further adventures

Friday afternoon, E and I took a run down to Oak Cliff to check out the Belmont Hotel, a completely restored and renovated set of buildings on a hillside with a view of downtown Dallas. I’ve wanted to see it for a bit now, hearing some buzz off and on amongst friends about how neat it is.

There were definitely pros and cons, my take on it is that the experience would be made or broken depending on which style/position room was chosen. The “Standard” room, with no city view, was no more than a La Quinta room with a small flat panel tv on the wall. The “Loft” room, however, was a really nice dual-floor setup with a large soaking tub centered on one of the bedroom walls, with a fair amount of tile and decoration (the color scheme and volume of which varied per room). The view of the city, while not breathtaking during the day while we were there (we are still talking about Dallas), was strikingly peaceful as the hotel feels far-removed from the skyline, and I can imagine that at night it would be just beautiful. The design of the pool alone was worth making a visit.

On the way back, we obviously stopped by Decibel as we were somewhat near the back end of Industrial Blvd. Most of the lot areas are overgrown, the back lot where Bukem was staged is in disrepair, and a lot of stuff is fenced off with some serious razorwire.

As we were leaving, we hit the intersection down the street from Decibel to make a u-turn, and came upon what looked like an old mosque of some sort. There were several abandoned buildings in different states of decay or condemnation, and as the time of day had just broken into dusk, coupled with the fact that that area is completely deserted and devoid of any life, it felt a bit eerie. The buildings were all just… out of place. We got out of the car, gazed around and took some photos. At one point Eilene leaned over to me and said, “Where are we, Beirut?”