Roadtrip: Days 6-8

8-17-12 MAGIC MIRROR
Woke up early on Friday to take Jordan to the airport. He's off to the wedding of one of our friends from our Africa days. The wedding is in Chattanooga, and he back-tracked the steps of my three day journey in about two hours. After dropping him off, I aimlessly wandered around North Dallas for most of the day, seeking free wifi and AC in order to update the blog and pass the time until Cara got off work. She informed me that I would be accompanying her and another friend, Kristin, to a twin-themed party that night. We decided that I would carry around a mirror, and everyone at the party would laud my cleverness. Maybe they did, but I spent most of the party catching up with Kristin (who didn't know anyone there either) and trying to avoid getting wrangled into "Twin Twister" and "Twin Ping-Pong" tournaments.

8-18-12 WHEN IT RAINS
Saturday was rainy and lazy. Pancakes and coffee at Cara's, followed by a movie and a couple hours of sitting around. Well, I sat around while Cara cleaned. Dinner from Torchy's Tacos, a food truck concept from Austin that spread to Dallas and traded wheels for a permanent address. Delicious. I maintain that the taco is one of the world's perfect food items. With the evening slipping away, I decided, on a whim, to drive down to Waco (about 100 miles south of Dallas) to see some college friends who are in studies at Baylor's Truett Seminary. I rapidly began to regret my decision as traffic slowed to one lane on I-35E. When I finally made it out of the jam, the heavens opened up and torrential rain and winds turned the routine drive into a white-knuckle hell-ride. Thankfully I made it in one piece, despite hydroplaning a couple times. Gotta keep things lively! Hit the sack after catching up with the guys over beers.

8-19-12  YUCATAN
Sunday morning was church with the guys, followed by a generic lunch. I had to take my leave of Waco after lunch, since I wanted to take the long way back to Dallas, in hopes of better scenery. What I got was cotton, sorghum, and black dirt, all bisected by Osage hedgerows. The fields were neither the perfect grid of the Midwest, nor the haphazard "anywhere we can" fields of East Tennessee, but a happy medium.

I wandered my way back to the big city, due to pick up Jordan from the massive airport that evening. Having witnessed rush-hour traffic the night before, I decided to camp out at a coffee shop around the corner from the airport to await his call. Amazingly, it only took me two tries to find the right terminal, and we were back on the road in no time, Jordan regaling me with tales of his wedding-weekend shenanigans. With nothing better to do, we drove to Fort Worth and wandered the streets for a while, stopping to marvel at the unattended perilousness of the Fort Worth Water Gardens.

Dinner was some pretty delicious taco/burrito fare from a Yucatan-inspired place down on the college's main drag. A main drag that was more-or-less deserted, but for a mysterious line of students that wound around two blocks. Mumford & Sons concert? Fixie Bike workshop? Free tickets to Brooklyn? We'll never know. The events of the rest of the evening escape me, but we ended up back at Jordan's place, playing video games until the wee hours of the morning.