Family Vacation in Dallas

Jennie and Mac and I are now back to our normal schedules following a week of vacation. We packed up in Richard and Cherrie's Nissan Armada SUV and headed toward the Lone Star State for some much-needed time away.

As many of you know, we had originally planned on driving to Princeton, New Jersey; when those plans fell apart, the much shorter, much less daunting trip to Dallas was invented. I had worried about Mac's ability to sit in a child car seat for long periods of time, so a 4 hour or so trip sounded more doable than a 20-hour one. As it turns out, my worries were unfounded — Mac did great. We had to make a few stops in our traveling to stretch the little legs, but that was expected. I am very proud of her.

We stayed in Denton, just north of Dallas and Fort Worth. In Denton, we stopped into a Circuit City and did something really great for the health of our marriage — we bought a Garmin StreetPilot c550 GPS. This thing suctions to your windshield and tells you turn-by-turn how to get to your destination. It made the rest of our driving time mostly enjoyable!

In Dallas, we visited Dealey Plaza, where president John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, nearly 2 decades before Jennie and I were born. On the sixth floor of the nearby Texas School Book Depository building, where assassin Lee Harvey Oswald perched and shot JFK, there is a museum that walks you through the entire set of events and even explains the different conspiracy theories. Jennie and I learned a lot about this very sad day in our nation's history.

Of course, we did some shopping in Dallas and Denton. Jennie had to make her stop at the Container Store. We also ate at the Cheesecake Factory. Yes, we're aware there is now one in Tulsa, but it seems every time we happen by that place, the line is stacked right on out to 71st street; the one in Dallas wasn't nearly that busy for whatever reason.

On our way back home, we stopped in Oklahoma City to visit the Bombing Memorial there. It was very heartwarming and sad at the same time to see the things people have placed on the chain link fence in memory of loved ones.

We took a few photos (though not as many as I should have), like this one:



We also created a little video (mostly of driving) so we could remember Mac's first out of state trip:


Dallas Trip 2007 from Tim Morgan on Vimeo.

All in all, this was one of the best vacations ever — probably because our little family is 50% larger now. Though Mac won't remember any of the trip, the bonding that took place during that week of us together on the road is irreplaceable.

A Man Weekend

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Originally uploaded by Tim Morgan.

I experienced my first baseball game this weekend. Several men took a trip to Kansas City to attend Promise Keepers and a Royals game. Someday I'll write down all my thoughts regarding that, but for now, some pictures will have to do.

Graceland

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Originally uploaded by Tim Morgan.

Yesterday, we visited the home of Elvis. Frankly, it was a bit of a letdown, though it was a neat to see that Elvis lived a bit more humbly than I had pictured. Yes, he had some extravagant things in his home, but it wasn't near as crazy as the things you hear about in other celebrities' homes (none of which come to mind at this moment, but you get the idea).

The downer came in the cost and the hype. It was 22 US dollars per person, it was very crowded and hot, and the "guides" were anything but friendly (I say "guides" in quotes because they were more like cattle herders; the real guide was a pre-recorded message on a portable headphone device given to each person at the beginning of the tour).

I was hoping for something more like Mt. Vernon in Virginia. That was a very neat, cool (literally) place, wasn't crowded at all, and had very friendly guides (in costume I might add).

Thank you, thank you very much.

Tomorrow Jennie and I jump in a rented Suburban along with her parents and grandparents and head towards Memphis. I'm less excited about the destination than I am about the chance to get away from the grind for a few days. I'll be lugging with me the iPod and new Mac laptop, so I'll be fully "plugged in" -- I'll finally be able to truly play with all these gadgets I've acquired lately (I think).

We'll no doubt stop at Graceland for a bit to see the home of the peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich and other such peculiarities of the King of Rock and Roll. Should be fun.