My First TR: 21 Flights in 28 Days

[Mattg]

Weather at the origin port of your aircraft can also be a factor (or at an even earlier origin port). Remember most planes don't simply fly back and forth between the two places.

Very true, although in this case the plane was arriving (3 hours late) from Norfolk where it was sunny as well. I just find it hard for AA to justify fobbing off customers due to "weather" where this is obviously not the case. Perhaps the plane had been caught up in a city the day before that actually did have weather issues, but I don't think that should remove the airline from their responsibilities...

 

[exceladdict]

Very true, although in this case the plane was arriving (3 hours late) from Norfolk where it was sunny as well. I just find it hard for AA to justify fobbing off customers due to "weather" where this is obviously not the case. Perhaps the plane had been caught up in a city the day before that actually did have weather issues, but I don't think that should remove the airline from their responsibilities...

I agree - My suspicion was driven due to 1) the forward and return trip - JFK-DCA-JFK - shares the same flight number and 2) when the prior flight got delayed by 30 minutes, so did the subsequent. So I think that when one got pushed back, it eventually pushed back our flight to be too late so they cancelled despite both airports being operational (or perhaps hitting curfews).

 

[exceladdict]

11: Everything's Bigger in Texas (6 Nights in Fort Worth's Near Southside)

After 5 flights in 3 days (which was meant to be 6), the thought of having our feet on the ground foor a bit longer was very welcome. We touched down at DFW and made our way over to the Car Rental Facility, about 10 minutes by a complimentary shuttle bus. After a little while, my name came up on the Avis Preferred board and we jumped in to our Nissan SUV (upgraded from a Chevy Cruze, pictured the next morning).



I can't believe the size of the turnpikes and bridges here, it's like something else, I swear the bridges are 15-20m off the ground in some places (couldn't take pictures while driving sorry).

We made our way in about a 25 minute drive to our first AirBnB stay in Fort Worth's Near Southside, quite close to Magnolia Avenue. Our hosts had stayed up late to welcome us, which was greatly appreciated. The room was quickly filled with our junk - so I didn't take a picture - but the room and facilities were impeccably clean and very comfortable. We went down to the end of the street to the local 'brew pub' for some dinner (pictured the next morning).



We enjoyed an awesome 'Vladostana' pizza and 'garlic knot' which had a nice marinara dipping sauce. We then returned home and were out cold in minutes with my wife's conference commencing the next morning.

 

[exceladdict]

Fort Worth, Day 2


We got up and got ready and found an awesome coffee shop - Avoca Coffee Roasters - on the way to the conference. It was seriously better than most coffees I've had in Perth, and the best I've had in the US. I immediately knew that I'd be returning here a number of times to use the well-powered laptop and wifi zone.



After dropping my wife at the conference it was breakfast time. I found a place called Brewed, catchphrase 'the local's living room'.



I had this awesome omelette-cross-scrambled-eggs dish called a 'scrambled skillet' - the flavour I got was 'Chilaqiles', aka three eggs with tortilla strips, salsa and cheddar cheese:



This was another place I'd undoubtedly return to, with a cool laptop zone and fun facilities too:





And it's a 'fully licensed' place that turns into a bar at night. It was starting to warm up, but I couldn't help but feel this place would be even more awesome in summer.

 

[exceladdict]

After a few hours of work it was time to do some exploring. I found myself walking around the extended area with a hospital that went for blocks and blocks - the investment that can occur when medicine is completely privatised...


I completely forgot about newsstands.




And of course - everything's about convenience, even the pharmac_ (drug store):




Walking down Magnolia Street - which is where most of the restaurants are located. This sign made me think the place might be cool, but it was just a smoke-filled pub with a couple of computers that were switched off (rather than a licensed LAN café, which is what I imagined):




Pushing the Hipster Scale, there's this building of little stores that are the size of half a bedroom each selling lots of little trinkets:




I returned to Avoca for a muffin as a late lunch and hung out to do some work. The place buzzed all afternoon and people chilled in the parking lot with their dogs who made friends.

 

[exceladdict]

That night for dinner, we visited the Grand Cru Wine Bar on Magnolia Street, where we tried the 'Thursday Flight Night Special'.



We had a 'Figgy Piggy' - a toasted baguette with goat's cheese, fig preserves and parma prosciutto:



And finished with a Cheese Platter - Sorry about the focus - it included two cheddars, a gouda, a harvarti and a brie. Apologies for the cameraphone photo.



We quite like cheese and are getting in to wine so quite enjoyed it overall.

 

[PLANT]

Yeah well the Cruze is a good size car and the upgrade actually cost you more in gas and harder to park.... They tried that on me in Hawaii..... Waited longer for smaller car!
Also find the USA love the colour..... Black.... Harder to see and probably good for their business?????

 

[exceladdict]

Yeah well the Cruze is a good size car and the upgrade actually cost you more in gas and harder to park.... They tried that on me in Hawaii..... Waited longer for smaller car!
Also find the USA love the colour..... Black.... Harder to see and probably good for their business?????

Given the snow on the road, I appreciated the upgrade. Don't get me wrong I love the cruze, rented one last time I was here, but ultimately the tank of gas was $30 anyway so no biggie.

 

[Simo]

Awesome TR.

Look forward to reading more as you continue your travels...

Stay safe...

 

[Deleted member]

Never a dull moment. Interesting comments on bread.
Not sure of the upside of privatized U.S. medicine as a patient. I prefer the Medicare backed Aussie system any day.

