Escape room. Local attraction (Reunion Tower). Geocache. Forest preserve. Tex Mex. Barbecue. I’m just reaching the end of day 1 in Dallas and I’ve already packed in most of the necessities I was shooting for.
This morning I met up with my best friend Jon and we caught our $23 flights to Dallas (thanks Spirit!). We’re only in Dallas for about 30 hours, but for that price, how could we say no?
After landing in Dallas and grabbing a rental car, Jon and I headed to Reunion Tower in Dallas to scope out the area. It was a neat attraction affording us a view of the city, and I was surprised to find the tower had a number of memory and reaction time skill games to play for free.
The tower had an outdoor deck which wrapped a full 360 degrees around the viewing deck; this was my favorite way to view the city. There was also a slowly rotating restaurant the floor above the observation deck, but it was closed at the time so I’m unable to comment on the quality of the food.
My last note about Reunion Tower is that it also housed a 5/5 difficulty geocache. The actual location of the cache seemed obvious, but the difficult appeared to be due to the need to blindly feel around the inside of wiring access point, so I let it go without risking life and limb.
We grabbed a quick lunch at a Mexican joint called Mesero. I had the cream cheese enchiladas, which were excellent. Enchiladas are a favorite dish of mine, and I had never seen this particular style before (usually just ranchero, mole, or verde). It tasted great, though I’d hate to see the nutritional facts.
One of the staff at Reunion Tower had suggested hiking at Trinity River Auduban Center, and we made that our next target. I always enjoy exploring the natural views of any area I visit, and it usually dovetails well with hunting for geocaches more interesting than the common parking lot type.
The paths at Trinity River were varied and short enough to mostly cover in about an hour. The sun baked down upon us, with temperatures reaching upwards of 100 degrees, but we brought enough water to push through it. Even with the water, I was glad when we got back to the air conditioned visitor center.
The paths went through woods, field, and marsh. We saw mostly birds and insects, with a few scurrying creatures just off the path which we couldn’t identify. It may be hard to spot, but there were more than a dozen white birds (egrets?) in one particular pond, which was neat to see.
As Trinity River started closing up shop, Jon and I headed to Fort Worth to wait out rush hour in an escape room. We went to Red Door, which intrigued me with its generous reward system. Free t-shirt after two games? Free sessions after five?
It appears the reward system is every bit as generous as advertised. We played two games, one crime-themed and one casino-themed. Both had unconventional twists (crime was more about unraveling the story than opening locks, casino had a very high number of bonus puzzles to rack up a high score), and the next time we schedule a Red Door game, we’ll have a free t-shirt waiting. It’s a cool system, and since Red Door has multiple locations near Dallas, it has the potential to go a long way for customers.
To wrap the night, we grabbed boba milk tea (I tried banana cream pie flavor!) and then barbecue at a restaurant named Riscky’s. The chopped brisket sandwich was excellent, though between my cream cheese enchiladas and brisket sandwich, I shouldn’t plan on taking a blood test any time soon.
And that’s a wrap for day 1. We head back at 5PM tomorrow, and I hope I wont miss more than a quarter of the Packers/Bears season opener. Before we head back, we plan to visit the Fort Worth stockyards as well as one more escape room, so we’ve definitely made the most of our time here. Good night from Texas!
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