The Adventures of Me & Mom - Paris, Texas

Sometimes you just gotta get in the car in go.  So we did.

I had a clear calendar and my mom did as well.  So one Friday, we met at my house and took off for a day trip to Paris, Texas.  Why? you ask.  Well, why not?

We had no agenda, nothing specific that we wanted to see nor had we done any research (a mistake on my part).  We just wanted to go.  We were on the road by 11 and headed North on 75.  Just past McKinney, on Sam Rayburn Parkway (which is still under construction, by the way), we headed East.  Paris is in Lamar County (which we always hear about in the weather report) and about 100 miles from Dallas.

We passed through small towns like Trenton, Bonham and Honey Grove.  There were miles and miles of ranches and tractor dealerships, it was amazing but we were loving it.  There were several buildings we passed that looked so run down they were abandoned but then...maybe not.

Mom was amazed that several of these ranches had "cows in the front yard!"  It was pretty interesting.

But that got us to thinking...What do people do for a living in these small towns?  Do they drive to Frisco to work at the Toyota offices?  And what happens if they need to "run to the store"?  No such luck!  It wasn't like there was a Kroger on every corner.  You really have to plan ahead if you're going to live out here.  And yet, we were intrigued....

We were in Bonham by noon and I asked Mom if she wanted to get lunch and she wanted to wait.  Every Cowboy romance she'd ever read had a small town with a local café where everyone went.  We'd driven by lots of ranches and she wanted to see if Paris had that café.

Turns out, it did!

This is the Roadhouse Family Diner where they have home cookin'. 

Mom soaking up the atmosphere.

We were promptly greeted with, "Sit anywhere you like, Hon."  Then we heard our waitress say goodbye to Earl with the declaration that she'd see him tomorrow.  We were in that place five minutes and I was thinking that I wanted to spend the day just observing. 

 

So I know this is sideways but do you see what I see?  Roadhouse trash can nacho chili cheese fries?  I felt my hips widening just looking at the description.  It says "sharable" but I gotta tell you, I came real close to making that my lunch. They also had a salad or two that I considered for about two seconds.

Instead, I got an equally (un)healthy yet delicious option of popcorn shrimp, corn, green beans and mashed potatoes and brown gravy.  My rationale was that I was getting lots of veggies (corn, green beans and potatoes) and fish.  It looks like chocolate sauce on my mashers but no, it is a delicious brown gravy.

Mom got an open faced roast beef sandwich (which reminded her of her mom) with fried okra, corn and mashers and gravy.  Based on the yummy noises coming from her direction, I'd say her lunch was pretty tasty.  It was a lot of food and neither of us finished but we were both wishing we could. 

Our next stop was the "Eiffel Tower".  You can't have a city named Paris without having the iconic tower, right? 

Well, here it is, with a little Texas flair.  It's a replica and not that tall but it's still pretty cool.

The tower was right next to this very cool Veteran's War Memorial (Red River Valley Veteran's Memorial).  It was quite moving.  There were benches that represented families and the names of those who served along with which war were engraved in the stone.  There was one family that had someone serve in each war in one branch of service or another going back to WWII.

 The inside of the memorial was similar in design to the WWII Memorial in DC. But this memorial was for ALL wars.  It went from the Texas war of Independence (when it became a Republic), through Afghanistan and the global war on terror.  It was very moving.

After the war memorial, it was on to historic downtown Paris. This is the Culbertson Fountain.  It was dedicated in 1927 by Mr. & Mrs. JJ Culbertson whom I'm guessing donated the fountain.  There's Triton on the top as the water spills into the lower basin. You can't really tell from afar.  And when you get close, it looks like a baby Triton.  Still, it's peaceful and beautiful to sit there.

This is the R F Scott Building.  It was built after the 1916 fire. I'm not sure what it was used for but it kind of looks like a bank.

This is the Grand Twin Theater, which is right next to the R F Scott building. 

This is looking up Lamar Street in downtown Paris.  Some of the buildings were being used as restaurants and shops but there were several that were just empty.  That made me sad.

I dropped Mom off in the square with the fountain and took a walk.  This is the historic post office.  The actual post office is in another building further up the street.

This is the First Methodist Church.  It's not quite on Church Street.  It's on the very edge and directly across from the old post office.  The building is quite impressive.  I wish I could have gone in side...

Welcome to Church Street.  This is the First Baptist Church.

This is the Cumberland Presbyterian Church established in 1844.

This is the Episcopal Church

Holy Cross Episcopal Church to be exact.  I like the covered walkway.

This was a pretty amazing house until I realized it was a funeral home.  It is conveniently on Church Street.

At this point, I'd been gone about 30 minutes and I was thinking that my mom might be worried but no.  She was hanging out in the town square, people watching and just enjoying the day.

We wanted souvenirs.  A t-shirt, a magnet, a key chain, something!  Yet, we didn't see any stores that had anything like that.  There was a Wal-Mart but who wants to go there?

We drove around a little more, taking random pictures from the car. The downtown "meaty" part of Paris was a bit run down but a lot of towns are. 

We were looking for the Coca Cola Bottling Plant that we'd passed on the way in and came across this abandoned area.  You can see the plaster giving way to the brick.  I bet some hipster could turn this into something very cool.

I wasn't sure if this area was occupied or abandoned but I thought it looked like it had the potential to be something really interesting.

When you got out of that area, there was an eclectic mix of older homes that needed a little love and big estates that were huge!  There were homes that had porches that wrapped around the entire house.  Mom and I were dying to knock on the door and ask if we could look around.  I'm guessing the answer would have been "Get off my property". 

