A Wedding Weekend In Dallas

Alison and I took a quick weekend trip to Dallas this weekend to attend a wedding of two of Alison’s friends (and coworkers). 

I left Salt Lake City on Friday night. Alison was traveling for work and flew to Dallas straight from Indianapolis. She arrived before me so she picked up our rental car and met me after I landed. We drove to Fort Worth to our hotel and called it a night. 

There really are not a lot of tourist destinations/activities around the Dallas area. We polled friends and family who have visited this area of Texas to try to figure out what we should do with our free time. One of the top suggestions we received was to visit the Fort Worth Stockyards. We made the Stockyards our first stop on Saturday. This whole area is full of historic buildings, restaurants, shops, saloons and more. The brick buildings and brick lined streets really give it a historic and cohesive aesthetic. 

We spent the late morning into the afternoon exploring this area. We made our way up and down the main streets around the Stockyards. We did some shopping. We also stopped but the actual stockyards where they had some Texas Longhorns. 

At 11:30 they did the first, of their twice daily, cattle drive. They drove the herd of longhorn cattle out and down one of the main thoroughfares. It was an impressive sight. 

After the drive we were hungry so we walked over to  Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que. This place serves amazing bbq. Big shoutout to Kristin and Dan for recommending it. It is some of the best BBQ we have ever had. I got brisket pulled right out of the pit. Alison and I also each got a piece of bbq corn of the cob (this was Alisons favorite part of the meal). Alison had a chopped beef sandwich. We also got two sides of mac and cheese (one was plain as one was jalapeño bacon - both were delicious) and some baked beans. Truly incredible bbq. 

After lunch we walked through a few of the areas around the Stockyards that we didn’t make it to earlier. When we were done we went back to our hotel. We didn’t have enough time to go anywhere else. Plus it was a hot day. Both days we spent in Dallas it was mid-to-high 90's. Back at the hotel Alison took a nap while I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark. 

We got this adorable stuffed Longhorn for Holly

Earlier this year I did a boxing workout program. One week of the program was filmed at this spot in the Stockyard Station. I was interested to see the area where they filmed it. 

Then we got dressed up and headed out to the wedding. Alison was excited for her dress. She bought this dress to wear on her birthday this year on a trip we had planned, but of course COVID ruined those plan. She didn’t have another good opportunity to wear the dress until this wedding. She looked absolutely stunning. 

Getting to the wedding was a bit of a drive from our hotel. The wedding was held at La Buena Vida Vineyards. It took us about 45 minutes to get there. Our map took us on a circuitous route through some beautiful countryside. While the route was strange, the drive was enjoyable. 

The venue for the wedding was stunning. It was this beautiful vineyard setting. They kept the wedding small. It was mostly family and a few friends. Most of the friends were Alison’s coworkers. She was excited to introduce me to some of the people she works with.

The wedding was beautiful. The look of awe and excitement in the grooms face when the bride walked down the aisle was so great. Both the bride and groom looked very happy. They were beaming. The bride had two children from a prior marriage and they walked her down the aisle. It was very sweet. The bride and groom shared some touching vows. Then the groom pulled a second sheet out of his pocket and motioned for the kids to come closer. He then read a special set of vows he wrote for the kids. It was very touching. 

The whole event was fun and intimate. It was a great celebration of the bride and grooms love story. It was most definitely worth the trip. 

On Sunday morning we slept in. Since we have nothing on the agenda we have taken time to relax and take it easy, which has been nice.

We decided we wanted to get Sunday brunch. We found a place named Yolk - it had excellent reviews. It was also quite popular. When we got there the wait was 90 minutes. We didn’t have anything else planned so we had them put us on the list. While we waited we got some smoothies from Jamba Juice and then walked over to the Fort Worth Water Gardens. It is a nice park located at the edge of downtown Fort Worth. It has a number of water features and other artistic areas.

It actually took a little longer than 90 minutes for them to seat us at Yolk. We were not in a hurry. We enjoyed spending time exploring downtown Fort Worth. We really had nothing better to do. The food ended up being worth the wait. It was a phenomenal brunch. Alison got eggs Benedict, which was one of their specialties. I had chicken and waffles. It was some of the best chicken and waffles I have ever had. We also got a slice of the red velvet french toast to share. That was undeniably the highlight of the meal. It was so sweet it could only be classified as a dessert. 

After brunch we drove to Dallas to visit Dealey Plaza. Alison and I are both fascinated by JFK. We have read about his life, his presidency and his assassination. We enjoy history and visiting places where history happened. We wanted to visit the memorial they have there and learn a little bit more about this tragic moment in American history. There is The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, but due to COVID you had to purchase an advance ticket and they are restricting the number of tickets sold each day. By the time we thought about it they were sold. Next time we come back to Dallas we will make that a priority. We walked around the Dealey Plaza area, we visited the JFK Memorial Plaza, we walked over by the grassy knoll (there was a conspiracy theorist set up selling signed copies of his book), and we saw the old Texas School Book Depository building. The Texas School Book Depository building is where Lee Harvey Oswald worked and according to the Warren Commission Oswald fired the shot from the sixth floor that killed JFK. Obviously this claim has been disputed and alternative theories abound. It was interesting on the side of the building there was a plaque describing the history of the building. Near the end it stated the Lee Harvey Oswald "allegedly", and someone had scraped around allegedly to emphasize it, shot JFK. This was a fascinating area to visit. 

It was a sweltering hot day. We had a little more time, but we didn't really want to be outside much more. We found a nearby ice cream shop and we bought some ice cream to cool off. After that it was time to go so we headed to the airport. 

Alison had to go back to Indianapolis for work. So she got a flight from Dallas to Indy. I was head back to Salt Lake City. Our flights were both scheduled to leave around 7pm, but I had bad luck and my flight was pushed back 2.5 hours. I got to see Alison off on her flight and then I had some quality airport time before finally making it home from our weekend in Dallas.