Memorial Day wrap-up

Memorial Day fishing
Originally uploaded by eandjtrygg.

(By Erik and Jeanie)

For those of you who think we only jet off to Zimbabwe and Guatemala, we offer this recap of Memorial Day weekend.

Jeanie had an exceedingly rare 10 days off from her residency, so we decided to take advantage of that with a mini-vacation to Dallas. Erik couldn’t get off more than a couple of days due to catching up after the Zimbabwe trip, but he promised to make it up to Jeanie the next time she gets 10 days off. That should be sometime around 2009.

So we made the best of it by checking into a quaint little bed and breakfast in the Love Field area (the locals refer to it as “Fairfield Inn.”) We visited the historic West End area and ate at a quaint little restaurant (the locals refer to it as “On The Border.”)

We visited the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealy Plaza, located on the sixth floor of the former Texas Schoolbook Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald perched himself and assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Erik had never seen the museum — or the grassy knoll across the street. It was eerie looking out the windows of the sixth floor down over the Dallas streets and realizing what happened there about 43 years ago.

We also treated ourselves to a culinary experience at Texas de Brazil, a restaurant in the Metroplex that offers a taste of southern cooking — south of the equator, anyway! Erik ate at a similar restaurant in Georgetown, Guyana, back in 2004 and wanted to share the experience with Jeanie.

Eating at Texas de Brazil was an experience. First you load up your plate at their 40-item salad bar, which has everything from beans and rice to fish and exotic cheeses. It would be a meal in and of itself, but there’s more.

You’re given a round token with green and red sides. When you’re ready for the main course, you flip your token over to the green side and waiters come at you with swords — literally. Five or six waiters circled our table with skewers of pork, steak, sausage and lamb prepared in various ways. If you’re interested, they cut you off a slice, so you can sample all sorts of stuff. Erik liked the house sirloin — very juicy and tender. Jeanie really enjoyed the parmesan pork — great flavor. And the spiced bananas were a nice dessert.

As for the price of this meal … well, let’s just say it’s cheaper than round-trip airfare to Brazil. But we highly recommend it for special occasions. Plus, some locations of Texas de Brazil, supposedly have started offering lunch service for a reduced price. We’ll look into that for next time.

We spent a day shopping in the retail nightmare that is Frisco, Texas. We both got a pair of shoes and a couple of other things, but mostly Frisco is just a bunch of stuff that we have in OKC — all crammed into two miles or so.

Then we headed north and spent the weekend with Jeanie’s grandmother and uncle in Madill, Okla. Jeanie’s parents joined us. We scouted out a good fishing hole and set up some rods and reels. Erik caught his first bass and learned how to hook minnows as bait. Jeanie’s dad caught two bass and uncle Leroy caught two more. We threw all but two of them back. Jeanie’s dad cleaned them (we chose not to watch) and we’ll be eating them soon.

Erik also got reacquainted with an old nemesis — fire ants. He got about five bites on one leg. We don’t have fire ants in OKC, but they’re plentiful in Texas and south Oklahoma and are headed north. Of course, they were a frequent nuisance in Georgia, where Erik once got 70 bites on one foot while waiting for the ice cream man. Ah, that painful-yet-familiar sting that reminds us of a land of cotton. Look away, look away, look away lidocaine.

Click on the photo to see what we caught.