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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My collection of all the artworks with dogs. 💗

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

 

Proof that we did more than just eat on this trip. LOL

Its been a good long while since we took a vacation. We drove to St. Louis, MO (with stops in Bentonville, Springfield, and Tulsa) for a concert in late September. 🚗We did plenty of fun sightseeing, but first ... food. 😋 Sadly, we didn't get to eat at as many restaurants as I had originally planned. I didn't do proper Google research; one of the restaurants I wanted to try closed early (Nathaniel Reid Bakery) and another one was closed the day we were in town (Basil India). Despite that, we still got to try lots of new delicious foods.

Andrea told me about the Crystal Bridges Art Museum in Bentonville, AR and when I mapped it, it ended up being a really good half-way point. We stopped in on our first day and had lunch at the museum's restaurant, Eleven. The fries were soooo salty but in a good way (Wes said they were too salty but I thought they were perfect!) 🍟He got a smash burger and I got the "Bentonville" hot chicken sandwich, their take on Nashville hot chicken. It wasn't very spicy but still spicy. The two extremely nice & friendly employees behind the counter compared it to the spiciness level of Taco Bell's hot sauce. I tried a trendy new shrub soda, and it was not for me -- too earthy/healthy tasting. I got the pineapple shrub and it tasted mostly of shrub (vinegar & ginger) and barely of pineapple. 

We went to Tavola Trottoria for dinner. It was one of the highest ranked restaurants in town but I think their 4.8 stars were for atmosphere and decor rather than the food. The food wasn't bad but I don't think I would go again. I got the eggplant & goat cheese lasagna and Wes got a chicken dish -- don't remember what exactly. The best thing we got was our appetizer. We got bruschetta layered with brie and a pesto fig compote spread. Our waiter was super nice & attentive, and the restaurant was very fancy so I guess it was worth the trip.

The next morning, we went to Crepes Paulette for breakfast. There was construction on the surrounding streets so we parked somewhat close and walked. I thought it would be okay to walk a few blocks on a September morning... nope. It was almost 90℉ by 11am. 😫 The restaurant was right next to a coffee place so I politely asked the owner if we could get coffee from next door and bring it in to have with our breakfast. (Wes gets so embarrassed when I ask questions but the owner, Paulette I'm guessing, was super chill about it.) My crepes are ranked a close second for best meal I had on this trip. I got a pumpkin pie crepe, which was good, but my second crepe was AMAZING. It was their Elvis crepe, which had bacon & bananas, slathered with peanut butter and covered in maple syrup. 😋 Wes got a strawberries & crème fresh one.

I wanted a Lumberjack latte (white chocolate and maple spice) but they were out of one of the syrups - I can't remember which one, so I told the barista to just sub it with whatever she thought would taste most comparable. She did a good job but I don't think I liked it as much as I would have liked it with what it was supposed to be made with. Wes got his usual cold brew with oat milk.

We had lunch on the road (I had a bag of taco pizza flavored chips from Casey's gas station) and made it to St. Louis for dinner. We went to The Vine Café. My dinner was my favorite meal of the entire trip. This was the first time I ever tried Lebanese food. And now I want to eat it a million times more! LOL I wanted the cilantro chicken but they were out (we got there around 8pm so it wasn't too late but a lot of places close early in St. Louis), so I got a Mediterranean kafta instead. It was like a mix of Indian and Mediterranean food, not spicy like Indian but a similar blend of spices. Wes got the lamb kebob. Our dinners came with soup and the soup of the day was lentil curry. It was the best lentil soup ever! The portions were gigantic; we had enough for dinner the next night. 

