My trip to Dallas Part 1: On the road, Reunion Tower and In N' Out Burger

I’ve been meaning to write this post up for a few weeks now, but with school and other things keeping me busy, I’m just getting around to it. I have so many photos to share that I decided to divide the post into two parts. Here’s part 1:

Last month, (February 2015) I took a road trip to Dallas to see Maroon 5 in concert. It was probably the best concert I’ve ever been to. (Adam Levine, *swoon*) The night before we left, I took my two dogs to my parent’s house and I had so much anxiety about leaving them. L Anyone else get terrible anxiety when leaving their pets?

We left on Sunday at 6 am. It was still pretty dark out.

My friend drove for about an hour and a half and then we switched so I could drive. It was on my bucket list to drive on a long road trip and I got to accomplish that in this trip. Dallas is about 8 hours away from the city where I live. It was a long drive and I think I ended up driving about 4 hours.

I wanted to be comfy but still presentable for the 8 hour drive, so I wore a pair of black leggings and a flannel shirt. Gas station bathroom selfie... 

I made sure to pack plenty of healthy snacks and a cooler with water and I'm proud to say I didn't buy any snacks or junk food during the whole drive over there. My friend took over driving again in Austin and I grabbed some grapes, a yogurt and a bottle of water I had packed to snack on.

 It was cloudy the whole drive over there, but it still made for some nice scenery.

When we got to Waco we were starving because we'd only had (healthy) snacks to eat the whole day. My friends wanted to stop at a McDonald's drive-thru so I ordered a Southwest grilled chicken salad.

It may look decent in the picture, but I did't like it at all. The chicken tasted weird and had a weird texture so I mostly ate the veggies and some more grapes. This McDonald's was right across the street from Baylor University. It's an amazing campus I wish there had been time to get down and take some pictures but sadly I couldn't. 

Finally, around 2:30 p.m. we reached the outskirts of Dallas and that city skyline was visible. 

I live in a small town, so seeing all the tall buildings made got me excited. (and made for great photos)

We stayed at a Best Western and it was actually really nice and close to everything we wanted to do. There were three of us so we just rented one room with an extra bed.

We rested for a while and watched some T.V. They were playing the first Sex & the City Movie. Then we got cleaned up and ready to go sightsee. These are some of the outfits I packed.

It was kind of chilly, so I ended up choosing jeans, boots, a cardigan and a statement necklace. I also like to wear a cross-body bag when I sightsee to have my hands free and my valuables close to me.

The first place we went to was the Reunion Tower at the Hyatt Regency. It's a 561 foot tower with an open Geo-Deck for viewing the city below. It's also home to a cafe and restaurant. 

The elevator that takes you up the tower has a clear glass wall so you can see everything as your'e going up.

We made it just as the sun was setting so we got to see the city view at night and it was spectacular. 

It was amazing seeing the city from up there and I highly recommend you go if you're ever in Dallas. 

Wolfgang Puck has a restaurant at the very top level of the tower called Five Sixty. I didn't get to go up there but it was exciting seeing it, I remember watching Wolfgang Puck's cooking shows on the Food Network when I was a kid. The level where his restaurant is also rotates, how cool is that!?

We were the only ones on our way back down to leave and the girl operating the elevator turned the lights off inside for us so we rode in the dark with a see through wall seeing all the lights in the city. It was a little scary at first but I loved it! I didn't get a picture because I was just enjoying the view.

After visiting the Reunion Tower we went to dinner at In N' Out Burger. I had never been but had seen it mentioned on Instagram and Pinterest many, many times. I got the regular cheeseburger and animal style fries. The fries had melted American cheese, grilled onions and their special sauce. I expected to like the fries the best but it was the burger that was amazing! I only had a few bites of the fries and ate all the burger. Best burger I've ever had hands down.

After dinner, we went back to the hotel to rest after a super long day. They were still playing a Sex and the City movie marathon so I caught up with Carrie and the girls.

I'm working on part two of the trip (including the Maroon 5 concert!) and I'll post that soon!

Check out Part 2 here and Part 3 here.

What are some fun things to do in Dallas?