Playing Tourist in Dallas

This past weekend we decided to take the kids on a little tour of Dallas.  After living here in North Texas for the past six years and not ever taking the kids downtown for anything we decided that it was time.  With it also being the Day before Cayden's birthday I was hoping to do something that would be fun for the family and would allow for some great photo opportunities as well.  So on our first stop of the day we decided to take a trip down to the area known as Deep Ellum in order to see some artwork known as The Traveling Man that was erected at the Deep Ellum Dart Station.

The Traveling Man is a three-part stainless steel sculpture series that was created by Brandon Oldenburg and Brad Oldham.  The first part of the series (which we did not take pictures of) is located on the corner of Good Latimer and Elm St.  This sculpture, dubbed Awakening by its creators, appears to be and 8 ft. wide version of The Traveling Man's  head emerging from the ground.  It is surrounded by sculptural birds that have been polished to a mirror finish and whose bodies may be used as seats.

The second part of the series, known as Waiting on the Train, is located on the corner of Good Latimer and Gaston ave.  In this version of The Traveling Man, the 38 ft. structure appears to be sitting and playing his guitar while he waits for the next train.  As he plays his guitar he is resting his back upon what appears to be the back of a concrete seat, which we later learned was a concrete portion of the original Deep Ellum Tunnel.  Here the kids were able to climb all over this amazing sculpture and of course we took the opportunity to snap a few photos.

The third part of The Traveling Man series, also known as Walking Tall, is located on the corner of Good Latimer and Swiss Ave.  Here the sculpture stands 38 ft. tall and is a welcoming site to all visitors arriving at the Deep Ellum station.  Of course we took the opportunity to snap a few photos.

Now while you're in Deep Ellum, if you look around, you will notice artwork almost everywhere.  There are murals painted on many of the brick walls of the buildings and we could have probably spent all day just walking around and taking in all of the sites and art.  But being that we had one other stop that we wanted to make for the day we decided to take some quick photos against one of the wall murals before leaving.

Our next stop for the day was at Pioneer Park in Downtown Dallas.  Pioneer Park/Plaza is a 4 acre park that is located near the corner of Griffin St. and Young St. near the convention center.  One one end of the park there is Pioneer Cemetery and on the other end of the park there is a huge collection of bronze statues depicting a traditional cattle drive which were created by Robert Summers.  Here the kids had fun running the the statues, roping the cattle, climbing the rock ledges and jumping across the rocks in the stream.  Of course we also took advantage of some great photo ops as well.

After we finished up at Pioneer Park we headed home for some cake and ice cream in celebration of Cayden's birthday.