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Big-D Con, Part 1 - A Side Quest in Oklahoma
Big-D Con was this year’s National Puzzlers’ league Convention, held in Dallas. Since I generally try to leverage off things I’m already planning to do to add on other odds and ends I want to do, I decided to take an excursion to Oklahoma City before the con to check off anotherAAA ballpark. So I flew into Dallas late on Sunday (after The Flushies) and stayed overnight in Fort Worth. A flight delay led to me taking an expensive Lyft from the airport because I didn’t want to wait for the train from the airport which only runs once an hour. Then the hotel (a Hampton Inn in downtown Fort Worth) had some computer system slowdown and it took nearly half an hour to check in. If someone suggests I should have checked in on-line earlier, that wouldn’t have helped since there was someone waiting at the desk who’d done that, and he had a longer wait than I did.
On Monday, I had breakfast, read for a while, had a phone meeting, and then took a walk around the area. It was just a short walk since I’ve been to Fort Worth before. And, as is typical, not a lot of things were open on a Monday. I meandered over to JFK plaza, which has a lot of photos and a statue.
Eventually, I made my way over to the train station. This has some local train services (TEXRail and Trinity Railway Express), Greyhound buses, and a local bus system. More importantly for my purposes, it also has two Amtrak lines. I was there specifically to take the Hearland Flyer, which runs between Fort Worth and Oklahoma City.
This isn’t exactly one of the great train stations of the world. But it does have a Subway and some vending machines so you can get a snack if you need one. And you can sit and read while you wait for the train. So it served its purpose.
Most of the seating is on the upper level of a few metroliner cars, so pretty basic but adequate. The trip is about 4 hours and is reasonably scenic, so what more do I need? An actual dining car (like they have on real long-distance trains) might have been nice, but I can survive on Kind Bars for surprisingly long.
So what does Oklahoma look like? From a moving train, it's a bit blurry. Also, there were plants getting in my way a lot.
I will leave my mental soundtrack during the trip to your imagination. The Oklahoma City station is right at the entrance to Bricktown, which is the touristy entertainment part of the city. Lots of hotels, restaurants, bars - and the ballpark. There’s also a trolley that can take you around most of downtown Oklahoma City.
I should note that I’d been to Oklahoma City before and seen a fair amount then. So I chose a somewhat more eccentric site as my major daytime tourist activity. Namely, the American Banjo Museum.
Some of the more interesting displays included banjoes belonging to famous people.
Beyond that, there were displays on the history (and evolution) of the banjo, on various banjo manufacturers, on clothing worn by banjo players, etc. etc. Whenever I started wondering about something, there would be a display about it. For example, I noticed a dearth of female banjo players and - poof! - there was a whole section about women and banjoes. I had only recently learned of the existence of an instrument called the banjolele (a cross between a banjo and an ukulele and no, I don’t know why, but banjoes appear to breed rather prolifically with other stringed instruments) and there was a whole section about these banjo hybrids. However, while they had a gift shop with banjo recordings and banjo sheet music, and various other odds and ends, they did not appear to sell actual banjos.
As I said before, the main reason for the trip was to go to another AAA ballpark. There is some actual baseball history in Oklahoma City, which is reflected in statues (and placard displays inside the ballpark) of Jim Thorpe, Mickey Mantle, and Johmmy Bench. More recent players included in their hall of fame include Dave Roberts, Ryne Sandberg, Rusty Staub, and Jerry Grote.
The Oklahoma City Baseball Club is between cute names, so that’s the name you get. They were playing the El Paso Chihuahuas. For some ungodly reason they had their normal mascots dressed in chihuahua costumes. At least they kept the little games and such between innings short.
My summary of the ballpark is that it is nice enough but the attendance was poor, possibly because it was a weeknight. The concessions were uninteresting, with pizza the only vegetarian option and very little variety. And dammit, dipping dots are not ice cream. The lack of fan enthusiasm extended to the failure of almost all of the attendees to stand up for the 7th inning stretch. They played “Oklahoma” after “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” which should also have garnered some enthusiasm - but didn’t. When I rule the world, failure to sing along will be punishable by installation of brain implants that play “We Will Rock You” (my least favorite song of all time) 24/7. Maybe mixed in with the score of Spring Awakening.
By the way, the home team lost, which didn't exactly improve the spirit of the fans. (There was a group of about 8 Chihuahuas fans sitting near me. I'm not sure whether they were cheering their team or all the beer they consumed,)
Anyway, here are a couple of ballpark photos.
