Dallas is one of the country’s most interesting cities, and there are millions of visitors every year.  Some come to see friends and family, because it is perhaps one of the friendliest and most amiable places on earth.  Some come here to do business because of Dallas’ thriving industries, where the local charm is merged with a cosmopolitan disposition, making for a smart and lively place to conduct work.  Some come as tourists, looking to discover what Dallas might have to offer.  The results are always good, and there’s a lot to do here for visitors of any age.

Check out the link for lodgings and you’ll be on your way to learning about this interesting place.  There are plenty of things for children here, and lots of nighttime fun for adults, and some places where everyone is welcome and entertained.  One place for visitors of all ages is the Dr Pepper Museum in Waco.  If you’re looking for a museum that’s truly unique, and if you like your nostalgia served up with a bit of self-conscious irony, then this is a place for you.

It’s enormously fascinating, but also quite amusing, too.   The museum isn’t devoted to Dr Pepper on its own, but is about looking at the whole spectrum of soft drinks, and also to celebrate the free market system and teach the principles of this economic method to visitors.  You’ll discover that this drink is actually older than the others, and also that there really is no period in the name.  As for the origin of the name, there are many different stories and theories, but that information is lost to history.  There are plenty of other facts to learn however, and lots of ephemera that will appeal to history buffs and the tragically hip alike, and so many others in between.

We came to London with the idea that we might see ghosts, but instead, we left completely enchanted.  This had nothing to do with our own personal charms, but only due to the lovely ambiance at our hotel.  London is a great place to be if you’re with the one you love.  It’s also a great place for ghosts, however.  A few years ago, I came here for a few weeks to work on a laboratory production of a collaborative piece.  We were developing it around the theme of ghosts and memory.  I remember it was a particularly gloomy winter here, and that made it seem even more perfect for the work we were doing.

It would be a year or so until I met my partner, so I was very much alone, and very deep into the idea of playing the part with as much truth as I could muster.  I saw my character as dark, haunted, angry, and very isolated in a kind of self-imposed exile.  I was really very difficult to be around, even more than now, but I really felt that it was for the good of the role I was playing.  Of course, since this was company-created, I was solely responsible for the role I was creating, and it was all up to me, really.  I still acted as though I were suffering for this, having to give up my usual good nature, which is a nature I have never been comfortable in.  I completely forgot that we were also supposed to be working with ghosts, but no one approached me on this, since I was already deep in my artistic suffering.

We were basing some of the work in Corporeal Mime, and it was a great experience for me, because I could see my own obsessions and thoughts spelling themselves out in extraordinary dimensions.  As the time progressed, I could also see my own boring preoccupations for what they were, and sometime before the opening, I panicked.  I was having a very useful and overdue meltdown, and I thought I could not go on because I was not like the thing I was portraying.  Of course, I was that, along with many other things besides, and that was the door that opened up to an interest in ghosts, and an ability to be enchanted.

We’ve hunkered down to ride out this extremely uncharacteristic winter weather in Seattle. We’ve been here for a week, staying almost exclusively in our luxury hotel in Seattle. We needed to get out, and it looked like it was finally letting up for the weekend. Who would’ve thought that we were actually looking forward to a forecast of rain? The news reporter today, commented we should wave the white flag of surrender to the weather, but that it’s so white outside, the flag would just blend into the background.

Transportation was a complete mess for the whole week! We heard that even the airport ran out of de-icer, the trains and buses cancelled service and road bridges closed. Luckily, our hotel in located downtown, so we didn’t need to worry about all the public transportation woes. It has been stressful all the same, our plans of seeing Seattle has been mostly shot down. But, the weather did let up and it was soon going to rain!

We headed out to the Seattle Center to see the winter wonderland, which we were absolutely sure would still exist, even in the rain. We made there just at sunrise, yes we could actually see the sun peaking through the clouds, and lighting up the snow laden branches; the whole area sparkled! Seattleites made snowmen that seemed to be guarding the silent and still blanketed white lawn. The peacefulness was broken by the spinning tires of a truck stuck in the parking lot. We went over to lend a hand and helped push him out of the rut.

Now that the snow stopped falling, we extended our stay and managed to be even more active then we were used to, must be something about the rare sight of a good snow storm that made Seattle all the more special for us, plus the weather forecast is predicting more snow!

Oklahoma is the state with the most Native American’s living in it. It is now wonder that the state and area names are mostly related to the Indian tribes who have been here for a long time. Oklahoma itself means red people in native tongue. The Ozark Bluff Dwellers are the earliest native people to inhabit the area. They are apart of the Paleo-Indian tribes that lived around 12,000 B.C..The Bluff Dwellers were known to live in caves or under that bluffs along the streams. The were true grazers which kept them moving until they started to realize a more agriculture approach to feeding there people.

At some point the Creek Indians followed the Trail of Tears into Oklahoma from the Alabama area. President Andrew Jackson has the Indian Removal Act of 1813 passed which was to have the Indian tribes moved from the eastern states to the mid west states of mainly Arkansas and Oklahoma. There were five major tribes involved with the move which included the Cherokee, Creek and Seminole who ended up primarily in Fort Gibson which is near the now city of Tulsa. Then there were the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes that moves into the south part of Oklahoma which was then Fort Towson. The long migration was filled with hunger and disease which created so much sadness for the tribes forced to move. This is were the trails got the name.

