DAY TRIPPERS

Yesterday, Lisa and I took a day trip to Denton, Texas.

This meant loading up Excalibur (my car) and heading north across the wide plains, cedar-y woods and huge, man-made lakes of North Texas.

Denton, for anyone who doesn't know, is a college town, some thirty to forty miles north of Plano. It is home to the University of North Texas (or UNT), formerly
called North Texas State University. Legend has it that the old college radio station, KNTSU, went through a minor upheaval when the university changed its name to UNT, thus casting doubt upon what the new broadcast letters should become: KUNT didn't seem like a viable option.
It boasts such alumni as NFL hall of famer "Mean" Joe Greene (for whom their otherwise anonymous and hapless football squad, the Mean Green, is named), Sandy Duncan (of Peter Pan fame), Thomas Haden Church (Oscar nominee for Sideways), such musical luminaries as Norah Jones, hellbent heavy metal maniac Pat Boone, Don Henley, Sarah Hickman, Roy Orbison, David Letterman's bandleader and foil Paul Schaeffer (UNT is renowned for its music school), that famous crackpot Dr. Phil McGraw, and the very wonderful Bill Moyers.
Like a lot of towns its size, Denton has a charming town square. Found here are the Old Opera House Book Store where the stairwells, closets, basements, and floors upon floors (like a maze) are crammed with used books -- we spent hours there; Beth Ann's traditional 1950's ice cream parlor and soda jerk (where Lisa and I feasted on cobbler - being that she is lactose intolerant -- which drives her insane when surrounded by ice cream);
various and sundry antique shoppes; a classic hamburger joint where you get to build your own burger and shovel your own fries (in whatever quantity you like); and a gothic courthouse (built 1890's) that looks like Disney's haunted mansion.

But, maybe most importantly, Denton is neither Dallas nor Plano nor any of the other surrounding suburbs. Nor could it be described as a sundrenched slab of concrete pockmarked by mini-malls and MacMansions.

Denton is someplace else.


And, though the escape was short-lived, it was well worth it. And we both had a lovely time.

On the drive home, Lisa tried on my Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix hat. She modeled it in a variety of quirky poses and made a number of equally absurd faces while I clicked pics and tried not to wreck the car...