The wife, kids and I took a four night mini break to Dallas/Fort Worth over the Memorial Day weekend. The trip started off in a eventful way, while driving through Oklahoma, we were following about 1/4 mile behind an older Ford Explorer which had a tyre blowout at 70mph which pitched the vehicle off the road. Obviously we stopped to help, we found the vehicle at rest against the central barrier at a 45° angle, luckily myself and others got the mother and child out of the car and no-one was hurt which is amazing given the impact, which says a lot about the safety of Ford vehicles.
When we arrived at the Comfort Inn hotel in Terrell, which is about 40 miles outside of Dallas at about 7:30pm and all I wanted to do was lay down and sleep after driving 300 miles of the approximately 400 miles from Wichita, KS. But Erin wanted to meet up with her friends, which we did, we ate at the local Applebees restaurant, which was fine, very typical Americana cuisine.
On day two; we visited Sea Life Aquarium and LegoLand Discovery Center in Grapevine, which was a little on the expensive side in my view, we paid $112 for two adults and two kids for a ticket to both attractions. Sea Life was well done but pretty small, which is unsurprising given that it was located in a mall. LegoLand was fun for the kids; but for adults it has limited appeal, at least in my view.
On day three, we attended a BBQ at Erin’s friends sister’s house out in the sticks about 15 minutes outside of Terrell, which was nice, everyone lapped up my four year old daughter who apparently has developed a British accent, which neither myself or Erin had noticed. Neither myself or Erin ate anything because was had a large breakfast at IHOP just before attending the BBQ. We finished off the day with a McDonalds; which was the kids choice, personally I despise mainstream fast food!
On day four, we visited the Dallas Aquarium, which was a much larger and a much more enjoyable experience than the Grapevine Sea Life. I did take photos but having to deal with kids causing chaos, they didn’t come out well as I didn’t have time to tweak settings. My son, Conner was acting like the World was ending during the whole day because we forced him to put down his PS Vita to experience new things, which dulled my enjoyment of the Aquarium somewhat. We ended the final day meeting with another one of Erin’s friends at The Cheesecake Factory in Arlington, TX.
Day five was the six hour drive back home to Kansas, which was not that exciting but I got to take my new (2012) Ford Fusion on a long distance trip and it performed perfectly, has added tech to make the time go by faster and it drives better than our other car, a 2006 Saturn Vue V6. Road trips in SUV’s are not much fun because of the handling being a high sided vehicle. It was nice to get away from Wichita for a few days and was good to see Erin happier being back home in Dallas/Fort Worth.