DART Tripping Around the Metroplex

Since Dallas has decided to give itself a self-imposed gas crisis, my sweetie was unable to get gas on the way home Thursday.  As a result, we are spending the day exploring the metroplex via public transportation.  I love it when we do this as we never totally know where it will lead.  The only for sure part is to go say goodbye to the Australian animals at the zoo.  Otherwise, who knows?

At 6:45 a.m. we leave the house to walk the 1/2 mile down to White Rock Coffee, which also happens to be the bus stop.  The sky is crazy cool this morning.  Love it.

I realized that I have never spotlighted our favorite coffee shop.  I love this little place.  It has a great vibe (although not this early on a Saturday morning) and is very community oriented.  They roast the beans themselves and make all the sandwiches in house as well.  Each day there is a housemade pastry as well.  Oooooh, they are so yummy.

The pumpkin spice scones (homemade) make their debut this morning and we are there to snag one right away.

With plenty of time to visit and enjoy our repast before the bus, we are able to reconnect after a busy week.  How nice.

Time does pass and it is time to walk to the corner.  Our bus will be along soon and it's not something we want to miss.  The zoo opens at 9:00.

Our bus takes us to the Park Lane train station where we have a bit of a wait for our train.  Given this opportunity, my camera and I are upward bound.

And just like that, the train arrives and we are zoo bound.  Passing by the Trinity River area, waterfowl are enjoying the beautiful day too.

AS I said above, our reason for the trip to the zoo is to say goodbye to these great animals that are departing due to road construction near their habitats.  You can enjoy our morning and the GREAT pictures that we have by clicking on THIS LINK.

After the zoo, we are wide open with no real plans.  Let's take the red line as far north as we can and see what there is to see.  We've not been past the Downtown Plano stop and are curious.

Once we get to Parker Road, there just isn't much there causing us to decide to backtrack to an area we saw on the way up.  10 Fifty BBQ was spotted through the windows as we were looking at a brewery that is new to us.  Well, the brewery opens at 2 and it's 1 now, so why not bbq for lunch?

We've not been here before so that makes it interesting as well.  Mister tells me that his coworkers have talked about this system and he thinks this is restaurant they mentioned.

The meats a smoked and then we make our selection of those at the first stop.  This is all outside.  Through the doors to the interior, we now choose the sides, bread, and drinks and then locate a spot to sit.

The food is okay.  I'm not thrilled by maybe that's because my first bite of coleslaw has cilantro in it.  What??  Why ruin my yummy salad that way?  Most of the meats are fairly spicy with the exception of the pulled pork, which I think is actually quite bland.  Yeah, this place is scoring big points with me.  That's the risk and I'll gladly take it each time as we try new places.

We have about 20 minutes before the brewery opens and as we walk down there, a car lot is across the street.  Heck, why not?  Yes, my friends, we actually made it onto the lot to look at cars.  No, one was not bought but that is indeed progress, don't ya think?

Four Bullets Brewery opens and we discover that it is a small operation that has been in business for two years.  In fact, this is their anniversary weekend.  Wow -- lucky for us.  They still do the buy a glass and ticket thing that the breweries used to all have to do.  For $10.00 you receive a pint glass and three tickets for one pour each.  That is a screaming deal.  Three pints of beer for 10 bucks is not found elsewhere in the city, at least not that I am aware of.  We start out with a couple of ales and find a place to sit.

As we are sitting, this duo comes in and looks around for a place to set-up.  As we watch, we discover that it is the grand-opening for the room we are sitting in.  It's new to the facility.  Cool.  As part of the celebration, Lynette and Lefty are booked for three hours today.  It takes them a bit to set up but by 3 they are ready to go.  I tell Mister I want to stick around and listen for a bit.  We wind up staying the entire 3 hours, enjoying great beer (my personal favorite is their brown ale -- WOW) and some really fun old-time country music with a blues or rockabilly feel.  On the breaks between sets, they stop and our table and talk with us twice.  It's fun to get to know them and I walk away with a new cd as well.  We shot a couple of short videos and hope you give them a chance if you are in the area.  They used to be based out of Austin, but now call Nacogdoches home.

They finish at 6 and our train will arrive at 6:18.  We need to book it back to the station quick, quick, quick.  We make it and ride all the way down to Mockingbird Station.  From there we will catch the blue train, but have a few minutes to wait.  That means we have time for a bathroom break.

The view of the new bridge near Mockingbird Station is appealing to me and I peek for a few minutes while waiting for my sweetheart.  This ENTIRE bridge is a biking/walking bridge.  Pretty cool indeed.

As we ride the escalator back down to the train, all along the way, the pigeons have made homes in the top of the lights.  I'm thinking it's warmth at night and safe during the day.  Ingenious.

This time we are determined to ride the blue train all the way to it's end and see what is there.  The end of the route is Downtown Rowlett and this time it looks interesting.  The sun is starting to set and the evening is taking on the twilight appearance that I love so much.

We have been out and about from sunrise to sunset and our day is not over yet.

Guess what?  Right next to the station is another brewery.  Score!  This place is absolutely packed.  I am not joking.  The wait line appears quite long, but we are veterans.  Into the building we go and straight to the bar.  Yep. there are two seats just looking for someone to warm them.

I start looking around and spot TWO ovens in front of me.  One is being used for main dishes and the other for pizzas.  This will be fun to watch - entertainment with our dinner is always the best way to enjoy a meal.

While waiting for our meal, I walk around a bit and get some pictures of the brewing facility.

They have quite a few HUGE tanks, appearing to be double deckers and leaving us to wonder how in the heck they manage to clean them out.  Yep, that's the kind of stuff we think about.  Crazy redheads.

We have ordered a flight and ALL of the beers are so fantastic.  Lucky find number 2 is even better than the first.  First up for us is their Harvest Salad.

And our main event is a pizza.  Of course we have to try and compare.  It is dang good but Cane Rosso still holds our heart.  All in all, what a truly great night.  We catch the last train back into the city and then grab a cab at Mockingbird station to get home as we missed the last bus to our neighborhood.  Perfect day.  Perfect night.