blend they used. It was a good meal albeit a bit too spicy for me. 

Our final meal was breakfast the next morning. When we were shopping at the grocery store the day before, I noticed that 99 Ranch had dim sum at their hot deli. And on their dim sum menu was congee, like the legit congee with salted pork and black preserved egg. OM-freakin'-G!!! I am the only person in my family who likes congee so it's never cooked at family dinners, and you can't find it at many restaurants around here. I was ecstatic!!! I wasn't hungry when we went shopping so I didn't get any... when we returned for breakfast the next morning, I made a beeline for the dim sum and asked for congee. The cook said it wasn't done yet and I would need to wait 5 - 10 minutes. Wes got his breakfast (a pastry and some tea) and we wandered around the store a bit, patiently awaiting. As soon as the 10 minutes had passed, I rushed back to the deli and the cook handed me a steaming hot bowl. I triumphantly brought it to our table and devoured it.  I also got some fried stuffed eggplant, which was also delicious.

We stopped in IKEA on our way home. I got a table for my serger and we got a (much needed) new dining room table. We spent three days in Carrollton and ate as much as we could. SO MUCH GOOD FOOD. Our hotel was only a block away from the Asian shopping center so we had every meal (except for sushi) there. I almost wish we had something like that in Oklahoma but then I think it would take the fun out of travelling for good authentic Asian food. And I would probably be broke from shopping --or I would just have the most awesome collection of stickers & washi tape. LOL Anyway, it was the perfect way for me to spend my birthday! 🎂

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wes & Erica's vacation photo album - Iowa City, Riverside and Dubuque, IA - October/November 2021

Part 2 of our road trip was to drive to Iowa City for my coworker, Audrey's wedding. The drive from Kansas City to Iowa City was only about 4.5 hours but it felt like forever. There was some pretty fall foliage but the majority of the landscape was boring and flat. There was a terrifying amount of splattered & dismembered roadkill - mostly deer - along our way, and part of the highway into Iowa was painted red, which looked alarming at first. 

I normally don't note the hotels we stay at because they're all standard, nice and accommodating. But... the hotel we stayed at in Iowa City (The Hartland Inn in Coralville) was kind of awful. 👎 First off, it was OLD and the owners seemed to show no interest in renovating it. Our room's window a/c unit was from the previous century and it could not regulate the temperature at all ... it was either freezing cold or 90 degrees with no in between. The bed was very used and the shower sucked. The only good part was that management put a nice welcome sign on the marquee for Audrey's wedding. You can't really see in the picture but it reads, Welcome Strike/Brady Wedding.

Before heading out, I asked Audrey for restaurant suggestions. She suggested Big Grove Brewery for dinner and I am so glad we went. 🍺 Besides her wedding, Big Grove Brewery was the best part of Iowa... seriously, it's the highlight of the entire state. LOL It is a large taproom and restaurant. It was crowded the night we went but since it was so large, we could still get a table away from the crowds and hear ourselves talk. The music was loud but not too loud. It felt intimate even though it was very busy. Extremely good atmosphere!

The brewery is famous for their Easy Eddy IPA. It won a "Best IPA in Iowa" award. They were also releasing a new beer, the Royal Eddy. It is similar to the Easy Eddy but with more citrus and a much higher alcohol content. We both sampled some and surprisingly, Wes liked it more than I did (he normally hates IPAs). I also got a pumpkin stout --very good, my favorite of the night. Wes got an oatmeal coffee stout. 

I got a banh mi for my meal and Wes got a pretzel. He said the pretzel and mustard was good but the cheese sauce was oddly runny. After a few more meals in Iowa, we discovered that most of their dipping sauces are runny. My banh mi was served open faced, which was unusual but it was still very tasty. My favorite part was the pâté. They used a fried slice (think upscale SPAM) instead of the spread.

For breakfast the next morning, we went to The Dandy Lion. This was Wes's favorite breakfast place throughout our entire trip. The Dandy Lion is a popular and local spot downtown. There was a wait since we went on a Sunday morning. No worries, I thought, we're downtown... there will be something to do while we wait. There was not. Since it was a Sunday morning, everything was closed 😖 not like there was much to do anyway, just a few shops and boutiques. I soon discovered that there is pretty much nothing touristy to do in Iowa. Regardless, breakfast was well worth the wait because it was delicious. I got the salmon toast and Wes got the standard two egg breakfast. The menu described the salmon toast as being topped with two "cuddly poached" eggs. That along with the chai tea latte did make me feel warm and cuddly. 😊 

Long before our trip, I randomly told my hairdresser that we'd be driving to Iowa for a wedding in the autumn. She asked if I liked Star Trek and then suggested that we go see the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk. I am not a Star Trek fan but my mom's husband, Mike, is. I filed it away as something to do if we had extra time. Since Iowa boasts of absolutely ZERO tourist attractions, we had plenty of time to drive to Riverside to see the Star Trek attraction. 

