Thursday, August 28, 2008

PLC Trip to Ft. Worth

The dreaded time came, 4:30 A.M. I did not want to get out of bed, but with the anticipation of what was to come I rolled out of bed. Luckily my roommate had advised me to pack the night before, so all I had to do was get dressed and go. Running late, me and my roommates literally ran to the bus barely making it before it left. After a couple hours of riding on the bus we arrived in Oklahoma City where we then took the Heartland Flyer to Ft. Worth. Now, many of you may think this is a plane as I did at first, but surprisingly we were taking a passenger train down to Texas. It was a really cool experience and much more roomy than the bus! And I don't think any of us will forget the crazy concession lady that had to be told everyone's life story. After we arrived in Ft. Worth, we went straight to Billy Bob's, yes that is the world's largest honky tonk. While we were there we ate lunch and did a little line dancing, which was a lot of fun even for those of us who kept running, or bouncing, into each other.

After our fun at Billy Bob's we headed toward the Stockyards for a tour and were able to see where they used to buy and sell cattle, and we even got to see a cattle drive. Then, we headed over to a building down the street, which was an old meat packing company, but now is XTO Energy. We toured the building and heard the history of how they restored everything to keep the history of Ft. Worth.

We arrived at our hotel only 30 minutes before we had to meet in the lobby for dinner, and that includes the time it took to assign us all rooms. Unfortunately, my room had been mixed up and we accidentally walked in on a man shaving, a very unusual experience! So my roommates and I only had about 10 minutes to dress up for our fancy dinner that night. We met in lobby and followed Lindsey, the manager of regulatory affairs at XTO Energy, and toured another restored building which XTO now operated out of. This building was especially interesting because it used to be a bank, so we were able to see all the vault and old teller stations. Our group was then taken out to dinner to Del Frisco's, a very nice steak restaurant, which we all ate very well that night and had very full bellies. The night was pleasantly ended by a group of us hanging out in the hot tub at the hotel.

The next morning we toured the Kimbell Art Museum, which not only had great exhibits of well known artists, but had a great story behind the actual building. After seeing the Impressionist Exhibit, we hopped on the bus and headed back to our hotel where we had about five hours of free time at Sundance Square, the downtown area by our hotel. Many of the others went to Barnes & Noble or the little gift shops around the area. However, Holly and I needed a couple of items from the local Target so we talked some of our friends to walk down there with us. It was a little farther than we thought and three miles later we arrived at Target to buy our bathing suit and blanket. Lucky for us, on the way back the Ft. Worth bus offered us a free ride to our hotel, and we made it back in time to get ready for a short meeting and dinner. That evening we went to Joe T. Garcia's for dinner, which is a well known Mexican restaurant that only serves fajitas and enchilada's for entrees. The dinner was great and again our bellies were quite plump, but it didn't stop any of us from ending the night in the hot tub yet again.

Our last day of the trip we went to the city next door, Dallas, and visited the Kennedy Assassination Site, which was really interesting. There were a ton of home videos and pictures that described the event. After the tour, I had my own opinions on what happened. I don't think Lee Harvey Oswald was the only one involved. Once we all made it back on the bus, we headed over to Neiman Marcus, where we had lunch in the Zodiac Room. The food was fabulous, and the shopping afterwards was crazy because everything there is so pricey! Following lunch we went to the Dallas Art Museum, which was much different from the Kimbell Art Museum. In the museum was a lot of abstract art, which were difficult to understand unless you heard the stories behind them. The time now came, we had to say goodbye to Texas and head back to RSU. Right past McAlester, OK, we stopped for lunch at Pete's Place. It was so good, everything was family style and almost every type of food was served. Continuing on our journey back, we made it on campus about 9:30 or 10:00 that night. Exhausted from the trip, all my roommates and I crashed as soon as we got home so we would be rested for our first day of class the next day. This trip was a great start for my first year in college!

5 comments:

  1. Aw Amy what a wonderful story!!
    I'm glad you started your year off right! I miss you so much!!! This year just doesn't seem right without you!!! I'll come visit sometime!

    Love ya!
    Mary

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  2. Whoo Hoo! I can't believe you got that wonderful tour with out your Momma there. Glad you got to see Texas, again, and all it's glory.
    Love, Mommy

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  3. HAHAHAH our room mix up . That poor man had like 6 unexpected visitors not to mention ohone calls. Good times!

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  4. Amy!!
    Haha.. good story!
    Its sooo great that you get to BLOG! What an opportunity! :)

    You're amazing! :)

    ...GOOOOO PLC!

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  5. Oh the memories! haha I still wish we had a table crumb scraper...

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