Excitement Comes in Bite Size Pieces, Sometimes.

I'm back. Still in Texas, the hottest place on earth.  Well, maybe not the *hottest*, but close.

Yesterday was as awesome, as promised.  The morning started off with me & Ellie attempting to make Cornish Pasties.  Now, let me just fill you in on my experiences with Cornish Pasties.  I fell in love with these little savory pasties when I lived in England.  They're basically a pie crust in in the shape of a calzone stuffed with beef, potatoes, and onions.  They are delicious beyond belief.  I have, since coming home from England, attempted to make them twice, both with little success.  The reason being that I don't know the first thing about baking and can't make a decent pie crust to save my life.  Enter Ellie: the pie master.  Unfortunately, our pie crust was a bit of a disaster.  This did not, however, affect the deliciousness of our pasties, only their aesthetic appeal.  And hey, if you're gonna eat it, ultimately its going to look worse eventually, right? Is that too gross? Sorry!

delicious, if not beautiful. 

With, (semi) successful pasties under our belt, we decided to head to Denton, which is... north? south? west? of Carrollton?  Couldn't tell ya, but its still part of the D/FW area, and it was about a 20/30 minute drive.  The reason for venturing to Denton was this used book store called Recycled Books, and its housed in this fantastic old opera house which is purple!

This may have been the coolest bookstore I've ever been in.  First off, its rickety.  Like, really really rickety.  The book shelves are all wooden, and they are all nailed with extra pieces of wood near the ceiling to each other, so that they don't fall over. There are bits of books, and newspaper clippings, and pictures and quotes and everything littering the walls in sort of a haphazard fashion.  There are books & cd's & records jam packed in the 3 floors, which include a basement stuffed with everything from history of every part of the world, to biographies, to a complete section on pirates!

cheeky sign.

i love me some jane auste

I managed to find a neato book or two.  My favorite being this specimen:

dani, this made me think of you for some reason.

I also managed to find a couple of Tennessee Williams' plays which I (probably shouldn't admit this) haven't read.... but now intend to!  I have to be careful not to buy too much stuff too early, though.  Whatever I buy has to be dragged through the remaining states & gets to bake in my car! Yippee!!

Alright, so after the bookstore in Denton, we walked around Denton square which houses a cute little selection of shops including a little antique store which we went into, and a Calvary Chapel in an old movie theater! Picturesque.

i love it!

After Denton it was back to the Gospel for Asia offices.  I got to volunteer again, this time not *stuffing* envelopes but *sorting* envelopes!  The envelope sorting completed, we then headed off to Dallas Baptist University, which my cousin attends.  DBU is actually in Dallas and is 2 things: 1. absolutely gorgeous, and 2. thoroughly Baptist.  We got to take a little tour of the campus, see my cousin's dorm room (super cute & kinda made me miss my teeny tiny dorm in England), and then we went to Braum's.  For those of you who have never heard of Braum's (I hadn't until I found out 2 of my cousins had worked there), it's kinda like a Dairy Queen, except better, and with a little grocery store attached to it.  So you can get freshly made ice cream, a loaf of bread, and a greasy cheeseburger all at the same time.  Sounds thoroughly American, doesn't it?  And the ice cream was excellent!  I'd never had peppermint ice cream with actual little bits of peppermints in it, and it was lovely!

After Braum's we were back to Carrollton for the night, bringing Melissa back with us.  The plan was to explore downtown Dallas the following day.  We awoke to a breakfast of pancakes, skillfully made by my uncle from a recipe that was passed down from... someone.  We couldn't determine who: it was either a friend, or a friend's grandmother's sister's nephew's brother's uncle... or something.  Either way, the pancakes were delicious.

Downtown Dallas can be reached from a train system called The Dart (Strong Bad, anyone?).  With a station in Carrollton just minutes from my cousins' house, we bought our tickets, hopped aboard, and were off.  Downtown Dallas, at least the part that we were in, was mostly a business district.  No tourists, just business people.  Underneath the businesses are a series of underground walkways which connect various buildings.  They are brightly lit, air conditioned, lined with little eateries, and generally quite pleasant.  Easy to get a bit turned around in, however, as they are not exactly built for someone to just go in and explore.  We walked around a bit, and then headed back up to the light where we walked around a bit more, saw some tall buildings and got back on the train.

the tall buildings of downtown dallas

cousins waitin for the train...

this train.

Our stop this time was Downtown Carrollton.  We didn't have much time so we popped in to a shop or two, got a milk shake and then ran back to the train which we were about to miss.  Now this is where it gets crazy.  I was running for the train, ahead of it, across the tracks (don't freak out), when I slipped and fell, skinned my knee but managed to save the milkshake (for the most part; a decent chunk of it ended up in my hair), and make in on to the train in time.  Talk about excitement.  Thank God nothing was badly damaged (save my pride!) and I did NOT get run over by a train.   But it was close!

And that was today.  The excitement promises to continue though in the great land of Texas: tonight we dine at In-N-Out!  Huzzah! The first of many times I plan on dinning at that fine establishment before I go back to the Land of Enchantment.

Well that's all for today! Tomorrow I drive to New Orleans, so keep me in your prayers.  It's a 520+ mile drive, and I'll be there for 2 nights.  Expect to hear from me soon!!

TALLY:
miles driven: >1,000
time spent in my car: 14 hours
cities visited: 5
states driven in/through: 2