A Big New Year's in Big D (and not so small Ft. Worth)

Monday, December 30 - We flew out today in  beautiful weather to Dallas for a New Year's trip.that was rescheduled from our original plan to drive there from Destin.  We had a couple of big events to attend including a NYE concert at the world's largest honkey tonk, Billy Bob's, in Ft. Worth and seeing our hometown Nashville Predators take on Dallas at the Cotton Bowl for this year's outdoor NHL Winter Classic! 

I took this artsy kind of shot coming in to land at Dallas.  At first I thought it was just kind of neat looking, but now I think it looks more like Dallas after a nuclear attack.  Yikes!

We got some terrible news when we landed.  Our cat sitter, Anjie, called us to say that our 16-year-old cat, Ms. Bea, was not doing well at her place where we dropped her off yesterday.  Anjie took her to the vet and the diagnosis was not good.  We both talked to Ms. Bea over the phone just before the vet planned to euthanize her, but she passed on before that had to be done.  We were devastated and briefly considered cancelling our trip, but with nothing that could be done, we trudged on with heavy hearts.  An entire blog entry will be dedicated to our sweet girl coming next.  

We choose a pretty sweet ride from a group of mid-range SUVs available at Thrifty Car Rental.  This GMC  Terrain was roomy and comfortable for our jaunt around Dallas/Ft.Worth.

Our first stop was the infamous grassy knoll along Daley Plaza in downtown Dallas where President Kennedy was assassinated.  Ashlee had driven through her before on a work trip, but I have never been here and was shocked at how small the entire area is and how the book depository building to the left just looms ominously over the whole area.  The tours to the 6th Floor Museum in the aforementioned book depository building were sold out for the day so we bought tickets for tomorrow online while we strolled around the area.  We had a tasty lunch a few blocks away at a little place called Latin Deli.

We headed west about 30 miles to downtown Ft. Worth to check in to our hotel, the very nice Hampton Inn and Suites next to their convention center.  We chose to stay in Ft. Worth since we had concert tickets for New Year's Eve at Billy Bob's nearby.

We liked Ft. Worth a lot.  It seemed a little less busy than Dallas and we had no trouble with traffic while wandering around.  These cool beams of blue light were being projected from downtown Ft. Worth tonight and many of their high-rise buildings were decked out in Christmas lights.

Ashlee met me at Martin House Brewing near our hotel for a few libations.  We raised a few to Ms. Bea as well in her memory.  It was a happening and lively place.  These guys are doing very unique styles of craft beer and we tried a bunch of them via flights.  Our favorites were their stouts and their Belgian-style concoctions and an interesting pickle sour beer called Best Maid.

Tuesday, December 31 - When we woke up this morning and looked out our hotel room window, it looked like a scene from The Day the Earth Stood Still.  The giant "space-ship" that landed overnight is part of the Ft. Worth Convention Center.  

We decided to a little high-end shopping this morning and stopped by Neiman Marcus so Ashlee could peruse their purse collection.  Who knew they had their own complimentary water! 

The shopping district where the Neiman Marcus was is brand newand called The Shops at Clear Fork.  You have to still drive past cattle and ranch land to get to it, so you don't forget you are in Texas.  

We had lunch at the always-delicious (and needs to be in the Southeast) In-N-Out Burger.  This is as far east as the popular chain goes, so we were happy to find one.

We headed back to Dallas for our 2 PM reservations to visit the incredibly-popular and busy Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.  We met up with our friends, Wendy, Charly and Wayne as well here.  What an interesting and immersive place!  We all spent a good two hours plus with our audio guides checking out the detailed exhibits of not only the assassination of, but the entire presidency of John F. Kennedy.  What a great man and what a giant loss to our country.  The eerie photo above is taken out of a nearby window on the same floor that Oswald fired his rifle.  Sorry, but there's just no way he acted alone.  Since the museum is private and not run by the government, the theories of a larger conspiracy are explored as well.  

After our museum tour, we doubled-back to Ft. Worth along with Wendy and Charly to prepare for our New Year's Eve festivities.  We learned that one of our favorite Ft. Worth craft breweries. Rahr and Sons Brewing, was actually open today and we just had to stop by for a visit and a libation...or two.  

Our favorite beer of last summer around the pool was hands-down the canned light citrus lager brewed with lemon and lime from Rahr and Sons called, hilariously, Adios Pantalones.  And now we got to have it on draft from the mother-ship itself!  Viva Rahr and Sons! Prost Ya'll!!  

Dinner reservations on New Year's Eve in Ft. Worth were a little hard to come by and we felt fortunate to have found a table for four at Lucile's Stateside Bistro which has been around since 1993 in a landmark Ft. Worth building built back in 1927 with a history of being restaurant establishment. Despite having a reservation, the place was so slammed, that we still didn't get seated until about 30 minutes after our booked time.  But it was worth it.  The food and ambiance was outstanding.  My first steak in Texas was here and it was an excellent ribeye.

After dinner, we Ubered over to the historic Fort Worth Stockyards which looked to have a thousand different bars to get drink at, but we were headed for the biggest one in the world...Billy Bob's.

Cole is pure "bro-country", but he's also a pretty good entertainer and we enjoyed his show from our seats with a good view of the stage.  It was a tight fit at the tables, but it was sold out and we were happy to have somewhere to sit as hundreds of others did not.

Billy Bob's did it up right for New Year's Eve.  They provided party favors, balloon drops and even free champagne with clock struck midnight.  Happy New Year all you shit-kickers!!  Yee-haaaa!!! 

Only in Texas do you get an Uber that is Ford F-150 pick-up truck!  Thanks, Jack, for the pick-up after the show on a very busy New Year's Eve!  

