Dallas was a washout.
We just spent 12 nights there and only had a couple of days where it didn’t rain. There was so much rain that we were getting flash flood warnings on our phone. That meant we spent much more time at our hotel than expected.
We’d been given a ton of great recommendations for things to do in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, so we’ll hopefully return at some point in the future when it’s not so wet.
So here’s a list of everything we got up to:
1) New Main Brewing Company
The day after we arrived in the Dallas area, we met up with Meghan and Adam who are part of our Facebook group. Most of the recommendations for things to do in DFW came from Meghan, one of which was going for drinks at New Main Brewing Company.
We headed there with them before having dinner at their place. It’s a great family-friendly – and dog-friendly – place to meet up, with some great drink options. Shae ordered their Crackberry which is a cranberry/blackberry hard cider, while I went for their Dirty Job which is a maple pecan porter.
2) State Fair of Texas
We met back up with Meghan and Adam at the State Fair of Texas. There were some fun food and drink items we tried while there, so check out Shae’s post to read more about those.
3) Pot Luck Dinner
While at the State Fair, Shae and I got chatting to someone sitting at the table next to us while we were eating our cotton candy taco.
Shortly after that, her friends returned and the three of them invited us to an art exhibition in homes throughout their neighborhood that Saturday. Unfortunately the weather was awful that day, so we decided not to go (I’m not sure if the exhibition even went ahead).
Even more lovely of them was that they invited us to a pot luck dinner the following evening. One of their neighbors was holding the pot luck at their house and had invited their local neighbors. Verena, Melanie and Suzanne were all going along, so they invited us too. Everyone was lovely and we had a wonderful evening, made even better by their sweet dog Booger.
4) Bush Central Barkway Dog Park
We hadn’t realized at the start of our time in Dallas that it was going to rain nearly the entire time. One of the few rain-free hours we had ended up being spent at Bush Central Barkway Dog Park in the first few days of our visit.
It’s called Bush Central Barkway as it’s located beneath the President George Bush Turnpike. The dog park is separated into four separate sections – two for large dogs, one for small dogs and one for older or less active dogs.
5) Woodshed Smokehouse
In addition to Meghan and Adam, we met up someone else from our Facebook group called Rebekah. Fort Worth was about halfway between us, so we met up at Woodshed Smokehouse for dinner. It’s a pet-friendly restaurant that even has a pet menu, but we had to leave our dog Truffles at the hotel as that was yet another rainy evening and so we couldn’t sit outside.
Woodshed Smokehouse has some tasty (albeit somewhat overpriced) food. Shae ordered the whole beef rib with a side of broccolini (sides are charged for separately and the broccolini was $7).
I got the butcher’s sandwich which contains chopped brisket, pulled pork, sausage, mustard, pickles and coleslaw, along with a side of fresh chips.
For dessert, Shae got the smoked chocolate pie; she thought it was OK, but would’ve preferred a graham cracker base rather than the fairly thick pie crust.
I decided to try something unusual, so got the jalapeno apple pie with ice cream. It was pretty good but definitely had a strong jalapeno flavor in addition to the heat of the pepper.
6) Cabin Fever Solution
Truffles was starting to get cabin fever towards the end of our time in Dallas. After several days of being cooped up in the hotel, she needed to get out and about.
Our initial plan was to head back to Bush Central Barkway dog park. As it’s below the highway, we figured there’d be some protection from the rain. Unfortunately it was closed (presumably due to how waterlogged it was), so we needed to find an alternative.
We therefore decided to head to some pet-friendly stores. First up was PetSmart, so we slowly walked each aisle and grabbed her a new toy. Our next stop was going to be Lowe’s seeing as they allow dogs, but the PetSmart had a Michael’s next door which is another pet-friendly store, so we went there instead.
We therefore headed inside and walked around, with Truffles putting on a fashion show.
Final Thoughts
And…that’s basically all we did. There’s so much we missed out on, so we’d like to stay in downtown Dallas next time. Traffic in Dallas is awful, so even though we weren’t staying that far outside of downtown, it took ages to get anywhere.
There was a lot of stuff we missed in Fort Worth too. Our ideal plan would therefore be to stay something like five days in downtown Dallas and five days in downtown Fort Worth. Hopefully when it’s not raining constantly too!
Traci Money says
The rain here has been so bad. I truly hope you make it back as there is so much to do. I love this pic of Truffles.
stephen says
Thank you!