A Day in Dallas

Thursday was a day to remember!  My fellow teacher, Jennifer, and I went to a science teacher conference at the convention center.  We thought it would be an adventure to ride the DART.  We had no idea just what an adventure it would be!

The morning started uneventfully.  We rode the train with lots of other teachers who had the same great idea.  The morning workshops were good, but then they gave us a 4 hour break.  No workshops, no exhibitors, nothing to do.  So we ventured to the West End area for lunch.  That is when the fun began.

After we ate lunch, we still had several hours to fill.  We decided it would be fun to go get our nails done.  We checked our cell phones and located a nail spa .3 miles away.  We needed to cross the street so we jaywalked like all of the other downtown characters had been doing all morning.

Unfortunately, we did not see the police on the other side of the street.  They stopped us.  They asked what we were doing downtown, if we could pay $200 ticket, and if we had ever heard of a crosswalk.  Ummmm.  Ok.  So, we talked our way out of that ticket.  I'm pretty sure they were just amused to see two middle aged white women venturing into the city to get their nails done.

It had taken a while to get our bearings and figure out where we even needed to go.  Then, the police thing shook us up.  Then, we looked around and realized there was a very high police presence in this particular area and wondered if walking through the neighborhood was a very good idea.  We decided against it.  We went back to the safety of the convention center.

At the end of the afternoon workshops, we headed home.  We took the DART to the West End station to transfer to our train home.  Unfortunately, it was dark, neither of us had paid much attention that morning, and we got on a train heading further south into deep Dallas.  By the time we figured out we were going the wrong way, we were in "Deep Elum".  We got off at that stop to wait for the right train.

Deep Elum Station

We knew we had made a mistake as soon as we stepped off the train.  It was cold, dark, and we were the only white people around.....only women that we could tell.  There was a nice gangster trolling the platform while we were waiting for the train.  I decided to befriend him instead of standing for 13 more minutes in fear.  Good decision.  He was actually a very nice gangster boy.  I am sure his friendship saved us from further adventure when another posse of gangsters walked up 6 minutes later.

 We were thrilled when the DART showed up and we got on the right train.  A hispanic lady was already on the train when we got on.  She was very amused by us and commented we were "a little too pale for this neighborhood".  She told us to stay close.  We did.

We made it home safely.  But wow, it was an adventure!