January 1, 2020 - Happy New Year from Dunkin' Donuts and the NHL!! 

We got up pretty early this morning and headed back to Dallas again to spend our day at The Winter Classic being held at The Cotton Bowl and Texas State Fairgrounds.  We had a great day despite a disappointing loss by the Predators.  We were there well after dark exploring and taking in everything that was available during this outstanding event.

There were a ton of fun activities, exhibits and tomfoolery to be had before and after the game itself.

We drove in with Wendy and Charly and met up with Wayne a little later before the game.

Nashville was well-represented in Dallas with tons of fans making the trip like we did.

We were floored at the amazing set-up inside The Cotton Bowl.  The weather was perfect.

So how do you warm up for a hockey game on a football field?  Well, with some soccer, of course!!  Several of the Preds players kicked around a soccer ball before the game very close to where we were standing near the field.  Some Dallas Stars players also began their own soccer-ball warm-up as well near us shortly afterwards.  Copy-cats!  

There's a joke about "horse hockey" in here somewhere, but I just can't find it.  Only in Texas do you have livestock waiting in the wings of a hockey game!! 

Following are some videos and pics of the start of this historic game:  

We were fortunate to be on the side of the stadium that the players walk in and out of the rink from.  We also had the rodeo ring in front of us as well.   In the rodeo ring during timeouts they had pig racing and mutton-busting (Google it if you don't know what it is) that was pretty entertaining.  They also had trick rodeo riders, jugglers, sword-swallowers and other state fair type entertainers.  The country band, Midland, performed before the game.  Dallas sports legends, Ricky Williams and Troy Aikman, dropped the ceremonial puck before the start of the game.  The popular country duo, Dan and Shay, also performed between periods.  All this and a hockey game too! 

There were over 20,000 Predators fans in attendance.  That's more than any other visiting team in the history of the Winter Classic.  In total, the attendance was 85.630, the second largest in the history of the Winter Classic.  Pretty good numbers for the first Winter Classic ever held in the south.   It's too bad we didn't get to witness a better game by our guys.  We jumped out to a 2-0 lead thanks to power-plays resulting from some dirty play by the Dallas Stars that even got one of their players ejected from the game and one of our favorite players, Ryan Ellis, who we've actually met, leave the game with injuries sustained from the nasty blindside elbow.  Unfortunately, the Preds looked flat the rest of the game and allowed Dallas to climb back in the game and eventually win 4-2.  Very dissatisfying as a Preds fan.   (Editor's note:  We evidently were not the only ones dissatisfied with the outcome of today's game.  Less than a week later, Predators head coach, Peter Laviolette, was surprisingly fired along with his assistant coach.  I guess there's just too much talent on this team for this kind of less-than-mediocre result.)

We "drowned" our sorrows after the game with a bucket of fresh cookies from the hilariously named Stiffler's Mom's Cookie Factory.   All joking aside, they were delicious! 

All the rides at the state fairgrounds were open and free to ride during the day.  Unfortunately, the lines were super-long to ride them also.  We did get a chance to ride the Top O' Texas rotating wheel after the game as the crowds were starting to thin out,  It goes up 500' for great views of The Cotton Bowl, the fairgrounds and downtown Dallas in the distance (which I cut-off in the picture below).  

We were pretty beat after a full day at game and all its surrounding activities and decided to have a food-delivery feast in the lobby of the hotel instead of going out somewhere.  Not a lot places were open on New Year's Day, so we settled for Macaroni Grill which was actually pretty darn good.  We also picked up some more craft beer from Rahr and Sons to enjoy as well.  Thanks to the Charly for the pic of our spread.  YOGOMFL!! 

Thursday, January 2 - After another fine (and free) breakfast at the hotel in Ft. Worth, we parted ways with Wendy and Charly who were headed to San Antonio for a few days before heading home.  We had another day in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area with no a lot on the agenda other than to move to another hotel closer to the airport for our last night here.  We lazed around after breakfast and headed out around noon.

Our first mission this afternoon was to check out a Buc-ee's, the giant gas station/convenience store chain found (almost) exclusively in Texas.  What an amazing place!  We wondered around in here for close to an hour checking out everything they had to offer.  I bought some awesome jerky from their deli-style counter.  We also bought T-shirts and a few other goodies as well.  And, of course, visited their "famous" large, clean bathrooms.  Boy, could Nashville use one of these!  Here's hoping for the best!
Speaking of chains we love, we also had to check out a Texas Aldi grocery store which was fairly simiilar to ours at home except I found local craft beer there to enjoy tonight in the hotel room and we found Texas-monikered shopping bags as well to take home and share as gifts. 

Our "Texas shopping" took up some time and we were ready for some lunch.  We found another awesome Texas regional chain called Rodeo Goat which had delicious hamburgers and great craft beer (for me).  This location was a fairly new one on the shores of North Lake northwest of downtown Dallas.  We also split an order of their "Surprise Fries" which were fantastic.  Psst, the "surprise" is chili underneath all bacon, cheese and peppers!!

We spent our evening in the nice Sheraton Hotel at DFW Airport just relaxing, digesting our giant late lunch/early dinner, watch college football (congrats, UT, on the Gator Bowl comeback and win!) and goofing around online since I had a scheduled poker tournament I couldn't miss.

Friday, January 3 - It was tale of two regions flying home today as we had sunny skies in Dallas taking off this morning with a beautiful view (pictured above) of what I believe is Lavon Lake northeast of Dallas.  And then rain, fog and some nasty air-pockets bumps coming in to Nashville.

Another fun trip and another great New Year rung in despite the heart-wrenching loss of our beloved pet while we were gone.  We are so sorry we weren't there, Ms. Bea.  We love and miss you more than words can say.