When I got home, I did a little googling and saw that I missed a lot of cool things to see.

Still, all this is in Paris, Texas and it's only 2 hours from here!  I can't wait to go back...

Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada

As many of you know, I travel a great deal for work.  If you've followed me in the past, you know that I've been to some pretty interesting, if not "off the wall" places.  Every time I've been assigned to a new project in a place I've never been, I try to walk around a bit and Winnipeg was no different.

First of all, I find that I'm a "stupid American" (my term, not theirs).  I know nothing of Canada other than they won't stamp your passport (but I'm not bitter....or am I?)  I found out that they have Provinces which are the equivalent of States here.  There are ten provinces in Canada:  Alberta, Manitoba, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan.  Winnipeg is in Manitoba.

When I was asked to join the project, my first question was "How in the heck do I get there?"  As a rule, living in Dallas, I use American Airlines as that's the main way in and out of DFW.  But in this case, American doesn't go to Winnipeg.  Now what?

Turns out, I have to fly another airline.  Delta.  You may have heard of it.  They have hubs in Atlanta and Minneapolis among others.

There are not a lot of flight options to Winnipeg but I found one and got there.  I was there for three weeks (not in a row).  My first week I stayed at the Radisson.  Our client is in downtown Winnipeg and I'll be honest, there wasn't much to see.

I had heard it was freezing there so I brought my coat and a bunch of warm clothes but my first week there (in September) was very pleasant.  In fact, people were pointing and laughing because I was wearing a coat.  Ok, no they weren't.  They're Canadian!  They are too nice to point and laugh but you know they were thinking it!

My first day, I walked all over the place.  We all know I love anything historic. This is the Holy Trinity Church Anglican that was right next to my hotel.  It was erected in 1885 and, inside, has memorials to those Canadians who died in World Wars I and II.  I wasn't able to go inside while I was walking around.

 

This is the Masonic Temple, which was completed in 1895.  The city is considering giving it "historical" status despite the fact that it's supposedly haunted. Hmm....

This is the Calvary Temple Tower, which was completed in 1894 as part of a large Baptist Church.

 

This was an interesting photo.  It's a mural of the St. Regis Hotel painted on the side of ...The St. Regis Hotel!  I think this was what it looked like when it first opened.  It doesn't quite look like that now.

The Canadians are sooo nice.  Even their buses are nice!  This bus was headed back to the garage.  So it tells you that it's "Not In Service".  But then the light blinks

And the bus apologizes.  Seriously?

This is St. Mary's Cathedral. It was built in 1880.  It's one of two Roman Catholic Cathedrals in the city of Winnipeg.

This would be a lovely sunset from the window of the Radisson.

This cool looking building is a bar (and possibly a restaurant) that is behind the building that I work in.  My colleagues on this job are not very adventurous and so, we have not tried this place.  I'd stop in after work but this time of year, if you don't get into the tunnel/skywalk before six, you have to walk outside.  And it's cold.  Not just "ooh, it's chilly, i need a sweater".  It's more like "holy hell, I can't feel my legs!"

This is another cool building that is behind my office building.  It's a day care center.  That's right.  A day care center, right next to the bar.  Drop your kids off, and go have a drink.  Those Canadians sure know how to work the system!

My second time there, I stayed at the Delta hotel, which is a Marriott product.  This place was very nice.  This is my room. 

I even had a balcony where I could step out and look around.  Unfortunately, the day after I took this photo, this happened.

Holy Mother of God!  It was barely October!  In Dallas, it could be 70 degrees or it could be 50 but never has it been 38 degrees in October!  At least my fancy hotel had heated floors in the bathroom.  Oh yeah!  That was so nice when I got out of the shower and when I had to get up at the crack of dawn and it was freezing outside.  I wish I'd thought of heated floors when I remodeled my bathroom.

Well, at 38 degrees, I wasn't leaving my room to get food so I checked out the room service menu.  Who in the hell puts pumpkin seeds in their guacamole?  Any why would you ruin a good avocado by putting feta cheese in it?  The nacho offering was even worse!  They had corn and some other un-nacho like ingredient.  I stuck to the grilled chicken.  They couldn't really mess that up.

The next day, this is what I woke up to.

Snow was everywhere!  Luckily, Winnipeg has this system of skywalks and under ground malls so that the amount of time you spend outside is at a minimum.  From my hotel, I could pick up the skywalk.  Granted it was a round about way to get to the office but I was in a climate controlled area most of the way there.  Then for five minutes tops (which is enough to chill you!), I was outside long enough to cross the street to the underground mall. 

 

You could get lost in there if you weren't careful.  In fact, I did.  I had to go to the street level to figure out where I was!  Anyway, if you walk through the mall, you are, once again, out of the weather.  In fact, by the time I got to the mall, I was sweating because I was wearing a sweater and a wool coat!  I had to step outside one more time for about ten minutes to get to our office building.

 

If you leave the office after 6pm, all the other office buildings, which is how you get to the skywalk, close.  I found that out the hard way.  I had to walk to my hotel outside in the cold.  My only consolation was that it was a more direct route.

The next trip back, the city was gearing up for the holidays.  This is in front of my hotel.  The decorations were pretty cool.  The weather was brisk.  Not so cold we couldn't walk to work...

Until the next morning and I was faced with this.  But I'll be honest.  As long as I don't have to live there...it's a nice place to visit.