The future birthplace is the tiny town of Riverside's claim to fame. The mayor decided to designate his town as the birthplace after he noticed that the show stated Iowa as Captain Kirk's hometown. No one questioned it and now it is all over Riverside. You can see signs highlighting and pointing travelers to the birthplace as soon as you pull in to the town. 

The tombstone (birthstone??) is tucked away on a residential street by the post office, a dance studio and barber shop. The area it is in is nicely landscaped and it was a fun stop to make, even if I haven't seen a single episode of the show. LOL I hope you're reading this, Mike, because these pictures are for you! 

The next thing we did was celebrate Audrey & Ryan's wedding. I'll do a separate post on that since I took a million pictures. The next day, we had breakfast at the Blue Bird Diner, another of Audrey's suggestions. It was good but not as good as the breakfast we had at The Dandy Lion. Wes go the standard two egg breakfast (again) and he said the pecan smoked bacon stood out to him. I got a jambalaya inspired omelet that had the best herbed whipped cream cheese. The hashbrowns were also really good. 

After breakfast, we drove to The House on the Rock, which will have to be another blog post because I took literally over 100 pictures. That evening for dinner, we had dinner in Dubuque, Iowa. Marco's Italian & American Foods is a tiny local establishment that has been in Dubuque since the beginning of time (or so it seemed). I'm not sure if it was because we hadn't eaten anything since our early breakfast or if the food at Marco's really is that good but that meal was the best Italian food I've had in a long time, if ever. Wes passed on his salad since he saw from another table that it looked like grocery store salad out of a bag, but he missed out because the house Cesar dressing was so good! We both thoroughly enjoyed our meals. 

I had a hard time finding a good breakfast place in Dubque for the following morning. I settled on Dottie's Cafè but at the last minute, I discovered Habits Donuts & Coffee -- a trendy hipster donut shop with a "build your own donut" option. 🍩 I was so excited and craving donuts as we drove. When we got there, there was a sign on the door stating they were temporarily closed for the week. SAD FACE!!! I still wanted donuts so we went to the second best donut shop, per Google's reviews, Donut Boy. It was barf. 😩🤮 Since we were still hungry, we went to Dottie's after all. It was also suboptimal. I got the loose meat sandwich. It was their lunch special for the day and I wanted to try a loose meat sandwich while in the Midwest (one of the signature dishes). It was a bland and dry sloppy joe. Not good. Oh, I almost forgot... there was one good thing at Dottie's - her potato and ham soup (and it wasn't just me being a picky eater, Wes hated his meal, too).

After that disappointing meal, we left Iowa and headed to our next destination. We needed to stop for gas, snacks and drinks, and our halfway point was Peoria, IL. Boba always cheers me up so I looked for a boba café. Dang Banh Mi was the only place in town so we went. I got a strawberry milk tea with their house boba pearls. They're made with caramelized brown sugar and are softer & chewier than regular boba. I did not like them. Tuesday November 2, 2021 will be recorded as the worst travel day for food. But, our next stop is St. Louis and we had plenty of delicious food there!! 

Wes & Erica's vacation photo album - Tulsa, OK - September 2021

We're travelling again!! It was a short "practice run" trip this time around but we are hoping to take actual road trips soon. 😁 Since everyone loves (#sarkmark) looking at their friend's vacation photos, here's our Tulsa vacation album. 

NOTE: I know it's annoying to share vacation & food pictures, but these have really helped us out. There have been so many times when Wes or I will say, "where was that awesome brunch place we went to in Texas with the blah blah dish and the great coffee," and I've been able to find pictures/descriptions from previous blog posts. Great for my failing memory! 

We went to Tulsa mainly to go to the Philbrook art museum to see the Dalí's Alice in Wonderland exhibit.

We started with lunch at the museum café. Wes got the s'mores pancakes (with eggs and bacon) and I got the pimento cheese toast. It was a gigantic sandwich instead of toast. The pimento cheese was good... the rest of it was not. 😒 I've never had challah bread before... and I learned that I do not like it. There was also a red pepper jelly on the sandwich that I wasn't too fond of. The tomato soup was amazing, though. 

After lunch, we strolled the museum's garden (before it got too hot... which it was already hot but there was a breeze and, luckily, a majority of the gardens are under shade). We went in search of all the sculptures and cats. We saw one cat and all but two of the sculptures. My favorite part of the garden was the cabin. It is a beautiful modern log cabin with stained glass windows and a glass roof covered in colorful papier maché.

We also ventured through the Victory Garden. The café's menu offered a Victory Garden salad and I was curious about this garden. It mostly grew squash.

Garden stroll is over... time to go inside!

The Dalí's Alice in Wonderland exhibit was so good! At first, I was surprised at how small the exhibit was, but then I realized that he only illustrated one book... and one book can only have so many pictures. LOL The drawings and concepts are a perfect blending of Salvador Dalí's work and the telling of Alice's time in Wonderland. I liked that Dalí blended his signature elements into the drawings. 