We went to MoKaBe's Coffee House for breakfast the next morning. Another place with cute vibes but not so great food. 😕 (and also less cute than Tavola)  I thought we were both ready to order so I went up to the counter, turns out Wes hadn't fully looked at the menu and had no idea what he wanted. He hastily ordered a breakfast burrito and said it was bad. His chief complaint being that the salsa and guacamole in the burrito tasted store-bought. I got a ham breakfast sandwich on an everything bagel. It was okay but my bagel was not "everything." It probably had a light sprinkle of seasoning at best, more like an itty bitty dash of it. I must have been underwhelmed with my coffee because I'm looking over pictures and I cannot even remember what I had.

We walked around the Central West End district all day and I stopped in Clementine's Naughty or Nice ice cream parlor for a snack (Wes got a cold brew from Starbucks instead). 🍦I should have taken more pictures because this was the most adorable little place. I wanted a sticker but they only had iron-on patches of the design I liked. There was lots of other merch, too, but I didn't get any. They had "naughty" booze infused flavors and "nice" vegan choices. I stuck with regular ol' non-alcoholic dairy ice cream. There were TONS flavors I would have liked to try, and I'm sure they offer samples, but the girl behind the counter seemed very unhappy to be at work and I didn't want to further ruin her day by asking her to actually do her job. So I just ordered a flavor I knew I would like. I got the "Blue moon", which was a blue raspberry lemonade ice cream in a lavender cone. It was very very good.  

The next morning we had our last meal in St. Louis at the Courtesy Diner. If you imagine an old timey 24-hour diner from any movie or pop culture reference, this place resembles it to a tee. I got the "hangover" and Wes got the standard 2 eggs with choice of meat breakfast meal. I never thought to put sausage gravy over a chicken fried steak but it works! Both of our meals were delicious. And very filling, which was perfect because we didn't stop for lunch on the drive to Tulsa.

We had dinner at Kirin in Tulsa. We were dressed in very casual "I'm going to sit in a car all day wearing this comfy outfit" clothes and this place is meant for patrons who dressed a bit nicer. 😬 Nevertheless, we were seated and our waitress didn't mind. Wes got Singapore noodles and I got sushi. 🍣 This was the first time I've seen colorful roe. I'm sure each color tasted different but I was mostly impressed by how pretty it was. 😅 I don't remember what was in my colorful sushi, but the other roll I ordered was the classic spicy tuna. I liked both my rolls and enjoyed how much pickled ginger came on my plate. 

Wes likes stopping for coffee on road trips and I like stopping at boba cafés. I knew we'd be driving through Tulsa so I looked up boba places and found Bo's Boba. It doesn't sound as funny now as I type it but I had a whale of a laugh when I said it out loud for the first time. Oh, the hilarious alliteration!! 😂 Wes got a fruit tea and I got a raspberry milk tea with crystal boba. The milk tea was genuinely very good, but raspberry was not the correct flavor to add into it. I thought it would taste like strawberry milk... instead it tasted weird and tart. 

And thus concludes another foodie adventure. Next up is pictures from all the touristy sightseeing we did!

Wes and Erica's vacation photo album // Mount Magazine, AR // February 2023

Wes & I took the dogs on our first family vacation! 🐕🐶 Back in the day, Kensington and Sadie always either stayed at the vet's or my mom's house when I travelled, and Athena and Zephyr go to Lucky Dog Lodge when Wes & I go on vacation. Since we were going somewhere pet friendly, I decided to bring the dogs along with us. 🌄 We all went to Mount Magazine State Park in Arkansas.

I've never visited Mount Magazine but Wes did several times as a child. I've also never been legit camping, as in pitching a tent and roughing it outdoors, so I decided for us that renting a cabin is the better option. 🏡 The Lodge at Mount Magazine is beautiful and the cabins are so so nice. The last time I stayed in a cabin was when my family used to go to Lake Murray and Turner Falls when I was in elementary school. Those cabins were awful so I didn't know what to expect; cabins have come a long way in 30 years!

