Laura's Visit: A Photo Summary

Well, after an awesome weekend that was absolutely packed full of sightseeing and delicious restaurant meals, my friend Laura is safely back in her old Kentucky home.  I took her to the airport this morning, and then headed off to work, as usual.  It was after work that the exhaustion of the weekend set in - after arriving back at my apartment, I completely crashed.  I wound up taking a 2.75 hour super-nap on the still-inflated air mattress in the middle of my living room, before waking up, throwing a Sweet and Sour Chicken skillet meal on the stove for dinner, and heading off to Bible study.  I fully believe that sunburns and exhaustion are the signs of a good vacation, and according to this criteria I had just as awesome a "vacation" as Laura did.

Since I didn't have time to write while Laura was visiting, I thought I'd recap the last few days with a photo summary of Celia and Laura's Texas Adventure Weekend...because a picture's worth a thousand words, and we both took a ton of pictures this weekend (don't worry, not all of them will appear in this post).

Day #1: Fort Worth

Lunch at Fuzzy's Taco's before hitting the road to Fort Worth for the day!

At the water gardens, we ventured down into the giant canyon fountain (which is entirely legal, in case you were wondering)...

It was absolutely terrifying.  It doesn't seem like the walk down is going to be so intimidating until you're standing at the top about to start the trek.  Those platforms behind us are the stone stairs we took down.

Vacations necessitate jumping photos.  It's a fact.  Eventually, a passerby came by and offered to take a photo of Laura and I jumping TOGETHER...that gem of a photo lies on Laura's camera, unfortunately (watch for it coming soon on Facebook)

Dinner at Risky's Barbecue.  I was reminded of my absolute love for barbecue joints, and inspired to look up barbecue crock-pot recipes immediately upon return to the apartment.  I had a pulled pork sandwich with potato salad, if you're interested.

We spent the evening in the Fort Worth Stockyards...aka, stereotypical Texas at its finest.  It's like walking into a Wild West film.  Seriously.

Laura outside the Cowtown Coliseum (yes, the COWTOWN COLISEUM), before the rodeo (yes, RODEO)

Getting our Texas on at the Rodeo.  We were some of the small number of people not wearing cowboy hats.

We were SO pleased with ourselves...it was just about the most Texan thing ever.

Cattle ropin'.  Other events included bull-riding, kids riding on sheep, and cattle herding.  It.  Was.  Crazy.

That's right people, Fort Worth has rodeos every Friday and Saturday night - a $15 ticket for three hours of Texas fun.  Who knew??

Day #2: Dallas

After beginning the morning at Dealey Plaza (site of the JFK assassination), Laura and I explored the West End...including Wild Bill's Western Shop.

If only we'd had these hats for the rodeo the day before...not that we actually bought them, of course.

Lunch was had at Chuy's...Tex Mex at it's finest!

We spent the afternoon briefly visiting the church where I work (ps, we visited SMU's campus the day before, I forgot to mention that).  Then, we headed out to White Rock Lake to check out the harbors and sailboats.

And for dinner: Pokey-O's.  Because nothing says vacation like an enormous ice cream cookie sandwich :)

By this point, we were (quite obviously) absolutely exhausted, and spent the evening watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Music and Lyrics back at the apartment.  

I must say, after a weekend of doing all of my favorite Texas things and experiencing a rodeo firsthand, I feel like I went on vacation too!