In the morning, I walked back to the train station and returned to Fort Worth. On arrival, I had a quick lunch, then took the Trinity Railway Express train to the Victory Station, where I transferred to the DART Orange Line tram to downtown Dallas. It was a short walk to the Adolphus Hotel, where the NPL Con was being held. Details in the next post.
On Monday, I had breakfast, read for a while, had a phone meeting, and then took a walk around the area. It was just a short walk since I’ve been to Fort Worth before. And, as is typical, not a lot of things were open on a Monday. I meandered over to JFK plaza, which has a lot of photos and a statue.
Eventually, I made my way over to the train station. This has some local train services (TEXRail and Trinity Railway Express), Greyhound buses, and a local bus system. More importantly for my purposes, it also has two Amtrak lines. I was there specifically to take the Hearland Flyer, which runs between Fort Worth and Oklahoma City.
This isn’t exactly one of the great train stations of the world. But it does have a Subway and some vending machines so you can get a snack if you need one. And you can sit and read while you wait for the train. So it served its purpose.
Most of the seating is on the upper level of a few metroliner cars, so pretty basic but adequate. The trip is about 4 hours and is reasonably scenic, so what more do I need? An actual dining car (like they have on real long-distance trains) might have been nice, but I can survive on Kind Bars for surprisingly long.
So what does Oklahoma look like? From a moving train, it's a bit blurry. Also, there were plants getting in my way a lot.
I will leave my mental soundtrack during the trip to your imagination. The Oklahoma City station is right at the entrance to Bricktown, which is the touristy entertainment part of the city. Lots of hotels, restaurants, bars - and the ballpark. There’s also a trolley that can take you around most of downtown Oklahoma City.
I should note that I’d been to Oklahoma City before and seen a fair amount then. So I chose a somewhat more eccentric site as my major daytime tourist activity. Namely, the American Banjo Museum.
Some of the more interesting displays included banjoes belonging to famous people.
Beyond that, there were displays on the history (and evolution) of the banjo, on various banjo manufacturers, on clothing worn by banjo players, etc. etc. Whenever I started wondering about something, there would be a display about it. For example, I noticed a dearth of female banjo players and - poof! - there was a whole section about women and banjoes. I had only recently learned of the existence of an instrument called the banjolele (a cross between a banjo and an ukulele and no, I don’t know why, but banjoes appear to breed rather prolifically with other stringed instruments) and there was a whole section about these banjo hybrids. However, while they had a gift shop with banjo recordings and banjo sheet music, and various other odds and ends, they did not appear to sell actual banjos.
As I said before, the main reason for the trip was to go to another AAA ballpark. There is some actual baseball history in Oklahoma City, which is reflected in statues (and placard displays inside the ballpark) of Jim Thorpe, Mickey Mantle, and Johmmy Bench. More recent players included in their hall of fame include Dave Roberts, Ryne Sandberg, Rusty Staub, and Jerry Grote.
The Oklahoma City Baseball Club is between cute names, so that’s the name you get. They were playing the El Paso Chihuahuas. For some ungodly reason they had their normal mascots dressed in chihuahua costumes. At least they kept the little games and such between innings short.
My summary of the ballpark is that it is nice enough but the attendance was poor, possibly because it was a weeknight. The concessions were uninteresting, with pizza the only vegetarian option and very little variety. And dammit, dipping dots are not ice cream. The lack of fan enthusiasm extended to the failure of almost all of the attendees to stand up for the 7th inning stretch. They played “Oklahoma” after “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” which should also have garnered some enthusiasm - but didn’t. When I rule the world, failure to sing along will be punishable by installation of brain implants that play “We Will Rock You” (my least favorite song of all time) 24/7. Maybe mixed in with the score of Spring Awakening.
By the way, the home team lost, which didn't exactly improve the spirit of the fans. (There was a group of about 8 Chihuahuas fans sitting near me. I'm not sure whether they were cheering their team or all the beer they consumed,)
Anyway, here are a couple of ballpark photos.
In the morning, I walked back to the train station and returned to Fort Worth. On arrival, I had a quick lunch, then took the Trinity Railway Express train to the Victory Station, where I transferred to the DART Orange Line tram to downtown Dallas. It was a short walk to the Adolphus Hotel, where the NPL Con was being held. Details in the next post.
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