It was a loooong 4.5 hour drive to get there. We packed both dogs' beds to lay across the backseat for them. Athena did great in the car and napped a majority of the way. Zephyr was a nervous wreck the ENTIRE drive. We made a half-way stop for lunch and potty breaks but Zephyr was still not having it. (We'll need more practice in the car before going on our next vacation.) The drive into Arkansas is pretty boring and ugly. Luckily, the scenery changed once we got to the Ozarks so the last leg of our trip was beautiful. 🌲🌄🌳 This was my first time driving through the Ozarks (or any mountains in general). I was a bit nervous at first to drive through mountainous terrain but the roads were really wide and not as twisty as I anticipated. Plus, I drive a freakin' Subaru Forrester... this is what my car is made for!! LOL It was a very easy drive both up & down the mountain.

We stopped in Paris, AR for groceries on our way to into the State Park. Wes stayed in the car with the dogs when I went in. I came out and said that the employees at the Paris Wal-Mart are so nice and not even racist. An employee politely informed me that they don't carry fresh produce, and then the cashier chatted with me like I was one of them. Wes acted surprised and told me that we're only a couple of streets away from Klan Street... Klan with a "K". 😂 

Our first stop was to check in at the Lodge at Mount Magazine. The front desk employees were also as friendly as can be (shout out to Charles and Brayden!!) We got assigned Cabin #4 for our stay. The cabin is gigantic -- bigger than the apartment we lived in when we first got married--  fully furnished and equipped with anything you could ask for. It's clean, modern, and nicer than an expensive hotel room. I was super impressed!

The pros of going to a State Park during the off season are that it is so quiet and we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Wes agreed and said his favorite part of our vacation was the peace and quiet. We were the only table when we had breakfast at the Skycrest restaurant, and there were probably only 1 or 2 other tables when we were there for dinner.  Our cabin neighbors hadn't checked in, yet (they did the day we left), and the we had the trails all to ourselves. The cons of visiting during the off season is the weather. 🌦☔🌧 It rained all morning the day we arrived so it was too muddy to do anything, and it rained another day while we were there. We only had one day to enjoy the outdoors. 

Quick run down of our trip - 
DAY 1 - checked into our cabin, unpacked, and wound down from the drive. We were all tired and the dogs were confused & discombobulated. After a power nap, we took the dogs exploring the area around the cabin and lodge. The dinner special at the lodge was pot-roast with mashed potatoes and glazed carrots. It sounded really yummy but we had bought groceries so we decided to stay in. We relaxed and watched The Masked Singer (I was so upset that the Night Owl got voted off 😠). 

DAY 2 - Wes and I went for breakfast at the Skycrest restaurant. It is the highest dining room in the state of Arkansas. I got their standard breakfast and thought it was bland, and the coffee tasted weird. I loved how they cooked my hashbrowns though. Wes said the coffee was weak, but over all his breakfast tasted fine. I then remembered that food tastes less flavorful in higher altitude (fun fact thanks to No Such Thing as a Fish podcast). Breakfast wasn't bad but it also wasn't anything to write home about.

After breakfast, we drove into Havana (a TINY town just at the foot of the mountain) to visit Wes's grandpa's headstone at the cemetery. We brought flowers. The cemetery is well maintained and has a nice view toward the mountains. After that, we gathered up the dogs and headed out to hike!

There are a lot of trails on the mountain, we picked the shortest and easiest one. We chose Signal Hill Trail. It leads up the mountain to the highest point in the state. It was about a mile hike. I was worried about the elevation (I have gotten elevation sickness before 🤮) but we all did just fine. Athena did so well on the hike! 🐕 I was really surprised how quickly she adapted and took to mountain life. Neither of the dogs are outdoorsy and the most nature they've experienced is our daily walks around the neighborhood on my lunch break, so I wasn't sure how they'd do on this trip. I assumed that dogs are wild creatures so they'd enjoy themselves once we got here. Athena certainly did but Zephyr is 100% a city dog. He hated every second of being out in nature. Poor pup! 

