The view from our hotel room at the Gaylord Texan. This is indoors!
EM and I decided that we needed to go on an outing, maybe to the Dallas area. We had never gone on a "vacation" without AT. He came up with the great idea that we go to the Gaylord Texan for one night. I had toured the hotel once before, but had never stayed the night. EM had never been there. Our interests of road trips, dancing, water play and food would be rolled into into one, fun-filled 24 hours. Start your engine and hold the car door open!
We arrived at 11:00 AM with the possibility of an early check-in and immediately had a room. The staff always seemed delighted to be able to assist. There was no detail missed by a staff person. It was like Disney World for adults. EM was fascinated with how every detail seemed to be perfect. Who has that job of reviewing every corner? They were certainly doing a great job. What a fascinating operation! As an aside, I was intrigued with iPad sightings. The concierge at the entrance had an iPad in hand. An iPad was at the pool, at a restaurant, in the hands of the leader of the band.
EM waited until we were in the Grapevine area to purchase needed swim trunks. I was about to pop with excitement about wanting to get quickly to the water park at the Gaylord, but I managed to keep myself calm. He said, "But you said you wanted to shop at the mall." Yes, I did, but that was when I thought we would have time to kill, before I learned about early check-in! He quickly found his burnt orange swim trunks (think Texas) and a Texas hat for his poor head in the pool, since he forgot his hat. He is not a Texas fan, so I teased him about that, but he fit in well at the resort.
By the time we were back at the Gaylord, we were hungry. We entered the sports bar, Texas Station, which had a 52 foot long TV screen. Interesting. We ordered a monster burger to share and it was a monster, a Kobe burger with pulled pork piled on top. We were glad we were sharing. After our monster burger, we headed for the water park. You put on your bathing suit, a cover up and take nothing else but your room key and get on the shuttle to go about a mile. We have been in bigger water parks. This one just had a lazy river and water slide, but was still fun. We learned that Wednesday is a perfect day to hit a place like this. There were not many people and we easily got lounge chairs (often a problem in resorts).
Our first time around the lazy river was the most fun. EM and I "tied" up together with our inner tubes and he ended up (with my help) going under every waterfall. Lots of laughter. Twice down the water slide was plenty for us. We found lounge chairs with the legs in the water. After we tired of the sun, we took the shuttle back to hotel and went to the hotel pool, which appeared to be a more grownup up place. We had a total of about 4 hours total in the sun. We did not get sunburned except each of us had a spot where we neglected to put sun screen on! Good sunscreen.
The fun continued. When it came time for supper, we had to eat Italian, EM's favorite. EM had the spaghetti and a great Cesar salad. I had the "jumbo crab cakes". I love crab cakes. It was an appetizer and I thought since it was "jumbo" it would be plenty. The crab cakes were quite petite and fancy, with an artichoke spear, endive, and a olive, caper, pepper compote. It was excellent and it was plenty, but about halfway through my meal, I had to laugh. I realized the crab cakes were from a "jumbo crab", and were not supposed "big crab cakes". I'm glad Mrs. Clampett didn't decide to complain about the "jumbo" part.
The waiters here wear their place of birth on their name tags, good way to start a conversation.
The final piece of our plan was to go dancing. So we loaded up on the shuttle to go to the Glass Cactus, the resort's nightclub. We are old and early people. Nightclubs don't really get started until 10:00 for the young people. We got there about about 7:30. There was a beautiful view of the sunset. At 8:00, the band, Limelight, started. We had no idea who they were. They are Dallas-area band. Wow! Did we ever luck up! The band was a 10 piece band, playing everything - Chicago, Michael Jackson, oldies, Black Eyed Pea. They were full of personality; it seemed like they were having a blast. We immediately got up to dance (the only people on the dance floor - it didn't bother us). They played Michael Buble's, Sway, just for us because we were dancing. The band had a 3 piece brass section and, with different songs, they would go out on the floor or next to the tables. Every musician also took a turn as a lead vocalist. At one point, we were the only dancers on the dance floor, with the band in a circle surrounding us!
After they played probably for a hour and a half, they took a break. Most of that time we were dancing. The DJ played mixed music and we did not dance to that. When the band came back, I quickly found that my feet had blisters and were very sore. So we danced a two more songs, listened for a while and shuttled back to the hotel.
We then put our our hotel robes and sat in the dark on our balcony, watching the people below. The next morning, we had breakfast at the restaurant by the riverwalk, then hit the road to be back home by 2:00.
Mission accomplished.
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