Dallas is where I’ve lived the longest and I enjoy it because it has a whole lot to offer, especially when it comes to food.

First off, I really love that there’s more to the Dallas scene than BBQ. BBQ is the food of the cowboys, who you’ll find in Forth Worth (aka COWTOWN). Don’t ask me about BBQ because I don’t eat it. We have plenty of long-established joints around town that, I’ve heard, provide a delicious sampling of this traditional Texas food. Sonny Bryans, Spring Creek BBQ, Babe’s, Colter’s, etc. I personally don’t like it so that’s as much as I know.

Instead I love to feast on delicious burgers and Tex-Mex, which are in abundance around here. But you have to be careful with quantity versus quality.

Photo From TwistedRootBurgerCo.com

Where you’ll find the good stuff:

Twisted Root – A great burger/hot dog joint featured on Diners, Drive In’s and Dives. The menu is limited… on purpose. It keeps your decision-making process simple which is really the theme of this little eatery. Burger, fries, drink and maybe the shake-of-the-day for dessert. The menu is written on a series of chalk boards and with a black sharpie on brown butcher paper and taped to the wall above the cash register. Seriously. Twisted Root is a no-frills place that just wants to offer good food, ice cold beer and a casual chill-out atmosphere. I love it. Each order gets a celebrity name card, so when your order is up, you’ll be known as “Beetlejuice” or  a local favorite like “Dirk Nowitzki.”

Desperados – My favorite Mexican restaurant and a family-owned establishment since the ’80s. It looks somewhat like the Alamo on the outside, but the interior is calming and intimate. Start with chips-n-salsa, get the Steak Argentina for your main course and finish with sopapillas. Don’t forget to wash it all down with a frozen margarita. Desperados has been around for forever but it has only one other location, keeping it a very local establishment. I think of Desperados as a special place – one you save for special occasions.

For your everyday Tex-Mex cravings, hit Blue Goose. For starters, the margaritas here are outstanding. The sour cream chicken enchiladas are always delicious and you have a never-ending supply of chips-n-salsa. There are several locations around Dallas and the suburbs and the location you pick definitely affects the atmosphere. On Lower Greenville Avenue, expect a lot of bikers and bar-hoppers as this is a central location to get your drink on and pub crawl. It’s a lot of fun!

Day of Departure

A torrential downpour washed Dallas clean on the day of our departure. It wasn’t the most comforting story to see on a a big flight day when the television discussed the Air France flight lost in the abyss of the Atlantic Ocean. But we took comfort in the odds that a similar accident of lightning striking wouldn’t happen within 48 hours of the last.

Chris on the Plane From Dallas

The gracious Senior Management Team at STA Travel invited us to lunch at an Italian eatery for our last home soil meal, where I sat in awe and wonder listening to these travel professionals talk about the glory of first class airport lounges and frequent flier benefits. Oh, to be knowledgeable in the best activity known to mankind. One day I aspire to be as savvy.

Throwing all our rogue papers and hardware into the bags one final time, we said goodbye to STA Travel and were bid farewell on a trip those waving conceived, funded and booked for us. And within minutes of getting to the airport we began making our lives more interesting: checked baggage weight challenges, taping ourselves hangin’ at the gate, and discussing to the world watching things like, “Lindsay just got through airport security with Chris’ boarding pass.”

At one point in our lounging state, waiting for our plane to begin boarding, I received an e-mail from Head Office informing us that our gate had changed to one far along the terminal. We booked it towards the new gate, and upon getting there were informed our new gate was actually on the other side of the airport entirely. There was some sweating, sprinting, and nail biting on my end, while I believe Chris just found the changes ridiculous.

The final gate turned out to be the second one at which we were turned away. The darn schnickel-fritz who told us wrong didn’t even act like she did anything wrong.

Eh, can’t be too upset when your ending destination is Fiji.

Travel Mecca

Dallas is quite a sprawling metropolis, and at her outskirts is a little place some call Heaven…others call Lewisville. When Carly brought us into view of this nook of Texas, I was enthralled by the George Jetson highways soaring above us, the rhythm of strip malls and restaurants lining all roads, and the amount of cars that made up the moving landscape. They really DO do it bigger in Texas. Alright, alright.

Talking to Pat and Rachel

STA Travel, a.k.a. Travel Mecca, is everything I thought it would be, thanks to the YouTube video parodying The Office and the regular Facebook clips for assorted sweepstakes. When faced with the chance to introduce myself to the company and express my joy and anticipation for the journey ahead, I resulted to the “words cannot express” method (since it’s completely applicable here) but wished I could’ve wowed them with the skills that got me chosen in the first place. Gotta save something for the videos and such. Yeah, that was my strategy all along…

Meeting after meeting flew by discussing our itinerary, our assignments and our incredible equipment. Are we really discussing right now a trip that we are taking for free? And all we have to do is tell you and show you how much fun we’re having? There still has to be a catch to this whole crackpot scheme. Ah, but no, my friends, we really were covering the details of our African safaris, followed by our Cape Town adventures, followed by our Greek island hopping (and so on and so on).

And with a quick final word of advice from Rachel and Pat, we were off to have dinner and drinks with the STA crew and discuss travel styles, destinations, and the passions behind it all. This, for me, would constitute as celestial perfection, a.k.a. Heaven (cue to harking angels and a beam of light from above). Just a couple chums talking about travel tales over Shiners.

Speaking of Heaven, our last stop for the night to indulge in a “time-honored Texan tradition” brought us to a destination called Red Neck Heaven. Sounds too good to be true, no? Ah, but it wasn’t. In fact, I watched four boys inhale live fish down their gullets and one very distressed woman choke back a very, very dead one due to some evil peer pressure.

I, without a lick of regret, did not partake in the challenge and instead could really appreciate the flamboyant horn that sounded after they took their shots.

The sound of success, if you ask me.

The Moment of Truth

In a Giant Metal Bird to Dallas

From my spot in seat 12D on that much-awaited flight, I took a bird’s-eye-view tour of Indianapolis and said “sayonara,” because I was heading off to be part of the COOLEST INTERNSHIP ON THE PLANET!

I was so pumped to be traveling again, especially towards an opportunity that could open up mounds of possibilities down the road! So utterly pumped was I that I began sweating to the point of being THAT airplane passenger. Ya know…the one that smells like peanuts and armpit.

Upon descending into Dallas, I actually grabbed the vomit bag in the seat pocket in front of me; my anticipation of meeting the marketing team and, of course, my travel buddy was causing me incredible bouts of nausea…the good kind. Don’t worry, I didn’t use the bag. I’m a champ.

Hanging out beside the baggage claim, hat tilted back, bags dangling from his wandering frame, there was Chris, my travel pal. We pulled a “cheesy movie” moment and ran to each other in slow motion, embracing at the meeting point with a much awaited “Yeah boy! Finally! We’re doin this!”

And thus began our evening with the marketing team of STA. They hooked us up with a swanky hotel (knowing we weren’t going to have it that posh for a while) and took us out for glorious Mexican food. The collaborations of the evening reverberated incredible enthusiasm for the task to come: world travel and the documentation of its awe-striking wonders.