Zephyr pulled on his leash and was skittish the entire hike. The first thing he did when we arrived at the top was take a nervous pee. On our way down the mountain, we ran into a nice family of hikers and he completely lost his shit. No more outdoor vacations for him 😟

Wes and the dogs wanted to rest after our hike so I dropped them off at the cabin and headed out again. I really enjoyed hiking and was going to make the most of being in the mountains! 🥾 While I felt the vigor of the mountain air, I knew I am not fit enough to do a solo hike so I just took the long way (the unpaved part behind the cabins) to the lodge gift shop. I passed a few butterfly gardens and the rock climbing entrance. Once inside, I picked out some nice post cards for my pen pals and then hung out on the patio. I was fortunate enough to catch the sunset. 🌄 I would totally do another camping/hiking vacation, but maybe just with me & Athena the next time around.

We had dinner at the Skycrest restaurant. Dinner was infinitely better than breakfast. 😋 Wes thought his broccoli was over seasoned, but I loved that everything was too salty. They didn't have a dinner special that night so they just served their regular menu. My chicken fried steak was delicious and the green beans were the star of the plate. Wes got the fish & chips. Their tarter sauce is the best I've ever had (yes, I stole some fries off his plate). Mount Magazine is located in a dry county (Yell County) so the only way to order alcohol is to obtain membership. Our waiter signed me up and now I'm a member of Skycrest's Private Membership Club. Fancy! 🍹 I got the bramble blackberry wheat beer and Wes got the largest cocktail I have ever seen. The Ranger Ricky (a mojito with gin) was served in a full sized water glass. 

DAY 3 - I planned for us to go hike the Benefield West Loop. 🏞 It is the other trail labeled "easy" and it is only a mile long. It leads to a pond and picnic area. I thought it would be a nice scenic route and we could have a snack at the end, but I checked the weather on our way out and saw that it would start raining in about half an hour. 😑🌧 The forecast was 100% rain so I wasn't going to risk it. There was no way we'd finish our hike before the rain came. Instead, I decided to take us into town. We visited Paris! ... well, Paris, Arkansas. LOL 

There's not a lot in Paris, AR, but they do have a town square with a replica of the Eiffel Tower. Its a cute little park. They supposedly also have a fabric shop (according to Google) but I doubted it was pet friendly, so I skipped.

There was a café (True Grit Coffee ☕) that Wes wanted to go in, and I didn't mind either waiting on the sidewalk or staying in the car with the dogs, but I think he was too stressed to enjoy a cup. Athena, once again did great while we were in town, while Zephyr was scared of the traffic and noise. [It sounds like I'm complaining and hating on poor Baby Z, but I am really just disappointed in myself as a pet owner.😕 I took Athena everywhere with me when she was a puppy so she loves people and activities. Unfortunately for Zephyr, he was adopted right before the pandemic so he never got to experience the dog friendly world. I got lazy and stopped taking them out even after things started to open up again. I thought I could acclimate him to it now, but it definitely did not work.]

Athena and I walked around the town square, and her eyes lit up when she saw the stairs leading up to the courthouse. We lived in a second floor apartment we first adopted her. She loved running up the stairs. She would try to race Sadie up the stairs and if Wes was standing in the doorway, I'd let her off her leash and she would bolt up to meet him. I completely forgot about that but Athena remembered! She tugged on her leash and lead me up to the courthouse. We ran up & down the stairs, and then she saw a second building with stairs and we ran up & down those as well. I think that was the highlight of her trip! 

It stayed cloudy the rest of the day so we couldn't get our second family hike in before we left. We drove out of Arkansas and straight home. I genuinely had a great time (and Wes said it was a good trip, too); I was hoping we could start a new family tradition of visiting State Parks but I don't think this trip was right for the dogs. Turns out, we're city people through and through. I loved our cabin adventure and being in the mountains but for our next vacation, we'll drop the dogs off at doggie boarding camp and Wes & I will visit a metropolitan city with museums and new restaurant concepts to try instead. 😂

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!)