We got back from our trip to Dallas last week and now it’s time to write about our time.

Dallas was a very good choice for our final trip of 2013. Although it was a quick visit, we packed in lots of fun and interesting things to do. This was our first time getting out of an airport in Texas,  and we had fun experiencing some things that the state has to offer.

Here is a list of some of the things we did:

• Frontiers of Flight Museum
• Lunch at Maple and Motor
• Ross Perot Museum & Animals Inside Exhibit
• A visit to a unique McDonald’s
• Dinner at Cane Rosso

Kim gets credit for finding the Frontiers of Flight Museum. She was skimming around Groupon’s Dallas offers when she came across the museum (located at Dallas Love Field) offering admission for half price- $8 for 2!

The museum seemed well worth a visit so we went ahead and bought the offer.

When we showed up, the museum looked really impressive. There are some planes located outside, including a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 partially sticking out of the building!

Once inside, the museum was an impressive sight to see. In a huge, 100,000 square foot building they had lots of aircrafts both on the ground and hanging from the ceiling. There is also lots of other aviation-related artifacts on display throughout. The collection mostly covers aviation from the beginning up until the Cold War.

My favorites parts of the museum were:

• Southwest Airlines: The Heart of Our History:  where I got to learn all about the airline and check out a full 737-300 with displays inside.
• The Kid’s Play Area: Lucas had a blast playing on the mini airplanes and it was a lot of fun to see!
• Temporary Exhibit on Braniff Airways: It was interesting to learn about Braniff and see lots of memorabilia

If you’re going to be in Dallas, I’d definitely recommend a visit.

I found out about burger shop Maple & Motor through a recommendation from Twitter. After hearing about it, I looked it up and found out that it was on Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives. I did a search and watched the segment and felt it was worth checking out.

When we arrived, there wasn’t a table available. However, the wait to order wasn’t long and we were seated before our order was even ready. The burgers were big, tasty and had a little bit of a crunch to it (if that make’s any sense) in a good way.

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science was from what I read, a can’t miss site in Dallas so we had to check it out. I also read that it gets extremely busy and was happy that we bought tickets in advance so we could pick the time we wanted to visit.

I’m not much of a science fan but I was really interested in a temporary exhibit at the Perot.

Animals Inside Out is the animal version of Body Worlds (or Bodies which I went to in NYC years back). In the exhibit, animals are preserved through a process called plastination. What you get to see is pretty incredible. On display are all different animals, big and large preserved in various ways. You get to literally see inside the animal’s body- skeletons, muscles, tendons, the nervous system etc..

This was the highlight of my visit. Now onto the museum:
The museum was very crowded and going through some of the exhibit halls was a  bit tough with a stroller. Lucas had a great time playing in the Children’s Museum. He played in a make-believe market, went on some slides, went over small bridges and got to run all over.

After checking out Animal’s Inside Out and Lucas having some play time, we were getting tired. There were many permanent exhibits to check out . Our favorites were the Life Then and Now Hall featuring amazing dinosaur fossils and the Gems & Minerals Hall.

Our visit to the museum was worthwhile and I was glad that the it had something for all of us to enjoy.

Some of you might know that I like visiting McDonald’s in foreign countries to check out the local items on the menu. (Check out my post about a visit to McDonald’s in Berlin here.)

At home we rarely visit or eat in McDonald’s but I read about a couple of very interesting or odd locations in Dallas. We stopped by one and it was a pretty impressive site to see.

The Zoo McDonald’s was like none that I’ve seen before. Outside, it was covered in animals- on the roof, holding the flagpole and pictures in the windows. Inside there were more animals, with information included about some of them.

Lucas loved seeing the animals and got a little time to play in the “Play Place” before we went for dinner.

(I’ll write a post to show more photos of this McDonald’s in the future.)

While looking into dining options for Dallas, I came across Cane Rosso through a best-of list on Eater. I also sent a message out to pizza expert Scott of Scott’s Pizza Tours here in NYC looking for pizza recommendations in Dallas.

After hearing that Cane Rosso was possibly the best pizza in Dallas, we had to stop by.

Cane Rosso was pretty busy and we had to wait around 20 minutes for our table.  We ordered one appetizer and 2 pizzas. Lucas loved the angioletti appetizer (fried dough with sauce) and munched on this the whole time. Kim and I loved it too but we had to save some room for the pizza.

One pizza was really great while the other was a bit chewy and would’ve probably benefitted from a little more time in the oven.

From what I recall, The “Honey Bastard” was topped with hot soppresseta, bacon jam and spicy honey. This pie was really awesome and reminded me of a pie that I get at a Brooklyn favorite of ours, Paulie Gee’s. The pie was spicy but in a good way. The spicy soppresseta and honey worked well with the sweeter bacon jam. This is a pie that I’d order again.

The Margherita pie was definitely not as good. While the flavor of the pie was good, the crust seemed to be a bit on the chewy side which is not something that Iike. With a bit more time in the oven, this pizza would probably be a lot better.

That wraps up our first day in Dallas. I’ll be writing about the other couple of days of our trip in the near future.