Sunday, October 7, 2007 | by nathan

He’s In Dallas

Just got back from Dallas about an hour ago. It was a great, restful weekend, if not a whole lot less eventful than I’d anticipated.

We rolled into DFW Friday night, stopped at Centennial for some Buffalo Trace (two bottles plus a bunch of the tiny little ones), then checked into the hotel. We mixed the whiskey with some Coke, thinking vaguely that we’d get happy and go out. Instead, we rented "The Simpsons Movie" on the hotel pay-per-view and fell asleep.

Saturday we got up about 8:30, and I went for a run in the hotel gym, albeit a short one. We left about 10:30 for the Texas State Fair. It took us over 3 hours to actually arrive near the fair, and once again I’m left to wonder WHERE THE HELL PEOPLE IN TEXAS LEARN HOW TO DRIVE BECAUSE SERIOUSLY? YOU’RE ALL FUCKING CRAZY. At any rate, we got to our seats about 5 minutes before the 2:30 kickoff. So, to recap - that’s twelve miles in FOUR HOURS. Luckily we’d brought several of the little whiskey bottles with us, which we mixed in our Cokes, but it was like a sauna in that crowd. By the third quarter we were all pretty miserable, except there was a fantastic football game going on, so we stuck it out.

Sooners kicked some Texas ass, in case you missed it.

It started raining right as the game ended, and there was a thunderstorm approaching, so that put the kibosh on our plans to hang out at the State Fair for awhile. We returned to the hotel to shower and change clothes, thinking we’d grab some Chipotle and head out to the bars later. Instead, we mixed a bunch more whiskey and Cokes and got real tired, talking ourselves out of going out and feeling really great about it.

This morning we went to Cafe Brazil for breakfast, then up to Grapevine Mills Mall for a few hours until I had to drop Brian off at some giant hotel in Grapevine for a trade show he’s attending tonight and tomorrow. He’s flying to Kansas after that, so I won’t see him again until Tuesday.

I drove home listening mostly to sad country music, missing Brian but holding it together because I make it my strict policy never to cry in Texas. When I crossed the Red River I thought I might lose it. However, perched atop the first overpass in Oklahoma were fifteen to twenty people, dressed all in crimson and cream, holding signs that said "Go Sooners!" and shouting as the cars passed underneath. I gave them the upside-down Texas sign and smiled, and I didn’t shed a tear the whole way home.