yotababy

It seems that Plano is mainly known for its west side—shopping, fancy restaurants, golf courses, spas…it’s supposedly the wealthiest city in the country, according to CNN Money Magazine. However, the older east side, and especially the Historic Downtown area, also has a lot to offer visitors. The downtown area has a real small town feel to it, and it’s a great place to just walk around—there are tons of little antique stores, local restaurants and galleries, as well as a farmers market and a small railway museum housed in the old station. There’s also a great skate/bike park (it’s fun to go in and just watch), a costume shop and a small park area with benches and water sculptures. It’s especially nice in early spring/late fall (summers in Texas are notoriously HOT), when you can stroll around at a leisurely pace for a couple of hours and not have to worry about sunburn or dehydration! The downtown area is easy to get to from 75 (just exit at 15th and head east a few blocks) or the DART rail—there’s a station right downtown. A nice change of pace from the typical Plano activities.

http://www.visitdowntownplano.com/index.html

My husband and I stayed here last november for our seventh anniversary. I booked it online, not knowing anything at all about it, other than that the pictures on the website made it look really nice and that the prices were pretty cheap for San Francisco. I was a little worried about what we would find when we got there, but we were not disappointed in the least. The hotel was established in 1916, and according to a brochure in our room, was used just before that as a temporary city hall while the original city hall was being restored after the earthquake of 1906. Parts of the jail cells are still intact in the basement, and you can actually take a tour of them, although we ran out of time to do that. The rooms were very small (probably one reason for the low price of staying there), but more than adequate if you’re planning on being out and about for most of your stay like we were. There’s also an excellent restaurant inside the hotel, as well as a gorgeous bar with backlit stained glass on the ceiling. We loved that we got to stay in such an elegant place with so much history for so little cash! I would certainly stay there again.

I was there about ten years ago with a friend and we camped at the bottom of the mountain and drove up during the day for a tour of the observatory and a view of the sun’s corona through one of their small telescopes. We drove back up again that night for a star party, where we were able to view Jupiter, a nebula and many distant galaxies. The star party was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever experienced; there are no lights up there to spoil the view, and it’s a rare thing to be able to see so many visible stars, at least in all of the places I’ve ever lived. Plus, the surroundings are beautiful—even in August, everything was vivid green and the nights were cool, and we felt like we could have been somewhere in Ireland instead of in Texas! I’ve wanted to go back ever since.