 

[exceladdict]

Fort Worth, day three:


More out and about today. Starting again with an Avoca coffee, I followed it up with an 'everything bagel' for breakfast:




More exploring today, I visited the Fort Worth Water Gardens, which had this really cool area you could walk down in to:



It complete drowned out the noise of the city which was nice. It would be an awesome place to chill out in summer.



After the conference finished for the day, we went to 'The Modern' - (The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth). They had a special exhibition on of Photography and Video called 'Framing Desire'. That said, my favourite piece was from their normal collection, a huge ladder ('Ladder for Booker T Washington):




The architecture of the place was magnificent. The polished concrete finish, complete with extremely high ceilings and very variable sized rooms really suited a modern art gallery (from a non-architect's perspective, of course).

 

[exceladdict]

We finished the day by heading over to Sundance Square - a downtown area with lots of restaurants, etc. We decided to go to Riscky's Barbeque and try some Texas Meat. We ordered one appetizer and one main between the two of us, and couldn't even finish that. Entree was a 'Texas Mess' - deep fried Corn Nuggets, Stuffed Jalapenos (stuffed with cheese, of course), Mozzarella sticks, and barbequed Shrimp. The fried cheese sticks were something else, but I was a bit overwhelmed by the overall amount of fry.




That was followed by a 'Riscky's famous combo full smoker with three meats' - Beef Brisket, Pork Ribs and Smoked Catfish - with red beans, coleslaw and potato salad.




I've never had anything so smokey in my life, which was a nice flavour - as the menu promised, 'you won't beleive the catfish is fish' - it tasted like chicken. Unfortunately the beef and pork, while flavoursome, were a bit dry. Oh, and you know you're at a BBQ place when you're welcomed to your table by a giant roll of paper towel.



We walked back through Sundance Square and saw a Thomas Cincade gallery, who seemed to draw a lot of Disney characters! We then bought a $1 postcard in exchange for our parking being validated, before driving home for the night.

 

[PLANT]

Any gun shots... Holstered?
It is Texas.... Bit daunting when I was in Texas!

 

[exceladdict]

Fort Worth Day Four


The good Avoca Coffees just kept coming! Today, breakfast was at the 'Paris Coffee Shop'. I thought I'd have something light, so French Toast it was, complete with syrup and probably half a cup of icing sugar:




Today was going to be a day of doing and seeing, with tomorrow's weather looking ominous I took the chance to head out to the Stockyards Area, about a 20 minute or so drive north from where we were staying.



At first I thought they were joking, before I saw the number of cattle the area used to process.



I first explored the Stockyards Markets Area, and bought some beef jerkey. The stockyards themselves have been turned into an array of gift shops.



There's a signpost for a historic cattle trail - another thing that you forget 'was a thing' in times past.

 

[exceladdict]

It started to get cold so after some friendly advice from the visitors centre I visited a stockyards museum which had some interesting memorabillia, but before long, I had to leave to watch the live cattle drive:




It was interesting to see 'Real Live Cowboys'.



After that, there was a 'Legends of Texas' Gunfight Show which included a few actors putting on a small show in the stockyards, shooting blanks very loudly.



I had a brief browse in a sweet store - everything continues to be bigger in texas - before realising I needed a more substantial meal.



I made my way to the 'Lonesome Dove' Western Bistro, owned by chef Tim Love, who aparrently famous in America. The name of the restaurant suited the fact I was dining alone perfectly. My 'Garlic Stuffed Beef Tenderloin' on 'Western Plaid Hash' with 'Syrah Demi-Glace' was amazing. Don't ask me what any of those words mean though.



As usual, the lunch (half) serve was more than enough for a 'normal' appetite. Things were getting busy due to the semi-finals of an American Rodeo/Cowboy competition being in town, so I briefly checked out some things they had on display (general 'expo booths' with a western slant - i.e. 'as seen on TV solutions for cow-feeding').

 

[exceladdict]

After that I jumped back in the car to tick some more sights off the list. First stop was the Kimpbell Art Museum, which my architect friends tell me has a revolutionary roof design (or something) for letting in light:





My favourite pieces are generally the really old/interesting ones, these are a Mayan/Peruvian sculpture (AD 692) and French Sculptures (c. AD 1200).






There was one nice modern piece too.

 

[exceladdict]

I then drove to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, which was undergoing some renovations so I only briefly walked through. It was mainly focussed on portraits or American history. Worth a look with free admission, but with more on the list before it was time to pick up my wife from the course, I decided to move on.

Last stop was the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens, which I majorly underestimated. It was pretty cold so I wasn't keen to do too much walking, but I squeezed in as much as I could before needing to leave. A few pictures:

 

[exceladdict]

To finish off the day I finally got the chance to take my wife to Brewed, which also gave us a chance to try the Dinner menu, and we were not disappointed. At first, I ordered 'the strange purple drink I saw someone else getting from the bar':




My wife had a 'Super Food Salad' with goat cheese.



I enjoyed Mac & Cheese with 12-hour-cooked Pulled Pork on top. A side of sweet potato fries closed out a fantastic meal.



No room for desert, unfortunately, so we did everyone's favourite 7pm Saturday activity: go to Wal-mart. The novelty product from this stop was this citrus punch, which contains 'less than 1% juice'.



There was a severe weather warning so we didn't stay out too late and came home for the night just as it was starting to rain.

 

[Deleted member]

Really informative TR. Looks like a great place to visit

 

[Maca44]

Great read, thanks.