A Visit to Cowboys Stadium

For Father's Day this year

my amazing wife gave me something

that I really, really wanted:

a tour of the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium.

But she did not just give me a tour of the stadium.

She got me the VIP tour!

At the entrance is the statue of Coach Tom Landry

that use to be at Texas Stadium.

Here I am with Coach Landry.

Here are the three of us:

Me, Missy and Janie,

and of course Coach Landry.

Do you ever wonder about the turf that goes on the field?

It comes out in rolls.

Very LARGE rolls.

Here I am (along with Janie, my son-in-law Rusty and

one of my grandsons)

at the table in the press room.

I can still hear Tony Romo now:

"It is what it is."

Here is a view of the end zone from

the sixth level (I think).

This is the helmet from the end zone. (See previous picture).

Me at the helmet in the end zone.

I am down on the field at the NFL emblem.

The field was available to just wander around on.

Looking at the end zone gave me new respect for a player who

catches the ball on the (for example) the five yard line

and runs it back for a touchdown.

Think Dez Bryant and his 93 yard td last year.

That is a lot of running.

That is some serious football playing

In my next post we will look at some more of the stadium.

Finding Music On Vacation

One of my favorite things about visiting Dallas-Fort Worth is buying music.

DFW is a very strong music buying area

and

whenever I go into the area, looking for music is always on my agenda.

I got to visit one of my all time favorite stores: Forever Young Records.

If I ever walked inside of Forever Young

and not find something that I wanted

then that would mean that I am either dead or

the store is empty!

Along with my stash my wife and daughter both found music that they wanted.

[Please note: This picture above is from the half price books website.]

A few days after visiting Forever Young

we went to my favorite Half Price Books.

It is in South Arlington.

It is a great place to find good music.

I scored pretty well in that store.

[Please note: the picture above is from the Mardel website.]

A few days later

we went to the Mardel's bookstore

in South Arlington (I-20 & Cooper Street).

Once more I scored well on my music hunting.

That was all of the music buying in the Dallas area that I did.

But on the way back to Arizona we did stop in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

We stopped at Calvary of Albuquerque for their Wednesday night service.

We got there somewhat early and visited their bookstore.

I picked up a worship cd by Nick Crispo.

Nick is a worship leader at the church there and this is a cd of mostly original songs.

Very pleasant.

Hunting for music in a large city is always a lot of fun.

An Encounter With Rudy

We always enjoy eating whenever we return to Dallas.

In fact because I post so much about eating on this blog I have been falsely accused of being a food blog.

I am not.

I just like good food.

I saw Rudy's after I left the airport the night I flew into Dallas. It was close to 1:00am and, of course, they were closed.

I mentioned that they looked interesting and I would like to check them out.

We had a dinner engagement the next evening but for a quick lunch we checked out Rudy's.

Rudy's is a bar-b-que chain that has moved into the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

They are really big on Dr. Pepper, which is not a bad thing at all.

There are vintage signs throughout the restaurant about Dr. Pepper.

As you walk up to the counter there is a large iced down cooler with different soft drinks with

A LOT of Dr Pepper.

The employees all wear Rudy t-shirts with this on the back.

The shirts are available for sale.

But one must ask what about the food.

Missy and I shared a sliced brisket sandwich.

It was a mistake.

I should not have shared.

It was extremely good.

Rudy's has two types of sauce.

There is the normal bar-b-que sauce. It has a nice kick to it and I really enjoyed it.

The regular sauce was a little to much for Janie and she went with the "sissy sause."

The dining area is nothing except large tables put together with checkered table cloths.

Rudy's has a very friendly and fun atmosphere.

This was not our only visit to Rudy's when we were in Dallas. We went to the new Dallas Cowboys stadium for a tour and stopped off at Rudy's for take out.

My regret?

I didn't get a t-shirt.

Leaving On Vacation

A few weeks ago I left on vacation to Dallas. Missy and Janie had already left and were in Dallas waiting on me.

After work I raced down to the Flagstaff airport to leave out. The airport there is pretty small. In fact they have one terminal and only one plane flies out at a time.

How large are those planes? Here is the plane that I flew in on my way to Phoenix. It seated a whopping thirty-six passengers.

Yes.

You did read that right.

36!

The plane from Phoenix to Dallas was much larger. (So was the airport.) We loaded the plane and got ready to lift off and head east to DFW.

But there was a delay. Some thuderstorms were moving into the Dallas area and the crew had to add more fuel to the plane. Because of the added weight of the fuel and the amount of passengers on board, they crew asked for four people to leave the plane. They would fly out the next morning, be put up in a hotel by US Air and get a $200 voucher that would be good for a year.

I must admit I thought about it. . . for about a nano-second. I was ready to get to Dallas and see my family!

A miracle did occur. After a 45 minute delay, we began to move.

You can see in the picture that sunset was starting.

The plane began to build up more speed.

We finally took off and were in the air.

I did get to see a beautiful sunset over Phoenix as we headed for Dallas.

Finally on my way to good food,

good friends,

good music buying,

and my family.