Flight to Dallas and a first dinner in Fort Worth

Thursday, 1.5.2014

My first trip starting in Berlin! Getting up at 4 am is no fun here either. The taxi arrives shortly after 5 and I fly to Frankfurt. The connection works smoothly and we fly at 10:20 am towards Dallas.

There are long lines at immigration. We pick up the car at Alamo, this time we opted for a smaller class, a Compact, hoping to get an upgrade. That doesn't work out and unfortunately our Compact does not have cruise control or a compass, but at least air conditioning and that's good too. We have 22 degrees, which is very pleasant, and now we struggle mile after mile on endless highways and interchanges. The traffic here is hell! Construction sites, potholes, reckless drivers, missing signs, tailgaters, exits to the right and left of the highway - we abandon our plan to visit an outlet in the afternoon and only reach the Motel 6 north of Fort Worth after several wrong turns and confusions, where we (actually) booked for 3 nights.

The location is eerie on a dilapidated street, truck drivers standing smoking and drinking in front of the rooms and an environment that has nothing but desolation and traffic noise.

I buy a WLAN access for $2.99 at the reception desk just to cancel the reservation via Booking.com. 10 minutes before 6:00 pm (which is the deadline for a free cancellation), I manage to type on the mini screen of my phone and we book only 2 nights on site and also decide to choose two separate rooms due to the low price.

The plastic flooring in the rooms takes some getting used to, even with the door closed, car noises from the highway still penetrate into the rooms. You don't have to stay here for long... But looking for a completely different place was also not an attractive option. We had searched endlessly for affordable accommodations in/near Fort Worth and ultimately ended up here because of the price and proximity to the Fort Worth Stockyards.

So we drive straight there and instead of the highly praised tourist attraction, we find a yawning empty part of town, restaurants that are partially closed, and just walk up and down the main street, see where the rodeo will take place tomorrow, and have something to eat and drink a beer at Riscky's. We are at the hotel at 10 pm.

We have a 7-hour time difference to Germany.