Cuz I am bitten by the travel bug, I made the husband and I go to Dallas for a short trip (Sat 10/21 to Wed 10/25). I wanted to try out a budget airline called Spirit and it only cost us $101/pp for nonstop roundtrip tickets from SJC to DFW. We, of course, had breakfast at SJC The Club with priority pass. I didn’t mind the flight even though you couldn’t recline. I didn’t want to pay more for seat selection, and we still were sat together (aisle and middle seat). You’re also allowed one personal item, and both our backpacks could fit underneath the chairs. When we arrived at DFW, we tried out the Plaza Premium Lounge (it was right next to our gate), and I was surprised at the small but yummy selection of hot food (mashed potatoes, soup, chicken, turkey wraps, etc)
We then were shuttled down to the rental car pickup area and were surprised that we were given an EV (no more manager’s special please) and had to pay for a toll plate ($15/day). We drove to our hotel and I was a little apprehensive with their freeways. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Dallas Park Central Northeast for about 50k IHG points for four days. We received points, got 2 free items from their food pantry, and were upgraded to a nicer room that had two separate rooms: one bedroom and one living room.
On Sunday after our free breakfast at the hotel, we went up to Plano to go to Go Ape, an adventure park up in the trees…I don’t know why I was the one who suggested it…I thought I was gonna plunge to my death (there were safety harnesses, but it was just pretty scary being 30 ft up in the air). I was only able to finish 60% of the course, but Anson had a great time and even was allowed to repeat some parts. We wanted to charge our EV for a little bit, so we brought our car to a work campus and ate at the nearby 99 ranch. 2 hours later…24 miles charged -_-
On Monday, we went to the Dallas Farmers Market and had jerk chicken for lunch. We saw the Giant Eyeball, JFK Memorial Plaza, and Pioneer Plaza. I get how EVs are more popular now, but it is NOT conducive to a good vacation experience. It felt like part of the time, we were just trying to find a charging station and the app is useless. Fast chargers are only for Tesla, we went to one place and it was in an apartment structure and wasn’t on, we couldn’t charge at another one since we were beaten to it, and others that were on the app, we couldn’t find even though we were driving around. You kinda get range anxiety cuz you don’t know if you’ll be able to find one in time. We finally gave up and just were reserved to pay the rental company to charge it when we brought it back (thankfully, they never did!)
On Tuesday, it was raining pretty hard, so we ended up just working from the hotel. I didn’t mind since I would have been doing this at home. Plus, Anson’s been having some fun times at work and this vacation wasn’t exactly at the best time. On Wednesday, after I got us breakfast 2 mins before they closed the dining area, we packed up and headed to the Fort Worth Stockyards. As I am cheap, we parked a little further and walked in. We saw some of the longhorns (my fav was the beige one named Gus!). After walking around the downtown area, we headed to DFW airport where we went to the Capital One Lounge (the best lounge ever!). They had amazing food like this meatball slider, mac n cheese, soba noodles, cauliflower rice, baklava, and so much more! (This was probably my favorite part of the trip lol)
All in all, I think this trip was kind of a letdown having to deal with the rain, driving in Dallas, the EV, fearing for my life at Go Ape, and it being an inopportune time to travel. I’m just writing this since the husband is making me….I’ll be much more happier blogging when we got to Japan…again…next March 🙂 🙂 🙂