Ernie went to Dallas to take training for a new product the company he works for was going to start using. Dale was out of work at the time, so she was able to go along.

We flew out June 21. We stayed at a hotel in Plano, about 30 miles from downtown Dallas, but only 5 or 6 miles from the training site.

The first night there we went to the Medieval Times for dinner & tournament. The next day we used the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) to visit the Dallas World Aquarium & Zoological Garden and the Dallas Zoo. Click the pictures below to read about and see pictures of these places.

We found that the people in Dallas were very friendly, but we had difficulty in finding people who knew where things were. As an example, we spent the first half hour in Dallas on Sunday trying to find someone who knew where the aquarium is even though we got off the DART train less then ½ mile from the aquarium.

The rest of the week Ernie was in class during the day. Dale walked around the area of Plano where the hotel is most days. One day Dale used the DART system to go into Dallas on her own. She walked several miles in Dallas just looking around. One of the highlights of the day was seeing the fountains and waterfalls that were used for the opening of the Dallas TV series.

Each evening after Ernie returned from class we went to a different type restaurant. We dined at Chinese, Italian, American Pub, Bar-b-que, and Deli establishments. Especially good were the Macaroni Grill Italian and the Red Hot & Blue barb-b-que restaurants. The Red Hot & Blue was decorated with guitars, pictures, and posters of famous blues artist. There was blues playing over the sound system.

Our visit to Medieval Times was the main highlight of this trip.

From the outside it looks like a castle. Inside is decorated like a Hollywood version of a medieval castle, except for the bar, gift shop, DJ booth, and dance floor.

After some festivities in the outer hall we were let into the dining arena. This is a large arena with seats fronted by narrow tables all around the arena. Everyone is facing toward the arena and each row is sufficiently higher up than the row in front to give all a good view. We were in the second row a little left of center.

Our meal was served by Amy who introduced herself as our wench for the evening. The meal consisted of soup, ½ of a chicken, 2 ribs, ½ of an herb flavored baked potato, iced tea or Pepsi, dessert, and no silverware. The food was really good and, even though there were probably more than 1,000 people, it was served hot. Dale had a problem at first using just her hands to eat, but Ernie dug right in. Dale eventually began to enjoy the experience. We did not have to clean our hands on our clothes as we had napkins during and warm wet napkins at the end of the meal.

There was a pageant put on about a king, his court, and the greatest knight from each of the 6 districts of his realm. An argument between the head knight and the king's chancellor leads to challenges and it is determined the Knights will have a tournament. Each section of the spectators is championed by one of the knights, ours was the Black And White Knight.

Between the beginning pageantry and the tournament we were entertained by some performing horses and a falconer and his falcon.

Then a sorcerer came out and told the king that his brother, who was killed in battle, was not killed by the enemy but by one of the king's own knights. One of king's trusted knights was actually a traitor.

This was followed by some competition all done at a full gallop on horse back. This included putting the lance through a small ring, picking up a weapon stuck in the ground, throwing a spear at an overhead target, and putting the lance through two small rings.

After another argument between the chancellor and the head knight it was determined that the jousting would be to the "death". The jousting itself resulted in one of the knights being knocked from his horse then the other knight would dismount, weapons chosen, and mortal combat on foot would begin. Our champion, the Black & White Knight, knocked his opponent off the horse, but was then "killed" by his opponent in the ensuing combat.

After there was only one knight remaining, the head knight "killed" the winner and it was revealed that the head knight was the traitor. The chancellor did battle with the head knight and sent him off to jail.

We were very impressed by the skills of the people who portrayed the knights. We assume that they were professional stunt men.

When the show finished we still had about 45 minutes until the hired car was to pick us up so we went to the lounge and got in some dancing.

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On Sunday we went to the Dallas Aquarium & Zoological Garden. We got off the DART train at the Westside station since we were told that this was the closest station to the aquarium. We were told to turn right when we got off the train and the aquarium was a short distance from there on the left. We walked to the end of the station area and asked someone where the aquarium is. He told us to go back the other way and it would be at the end of the street on the left. We went to where he said and found we were at the Fifth Floor Museum, a museum about John Kennedy in the building from which Lee Harvey Oswald is alleged to have shot him. We asked two people in the gift shop and they had no idea where the aquarium is and told us to ask someone in security. The security people were able to give us directions. We had to go back the way we came and turn left a little beyond where we had asked the first person. We finally found the place. We do not remember the names of all the creatures we saw, but here are a few pictures.

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After leaving the aquarium we got on the DART train and went to the Dallas Zoo. This was a lot easier to find, there is a train stop at the zoo. It was hot so we did not see a lot of animal activity, but we did see quite a few animals. We did not take many pictures at the zoo, the batteries were getting low and we were probably getting tired. We do not remember the names of all the animals, but here are a few pictures.

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