MTTS: Day Eight – Dallas, TX

It was another very early morning when we rolled into the Texas State Capitol (Austin, TX).  Posh got a great spot right in front of the Capitol Building….. she’s gonna have the best scrapbook!

MINI once again provided excellent coordination and got everyone lined up nice and neat with a minimum amount of fussing.  MINIs like to snuggle together anyway… While the MINIs took in their surroundings, us humans roamed around the center taking photos and checking out all the other MINIs and shopping the “Boot Sales”  (If you didn’t already know… MINIs have ‘boots’ and ‘bonnets’ not ‘trunks’ or ‘hoods’).  I acquired a new shopping bag from MINI of…. Dallas? And some MINI gum…. I have no idea why MINI had it’s own gum…. they just do.  MINI USA and the MINI Clubs have been awesome about giving out fun MINI swag.  The sponsors are pretty fun too!  Peeps is a sponsor and they have a Peeps MINI… it’s so cute!  They keep handing us mini Peeps at the different events. I’m starting to get a collection of them!  We got a mini Lego MINI in our Welcome Bag… I’ll let Brian put them together…. I have no patience for following the directions with LEGOS.  I build castles… that’s about it…  And Banfield Pet Hospital has presents for the furry co-pilots too.

Today Value Service gave us safari hats after our trip through the Franklin Drive Thru Safari.  They’re actually pretty perfect hats for the Roadster.  I’ve got two other hats and a couple of scarves that I’ve been trying to make stay on my head for the last 3000 miles…. these have a nice floppy brim to cover the back of my neck and a strap to hold them on!

The trip through the Franklin Drive Thru Safari was more fun than I thought it would be.  If it wasn’t for MINI, I would have never (a) found the place, or (b) bothered to go… Brian and I are pretty spoiled with our St Louis Zoo memberships… it takes a lot to compete.  Probably what made it so much fun was sharing the experience with 400 other MINIs…. The Safari knew we were coming, but I don’t think the quite grasped how many of us there actually were…. Until you see 400-500 MINIs swarming down the highway, you just don’t get it.  We shut down the main road into town… we blocked up everything for two miles…. the police finally came to direct traffic…. We weren’t being bad…. there were just a lot of us!  The city police were very nice and they started directing people around us and soon everything got uncontested.  We almost skipped the Safari because of all the traffic, but I’m really glad we decided to stay.  (Not just for the cool hat..)  We’re in the Roadster… with the top down…. so we had an excellent view of the animals… and they had an excellent view of us!  

After the Safari we continued on to Dallas.  It was a much prettier drive today.  This part of Texas has more hills and trees… I was starting to go a bit crazy with the endless fields of nothing.  We actually reached Dallas fairly early in the day, so we had some time to look around a do some sightseeing.  I hadn’t planned anything in Dallas since I figured MINI would have an event and we’d go to that.  MINI did have an event… but it just wasn’t our cup of tea so we decided to wander around town for a bit.  Neither one of us is a big history buff, but we watched enough of the History Chanel to know the Dealey Plaza in Dallas is where Kennedy was assassinated.  We were too late to visit the Sixth Floor Museum, which used to be the Texas School Book Depository from where Jack Ruby allegedly shot JFK.  We were going to cross the street to see the Grassy Knoll, but one of the homeless guys was trying to be our “tour guide” and was starting to freak me out.  I grabbed Brian and drug him away.  The homeless guy started yelling, but I couldn’t tell if it was at us or at another homeless guy.  There were a lot of homeless guys yelling in the area… I’m glad it was a sunny afternoon and there were a bunch of other people around.  I wouldn’t have wanted to be down there later in the evening.

Brian and I also checked out the Old Red Museum.  It used to be the courthouse, but now it is a museum.  I didn’t want to pay $8/person for tickets.  The architecture is amazing, but we just  looked around the first floor for a bit.

On our way back to the car (I was starting to worry about Posh all alone with all the yelling homeless people!) we stopped to look at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Plaza… it’s kinda ugly.  I just don’t get it… it’s kinda like a LEGO…. but boring.  
We also stopped and visited the Dallas Farmer’s Market… I am SO jealous of their Farmer’s Market!! Why is our’s not this cool?  Ugh!  Brian and I picked up a gluten-free brownie (mine, all mine!), some yummy red grapes for our lunches and a jar of apple cobbler jelly to take home and share at our next Family Dinner Night.  I think it will be killer served warm over home-made vanilla ice cream!  (I’m gonna have to serve something pretty awesome to get the family to sit still through all 2000 MTTS photos…..) 

For dinner we decided to try In-n-Out Burger.  We don’t have them in Missouri and I’ve heard my Sister-In-Law rave about them.  Now, my SIL doesn’t really like anything… I can count on one hand the things that I know she likes….. so I was thinking that these must be some freaking awesome burgers.  I checked online first to make sure I could eat them and was super excited to discover that they were very gluten friendly.  They even have a button to press when you order to tell the cooks that you have an allergy.  It took em a bit to find the right button, but they got our order in and were super nice.  I even heard one of them call back to the cooks that they had a customer with a wheat allergy and to change their gloves and utensils.  WOW!  

Brian and I both got a Double Double ‘Protein’ Burger (the “protein” part means that they wrapped it in lettuce instead of putting it on a bun).  I got cheese fries too…. The fries were safe from cross contamination because the fries are the only thing they fry.  Yay!  The burger comes wrapped in lettuce and then wrapped in paper and then in a little paper sleeve… all of which is necessary to keep the juice and sauces from getting everywhere.

So…. it was good.  Not amazing… but it was good.  I still don’t understand my SIL.  *sigh*  I was ecstatic about the care they took to make sure it was safe for me to eat, and it was a good hamburger…. It tasted a lot like a Steak-n-Shake hamburger.  I wish Steak-n-Shake would take that much care in ensuring gluten-friendliness!