Since we were already there, we took some time to browse the remaining exhibits at the museum. I'm sure I'm biased, but I think the Oklahoma City Museum of Art has a better permanent collection. But, then again, the Philbrook has a mummy so maybe it wins. LOL 

After we finished up with the museum, we drove about half an hour out of our way to get boba tea at Boss Tea. It was soooo worth it! I brought my mask from Babble (boba tea in OKC) on our trip and I thought, "oh no, I'm going to go in wearing a competitor's mask... oh, but we're in Tulsa, no one will know what Babble is." The first thing the barista did when she saw us walk  in was ask if I was wearing a Babble mask! 😮 Turns out, she is originally from Oklahoma City and loves Babble, too. LOL I got the brown sugar matcha milk tea with boba and it was probably the most delicious one I've ever had. Their cups are made from a thicker plastic than the regular boba cups and the lid has a cap, which is great for people like me who take forever to finish their drinks.

Next stop was resting at the hotel. I'm old and can't pack my days with activities like I used to. 😆 Oh, we went to Barnes & Noble when we first got into town so I could buy my Unicorno. I started a tradition of buying a tokidoki Unicorno figurine from every place we vacation... and the first place I bought one was at this Barnes & Noble when we saw Judas Priest in 2018. After resting up, we headed out to dinner. As we were walking to dinner, we passed this art space with a very interesting-looking exhibit.

But, no time to stop in... we had reservations at Sisserou's and it was time to eat! Sisserou's is a Caribbean restaurant. I've never had Caribbean food and was eager to try it. We started with bread and a very spicy habanero sauce. The waiter said it was "no joke" and he wasn't lying. I couldn't handle it but Wes loved it. We wanted a bottle to take home but they didn't sell any. Wes got the shrimp curry and I got the house burger. Both were fantastic! The cocktails were tasty, too! The elotè was the best part of the meal.

Our extremely friendly waiter suggested a tiki bar or a posh bar "where you can go if you want your bartender to talk down to you" for after dinner but instead, I rushed us back to the art space with the interesting dresses. The exhibit closed at 9pm and we were those horrible people who show up 15 minutes before closing expecting a tour. 😅

We had to run through the exhibit pretty quickly so I didn't really get to learn about the artist's vision or message. I believe it was one of those "stick it to The Man" protest pieces.  I thought the dresses were really cool and sort of haunting at the same time. 

DAY 2 - The Cave House!!!

The main reason why we stayed overnight in Tulsa instead of just taking a quick day trip was because I wanted to tour the Cave House. Our tour was at 12:30pm so we had some time to kill in the morning. We had breakfast at Savoy and did some shopping at The Farm Market (I think that was what it was called... I didn't take any pictures). We stopped in a yarn shop, Get Stitchin', and I almost bought a ton of wool merino yarn for a sweater Lacey & I have on our "things to crochet" list but I stopped myself. 

Wes got the traditional two egg breakfast, which he thought was good, and I got the eggs benedict. I'm glad I like hollandaise sauce because it was literally covered in it. Savoy is known for its cinnamon rolls but we were so full after breakfast that we didn't get one. Next time!

The Cave House was the highlight of the trip for me! Linda, the owner and tour guide, is a wonderful host and great storyteller. She bought the house on a whim and learned all about its history. It was formerly a speakeasy and warehouse for bootleggers. It's now decorated with finds from "curbby's boutique" which is things Linda has picked up from the curb on Big Trash day. LOL The house's renovations relies heavily on Elmer's glue (which she says is the only thing that works with the house's natural moisture). She's added crumpled up Wal-Mart plastic bags to the wall for a textured effect. It looks so good... maybe I should try that for our next decorating project! 

Linda collects keys and I wish I knew because we have a random set of keys that the previous owner left in our house that don't go to any lock. I would have totally brought them for her! She installed a slide that goes from the bed room to the sun room. She slid down and pointed at me to slide down next (she singled me out as the "cool kid" 😎). I would have slid down even if she didn't pick me! At the end of the tour, she had us all sign the guest book and say what our favorite thing about the house was. I said the mastodon tooth and Wes decided on the collection of bones. She also insisted on taking our pictures. 

We had originally planned to visit the Vintage Sewing Machine Museum but it was temporarily closed due to the pandemic so instead, we drove along Route 66. We stopped in Decopolis per Linda's suggestion. It is a local gift shop with fun statues around the perimeter. We also had lunch in the Mother Road Market -- a local food court. I know this is me being biased again, but The Collective Food Court in OKC is way better. LOL We got lunch at an Asian fusion restaurant. Wes got the kimchi burger and I got the satay Thai  fries. I don't even remember what it was called but neither of us were impressed with our meal. And, that's a wrap on Tulsa. It was a nice two days filled with art and food... two of my favorite things!