Hello, lovelies!
We are talking mushy today. Not mushy as in dirty diapers or mud pies or even mashed potatoes. But mushy as in love. Going to share a date my Prince Charming and I enjoyed last weekend. It was based on a date suggested in the book 52 Uncommon Dates by Randy Southern.
Cue softly strumming violin music. Bring in the sweetly chirping love birds. Dim the lights. Let this love fest begin.
Our “First Time for Everything Date” took place in downtown El Paso, for the most part. In preparation, I reviewed each of the sections in the chapter in describing this outing.
“Set the Scene” encouraged us to break out of our dating rut. To try going somewhere or doing something unfamiliar to both of us. We have both lived in El Paso for over twenty years and never spent much time downtown. This would be a new setting for our date.
The section “Make it Happen” instructed us to think of what we would normally do for date night and then do the opposite…change of venue, change of palate, change of entertainment. I had wanted to visit the El Paso Museum of History and neither of us had been there before. So that became our venue/entertainment.
In order to “Finish Strong”, we would need to spend a few minutes talking about our date when it was over. What was the best part of the date? Would we do it again? We actually did really review our date until a couple of days later. We were on a long walk Sunday morning and talked about whether our dating life is in a rut.
Southern suggested that we begin our date by “Taking it to God”. I said a quiet prayer, asking that our relationship be refreshed. And then in the section “Dig Deep” several Bible verses were provided for us to read. We didn’t do that together but I have read the verses since.
The museum was quite simple. It consisted of two rooms with modest exhibits. In one room, where pictures were not allowed to be taken, the costumes and behind the scenes photos from the movie “Giant” were displayed. The movie was filmed close to El Paso in Marfa, Texas in 1956. It starred Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean.
The second exhibit documented the history of the Women’s Club of El Paso. Apparently one of the club’s presidents had a particular fancy for fans…ha, fan-cy for fans. Because the display consisted mainly of fans. She was a fan of a good fan. You might go as far as to say a fan fanatic. Fan-cy that! Wonder if she was also footloose and fan-cy free? Oh stop me.
But I was impressed that she established the first children’s library in the United States. Now that’s fan-tastic.
The Digie Wall on the outside of the building was the best part of the museum. I could have played with it all day.
It is like a gigantic, interactive computer screen. Well, WALL. You can touch the screen anywhere and get more information about the uploaded images. By dragging and pulling the images on the screen, you can bring different pictures to the foreground. And visitors are invited to upload their own photographs to the wall. PC and I plan on doing that right away. Find out more about what we are going to share on this week’s my little miracles post, here.
The museum and Digie-wall were closing down shortly after we got there, so I wasn’t able to play long. 52 Uncommon Dates didn’t remind me to check the admission times for the museum. We will have to go back.
Next we walked around the downtown area, just admiring the architecture of the old buildings contrasted with the new. El Paso has no true skyscrapers and just a hand full of kinda tall buildings. But there is a lot of renovation and growth happening all over the city so ‘times they are a changing’ – Bob Dylan.
I had a crick in my neck from looking up and taking pictures.
In all our walking, we wound up at a local sporting goods store. Now, in all honesty, PC had been here before and was eager to see if they had a certain axe-handle baseball bat.
They had it and I had one happy hubby. But then my Prince worried about walking around downtown with an axe-handle bat. And we did get a few questioning looks.
I spotted this folklorico dancer changing shoes on a bench outside the Plaza Theater.
Lovely. Would love to try on one of those ruffled dresses. I bet they could make even the most left-footed person look like a dancer.
We meandered up to the San Jacinto Plaza park that has just undergone a 5.3 million dollar renovation. The park was attractive but that is a steep price tag. At the turn of the 20th century, there was a pond in the park that was home to as many as 7 alligators. Today a fountain pays homage to those residents of the past.
For 5.3 million, you might think there would be a public restroom on the park, or maybe a pretty port-a-potty, at least? Alas, no. Unless you count the alligator fountain.
So we wound up our date at the Coffee Box which allows customers to use their bathrooms. Thank goodness.
We enjoyed smoothies…Chai tea for me and lemonade for PC. Truly refreshing.
That was the end of the “First Time for Everything” portion of our date. From there, we went to the Outlet Mall and then ate at Pei Wei restaurant. I had eaten there before so it wasn’t new or novel and wasn’t even that good.
During our mountain walk on Sunday we reflected a moment on our Friday afternoon date. Both of us agreed we would like to return to play with the Digie-Wall. Once the temps cool off this fall, we would enjoy walking around downtown again. I was happy that my Prince doesn’t feel like we are in a dating (or any other kind of) rut in our lives. Even so, it was pleasant change of pace.
We haven’t had a Question of the Post for awhile. So, let’s do that just for kicks today. Question: What is your standard date night activity? What would your First Time for Everything Date look like? Please leave me a comment below!
Thank you for sharing our date with us. 52 Uncommon Dates has several more date we have yet to try. So come back! And you can read about some of our earlier uncommon dates, here.
May you enjoy some unexpected fun on your upcoming dates!
Hugs and kisses,
Karen
Leslie, you are just the cutest! I love that you shared your date details. I think I need to get that book. Our typical dates ( which are almost always spur of the moment ) are either dinner and a movie or drinks and apps at one of our local watering holes. Maybe we need a little deliberate planning. Anyway, it looks like it was more than a FAN-tasy for that woman to start a children’s library!
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Karen, the dating book is great fun. It has inspired us to try a number of new dates. They may not always go as planned but the book offers good springboards for unusual dates. You guys take such fabulous trips! Those are like colossal dates!
Andrea@WellnessNotes
Sounds like a fun date! I like the idea of doing something new!
I hate to admit it, but we haven’t been on a date for quite some time… We were MUCH better about going on dates when the kid was little, but in recent years not so much. The last date we went on was very predictable – places we had visited many times before. We’ll have to plan a date and do something new!
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Try a deliberately different date. Going somewhere you’ve never been. We get stuck going to the same restaurants all the time. Try eating breakfast out and a day time date. Or even just a walk and ice cream after. Let me know how it goes. Take pics and we can share them here.