Final Day in Texas

After a much needed relaxing night in our hotel, my final day in Texas had come. On today's agenda: EXPLORE! It was just me and Mom today, with lots of time before our flight back to Las Vegas so we planned to go explore downtown Dallas.

After some quick breakfast from Einstein's, we were ready for a full day of adventures. We began our exploring in the West End Historic District. Here we visited the Old Red Museum and most excitingly, we visited the assassination site of late president JFK in Dealey Plaza. The pictures simply tell our story for the day, so I will allow them to do the talking..

The Old School Book Depository 

The 6th floor window where the fatal shot was fired.

The 'X' in the street is when Pres. JFK was hit

 After about an hour of walking around downtown Dallas, we were D.O.N.E. done! It was so hot and super humid, we both had headaches and wanted nothing more than to just walk around an air conditioned mall. While making our way to a mall, we stumbled across an old Catholic church in the heart of the Dallas Arts District. After driving by this church, we decided that we had to go in! Of course, God works in mysterious way and a mid-day mass happened to be going on, so we stuck around for a while. This church was amazing to say the least!

the front door

After mass we had some time to kill before our flight, so we headed to what we thought was just a normal mall.. well we made yet another mistake! We ended up in the fanciest, most expensive mall EVER! Sooooo, we had lunch, window shopped and headed to the airport!

By this time, we were happy enough to just be in the air conditioning! All in all, I had an awesome experience in Texas. If I could sum up the parts of Texas that I saw it would be the "Three C's": cows, churches and cemeteries. Oh Man! Did I see a lot of cows, churches and cemeteries!

The road trip was something I would only do once in my life, but definitely worth it. And after finally being in Texas for myself, I actually understand why so many people love it there!

Road Trip to Texas - Day 3

I woke up Sunday morning extremely excited for the day! Day 3 was the last of our driving and we only had a 2 hour drive from Fort Worth to Bremond, TX - easy day, right?! Wrong. Mom was in town with us now, so I took the first available moment to jump in the car with her and not into Alex's truck. I mean come on 19 hours of alone twin time was enough!!

After 2 hours we made it to Alex's new home for the summer! Beautiful Bremond, TX has a whopping population of 929 - well actually now 930.  [If anyone is wondering it is pronounced bree - MAHND!] 

Disclaimer: I pronounced Bremond wrong in this video. I was educated on correct pronunciation later on in the day.

Alex moved into his new home for the summer - the River Rock Inn where he lives with a couple other guys who also work at the coal mine he is interning at. At this "hotel" he has his own bedroom, bathroom and shares a kitchen with the rest of the guest who live there. After a quick move in, we needed to buy him some groceries for the next couple months, but the only store in Bremond is the Family Dollar, so we had to travel another 2 hours to College Station, TX for a grocery store. We loaded into the car for our trip to the grocery store. If you're keeping track we have now driven a total of 21 hours to Bremond, now 4 more hours for a round-trip to the grocery store, with a now grand total of 25 hours. 

In the Rios family, if we are in a city where there is a Cracker Barrel, then a stop is a must; how can you not resist those biscuits!! So after some delicious biscuits, my mom really wanted to experience a "local Texas supermarket", so we were directed to "H-E-B". The saying "everything is bigger in Texas" is an understatement - this grocery store put any local supermarket in Las Vegas to shame. Anything and everything Alex needed, they had it!

Fast forward a couple hours and we were back in Bremond saying our final goodbyes.

After our goodbyes, mom and I were on our way back to Dallas. Yep, you guessed it.. 2 more hours = grand total of 27 hours. 

After what seems like FOREVER we had finally made it to our hotel in Downtown Dallas! We were staying at the Omni Hotel and after a long day of traveling we decided to just stay in and enjoy our hotel. We ordered room service, took baths in the huge bathtub and enjoyed a beautiful view. 

 One more day and my Texas adventure ends -- stay tuned!

All the love, Em