I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here in this space, but I recently put my old vehicle out to pasture after nine years of occasionally faithful service and acquired a new (to me) ride. It’s the Honda Accord sedan previously owned by the good people at From Here to Obscurity, and it really makes my previous car look like the pitiful go-kart it was. Anyway, this past weekend was my first opportunity to take it on a real road trip as I attended the opening two games of the Red Sox series against the Rangers in Arlington.



This is my third year attending games with the Texas branch of the Sons of Sam Horn, and I came into Opening Day with a spotless 3-0 record at the Ballpark in Arlington. This did not last. After the opening pageantry, with the bald eagle and the Air Force fighters flyover, a short and boring game comprised mostly of weak pop-ups ensued, with the result a 2-0 Rangers victory. Since the second game was not until the following evening, this left me with a lot of time to kill in the DFW area. After the 90-minute, one mile drive to my motel, I waited out the rush hour traffic, then headed east to Dallas to check out the Deep Ellum neighborhood. This is the sort of seedy/artsy part of town that apparently has fallen on hard times, judging from the “SAVE DEEP ELLUM” signs I saw. It is also a place where the parking meters are in effect at night but not during the day. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. I also don’t think I’ve ever seen a Malcolm X Blvd., but they had one of those, too.

Anyway, I had a very tasty turkey burger and seasoned curly fries at Twisted Root Burger, then decided to check out a street fair that was going on. They had bands set up at each end of a street and a bunch of little arts ‘n crafts booths in between. The street also boasted more tattoo parlors in a five-block radius than I’ve ever seen (and I’ve lived in both Hollywood and Austin). And I should mention that it was freezing. Not New England buried under three feet of snow freezing, but certainly Texas freezing. I had a couple beers, looked at some peculiar art and that was about it.



Saturday morning I had breakfast at Cindi’s Delicatessen (as recommended by the Ludic Log) and then met up with fellow Austinite, Emersonian and Sox fan Roby on the Web at a most unusual tourist destination, the Sixth Floor Museum. Yes, that would be the sixth floor of the former Texas School Book Depository, overlooking Dealey Plaza and the grassy knoll. For $10 you get to see the sniper’s nest, although it’s sealed in plastic so you can’t get the exact view Oswald had, but you can look out the next window and that’s eerie enough. There’s all sorts of artifacts and films and even a section devoted to the conspiracy theories, and I suppose it’s good that the city of Dallas hasn’t shied away from a dark part of its past. But the gift shop? I dunno, that’s a little over the line, I think.

I drove over to Fort Worth to kill a little more time at a bookstore. By now actual snow flurries are in progress. At 4:30 I headed over to the ballpark parking lot to meet up with the rest of the group for a tailgate of beers and BBQ. This was football weather, but we made the best of it. The game was actually exciting for, oh, five innings or so, and then the Sox bullpen let it get out of hand. It figures that the only Boston win of the series came Sunday night, by which time I was watching from the safety of my couch in Austin. Ah well, I get another shot at the end of May.