Dallas, A Crabby Cat & 5 Miles

Jason and I just got back from a trip to Dallas, TX. The annual American Physical Society (APS...we all love anagrams) meeting was held there this year. We got there on Friday and were able to get runs in on Saturday and Sunday which is always a nice thing to able to do when you are away from home as sometimes when the schedule is screwed up it's difficult to get motivated to lace up those shoes!

We spent a couple nights at a bar called Gator's -Croc & Roc which was pretty fun. They had a nice long list of frozen drinks which is always nothing but a good time for everyone. We hung out there on Friday night with a fellow Fermi Lab guy named Jorge and then on Saturday night we met up with him and some of his friends all of who were from South America. Two of the guys, one from Colombia and the other from Argentina, work for Haliburton and were in Fort Worth for a 3 month session learning stuff about oil engineering. Then there were two guys who work at Fermi Lab, one from Argentina and the other from Brazil (Rio De Janero at that! Can you imagine being from Rio and moving out to the western Chicago suburbs?). We had a lot of fun with this group and had wacky waiter who kept us smiling all night.

On Sunday, after meeting up with Runner Susan, we went back to Gators and very easily convinced Brendan, who is the head of our physics group at Fermi Lab, to join us for a cocktail. Brendan, being a big fan of any type of frozen thing with liquor added, had a good time as did we. Although we never got dinner and after running 9 miles, drinking 4 or so frozen tasties and eating a couple fries....let's just say Jason and Leah weren't doing so well on Monday morning.

Monday night we went out with Brendan, Ralf and Gernot. We had cocktails at the Big Ball restaurant at our hotel which is one of those dealys which spins a full 360 degrees and you get a nice view of all of Dallas. Then Ralf wanted to take some really old trolly car to another part of town to get dinner. The trolley ended up being really cool and apparently hasn't changed much over the years. However, after we got to the other part of town we couldn't quite find a place to eat and after walking for many blocks we FINALLY got to a great Mexican place which had really amazing food. In the end the long walk was worth it because the food was o-so-tasty.

On Tuesday morning (that was this morning!) we went to check out the Grassy Knoll because how do you not when you are in Dallas. It was a sad thing and we though it was weird that they have an 'X' in the road where it happened. I guess all the stuff around the location is exactly the same as it was back then.

This plaque was on the outside of the building which was known as the Texas book depository in 1963. We though it was funny that even the sign talking about the building talks about Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly killing President Kennedy. They have a museum on the 6th floor of this building now but we didn't want to pay $10 to see it. We did however get a taste for the museum because they had some posters on the main floor and it was really sad, so it was good that the museum was out of our price range. We also went to check out the Conspiracy Theory Museum but it was just as expensive so we didn't go all the way in. I don't know, after reading some literature at the Consipracy Theory Museum and hearing a guy talking at the site.....maybe there was a second shooter..... (sorry in advance for the graphic description in the next sentance) didn't his head go "back and to the left" (according to the dude at the site)? how could that have happened if he was shot from behind? I love conspiracy theories :-)

After the museums we decided just to head to the airport super early, but this time with a purpose to try and get on an earlier flight, which we were able to do since the flight before us wasn't full. We got home a couple hours earlier than we hoped which is always nice after a longish time away...plus we were ansy to see our cat Dagny. Jason and I live on the third floor of our building and when I was on the 1st floor landing I could hear our kitty screaming like she was being tortured. Poor baby! She hates being alone and so when we are on vacations or business trips she tends to get a little cranky.

We had to leave her again as we went out for our 5 mile run which went a lot better than I thought it would. We just ran a nice easy pace and chugged on through the run. It's always nice to get out there for a run after a day of being stuck in a tube (which by the way circled around O'Hare for an extra 20 minutes) and getting baggage and getting home, finding parking etc. It's just such a nice way to end the day.....