Cowboy Take Me Away (Dallas, Part 1)
Travelin' Soldier
Work trips aren't usually worth writing home about. Most of my daytime travels whisk me deep into the heart of North Carolina: the gleaming monoliths of Rockingham, the lush groves of Eden, or perhaps the hustle and bustle of Jacksonville (NC, not FL). If you're reading this from anywhere outside of North Carolina, be sure to visit these cities before anywhere like Charlotte or Wilmington1.
This is all to say I don't leave the state for work very often. So, when a company offers to pay for your flights, lodging, and food to stay at a resort in Dallas in exchange for a few classes required to maintain your engineering license, you say yes. Morgan and I touched down yesterday afternoon and tipped our hats to the city we would be calling home for the next few nights.
Since the conference we were attending wasn't to start until the following afternoon, we spent the day crawling around the concrete jungle of our resort, the Gaylord Texan2. The resort is essentially a large atrium with offshoot limbs towards our rooms, convention center, pools, and more. The picture does not do justice on how large this atrium is. I'm currently typing this from within its walls, and I may as well be outside for how open it feels.
Exploring the resort was a great excuse to stretch our legs from the plane we squeezed in a mere hour prior. We walked past large games of chess, checkers, and Connect 4 (of which Morgan swiftly dominated me in all three) before taking a quick dip in the outdoor pool. It was around this time that I got a hankering for some good ol' Texan beef and discovered a nearby spot called Mac's on Main. Many of you will be disgusted by the picture below, but trust me when I tell you this was one of the best prime ribs I've ever had the pleasure of consuming. It simply melted in your mouth, and the entire meal cost less than $50! Time will tell if any future Dallas meals hold a candle to this one.
