I attended my cousin’s wedding which was great! It was a wonderful ceremony, a couple great partys, lots of good food and it was really great to see family that I don’t see nearly enough of. I wouldn’t trade my family for any other I have ever met… and my great family just keeps getting bigger with more great families. Congratulations to John and Kate!
While we were in Dallas for the wedding, the missus and I stayed at the Hotel Lawrence. The “main” wedding hotel was across the street at the Hyatt but the missus and I love to venture out and find new and interesting places. Lawrence is trying to be a “boutique” hotel. They aren’t yet quite there, but they are getting close. We enjoyed our stay there, but it could use just a teeny bit more polish before I would call it complete (you can tell they are trying hard, though).
Both the Lawrence and the Hyatt are in the “convention” area of downtown Dallas. This is adjacent to “West End” and a couple miles from “Deep Ellum”. I lived in Dallas for about a year during college and both West End and Deep Ellum have a special place in my memory as fun spots for shopping and night life. I took the missus to both a few years ago when we were in Dallas and we went back this last weekend to see them again. Sadly, both West End and Deep Ellum are both all but gone. With the exception of just a small handful of restaurants, everything is closed. This is so sad to me.
Happily, we were able to take the TRE train (almost) from DFW airport practically to the door of our hotel (it took a couple buses to get to the train, but they were both DFW buses and it was really easy). Coming home wasn’t quite as nice as the TRE train we used to get to the hotel doesn’t run on Sunday. How stupid. Just as stupid, the TRE only seems to run about every 90 minutes on Saturdays. We were going to take the TRE west to do some shopping (since there isn’t any shopping near our hotel since West End Market is now closed) but since we just missed the TRE train, we wouldn’t have time to catch the next one and be back in time for the wedding. Oh well. We looked at taking one of the other trains, but their guides don’t do a good job of telling you what trains stops are convenient to what shopping the shopping trip was pretty much a bust. Dallas folk just haven’t even remotely gotten the hang of public transportation. Sure, when I lived in the southwest I had a car and never used public transportation for anything but now that I use the subway, buses, and trains for almost all of my everyday needs, I am sad whenever I visit a city with a bus and/or rail system that just doesn’t do what it should. Other cities really need to take more notes from NYC, DC, and Boston.
Yes, it was a great weekend! The funny thing about mass transit…if it’s crappy nobody uses it. The actual stations and trains were very nice but the service is just incomplete and needs to be promoted.
As far as downtown Dallas…it’s sad that there is nothing there. I guess they figure that folks that attend events at the convention center don’t also want to shop or see any attractions. I was almost excited about seeing the aquarium but not when I saw the price and the number of people there on a Saturday.