Now many travelers search here for fantastic hotels in the state of Oklahoma because of the grand business of oil. In fact, Tulsa is booming because of oil. Some say it is the oil capital of not just the country but the world. It has its cultural attractions like some of the amazing architecture found in buildings like the Boston Building, the Philtower, or the Union Depot. The museums such as the Philbrook and the Gilcrease have some great exhibits to wonder through.

Having just unexpectedly moved I know that money can be tight for short amounts of time between paychecks, even if you get paid every two weeks. Sometimes when I’ve paid all my bills in the beginning of the month I need a little extra cash to get by until my next pay check. I’ve found that applying for a payday loan online is easy and you can get your money within 24 hours. It is a short term loan and is usually due right around when I get my next paycheck.  This page has more information on cash advance loans. I can tell you it has really kept me a few times from having a check bounce once or twice and I’ve never over drawn my account because I can always make sure that I have money in the bank.

The first time I did this, I was worried. My credit was bad and I didn’t know if I’d be able to get anyone to give me a loan. I knew that the bank would take months before telling me one way or another and most likely the answer was going to be no. It seemed like a hassle that I didn’t want to deal with. Most payday loan companies don’t worry about your credit score. This can even be a good way to build up your credit, if you use the extra money to pay bills before there are late fees, and pay your loan back on time. The main things they want to know is that you are over 18 and meet certain income requirements.

When my best friend became pregnant, one of the things on her mind was maternity clothing.  She was not thrilled at the thought of wearing baggy, un-fashionable clothing.  The other thing that was on her mind was spaghetti, non-stop.  We decided to take a trip to New York, to take care of both of those things at one time.  We planned a tour of Little Italy, to find the best spaghetti and meatballs, and we planned a trip to the fashionable stores in search of fashionable maternity wear.

We have taken these food based tours before, heading to Texas one time to find the best Barbecue, and we went to Boston a different time, in search of the best clam chowder.  For Mexican food, we go to Mexico, and for Italian, we usually go to Italy, but this time we had found a great rate on a room in New York here…newyorkcheaphotel.com so New York it was.  Our first stop was at a store known to be the hippest place for new moms to be, Veronique Maternity.  The prices were a bit steep, but my friend found a few great deals, and with that we headed for our first destination in Little Italy.  We found Il Palazzo, a great little place with a perfect patio, and some very, very good spaghetti.

The next day, we headed to a place our waitress told us about called A Pea in the Pod.  This was my friend’s favorite shops as the styles included everything from low rise jeans and great dresses…I even bought one of the dresses for myself.  That night we found our best spaghetti so far, at Casa Bella Ristorante.  The menu was huge, but we were just in the market for the spaghetti.  I asked for mine to be just a little bit spicy, and it was.  The chef came out to congratulate my friend, and made her a special desert…his grandmother’s recipe he said.  It was a beautiful ending to a very fine trip of shopping and the search for the perfect sauce in Little Italy.

For many people, a chill is a thrill.  This is not a statement about the weather, but a statement regarding the fun that people find, when they find themselves frightened.  Chilling tales are best heard when sitting around a campfire, on a cool autumn night.  I discovered this during one trip I had taken to Boston.  I was not around a campfire, however it was the season of autumn and I had left my Boston hotel room and went to a pub on the corner known for their clam chowder.  As I was waiting for my soup to cool, and old man of about 80 sat down on the bar stool next to me and he began to talk.  This was nothing new to me, from the bars on Coronado Island to the pubs of Soho in London, I talked to old people.

Over the years my friends have questioned this, as from the time I was old enough to get into bars, whom ever is the oldest person in the joint, was the one I ended up sharing stories with, and they for many years, had stories that were so much better than mine.  I have just always been fascinated by the stories people tell, the stories of the life they have experienced, and Jasper–that night in Boston, had some very interesting and chilling stories.  One was of the Boston Gallows.  Jasper’s story began in the 1630’s, in what is now a public park of Beantown .  Many people were hanged there, and he said that if I should take a walk through the part at midnight, they would tell me their tales.  I was not about to do that, at all.  For while this old man was telling tall tales, they were tales he believed, you could see it in his eyes.

I believed the tales too, that night.  He then told me about a time he had visited with the Lady in Black, a woman known to haunt Georges Island in the middle of Boston Harbor.  He said that over the years, the ghost of the woman had garnered a bad reputation, but the night he spoke with her, he just found her sad over the loss of her husband, a soldier of the Civil War.  Ghosts, for Jasper, were not scary entities, they were and are, a glimpse into history, the history of his home town of Boston, and the histories of the human spirit.  As I finished my bowl of soup, I considered all that he had told me, and while I would not be walking home through the Beantown Haunted Park that night, I knew that the next night, I would belly up to that bar, ordering another bowl of clam chowder, and looking for my old friend to return with more of his tall tales.