QuakeCon 2025 Part 6: Touring Historic Grapevine

Not a ton of specifics for this post, but as the tag line implies, Grapevine knew we were coming. How? Most of the stores that we saw had a “Grapevine Welcomes QuakeCon 2025” decal in their windows.

I’m sure this fell flat for some of you but the Mission: Impossible line came to mind within a minute of brainstorming this post, and technically it’s not wrong. Clementine, Meltingwax’s wife, has always been big on exploring cities, so when she mentioned wanting to do the same in the Grapevine area as a change of pace from doing something at the mall or anything along those lines, we all responded with piqued interest. We took an Uber ride to Grapevine Main Station, one of the main focal points of the historic area, which contained a multitude of restaurants with wide-ranging cuisines, and what seemed like a combination of an event venue and a hotel (I could be wrong about some of this). Since it was dinner time we all split off to get food. I got to have shawarma for the very first time. I love Mediterranean food, and I have it probably only once every couple of years, and this was something I’ve been wanting to try for years. And yes, The Avengers is technically responsible. But after watching YouTube videos on making it, I’ve been itching to try it.

When we exited the station we found ourselves next to some rail lines and a splash pad with plenty of seating. We opted not to get soaked, as nice as it would have been, but we quickly happened upon a green dinosaur print on the ground with a very elaborate QR code.

Try as we might, sadly enough of the green paint had worn away that we couldn’t get a read on the code. Too bad.

If memory serves we headed north up the main street where there were a number of small businesses and shops. That dinosaur footprint was a sign of things to come though: a lot of the area was done up with jurassic era creatures and displays. Noxis, being a huge dinosaur fanatic and lover of all things paleontology, was beside herself.

If I were a local I’d have gone back sometime to check out the theater since I wholeheartedly approved of their screening choices. As we made our way up the street, we did stop in a shop that sold a ton of knick knacks and similar things. I didn’t end up buying anything, but there were some entertaining things on display. The hats were kind of interesting, but I haven’t worn a hat of any kind in over twenty years and I just look plain bad in them IMHO, so no money was spent on one of them that night. Also weirdly enough neither my wife nor I took any photos of the store from outside (we of course didn’t take any inside, that just feels disrespectful as a tourist), but we did take plenty more photos of the buildings as we ventured further up the road.

Ultimately I’m not sure what prompted the jurassic theme for the town, I know Jurassic World: Rebirth came out in theaters at the beginning of last month, but this didn’t seem like a direct promotion since there was no actual mention of the movie. Of course this doesn’t disprove that either. If someone on the town board, or whatever organization was responsible for decorating the town like this, is a Jurassic Park fan, I’m not even in the line to complain. And technically this is historical, just not to Grapevine specifically, lol.

The small business theme continued as we ventured up the road.

I’m a regular client for my massage therapist but I’ve never heard of a laser being used for the process … this place concerns me…

A block or two beyond the laser-powered massage parlor we found a little historic site that featured a wind-powered well pump and the Torian Cabin named after the Torian family that built it in the mid-1800’s. At this point I’m borrowing from the Internet because at this point in the evening my energy supply was in the process of getting up and excusing itself from my organic premises. The cabin itself was originally constructed about four miles from where we found it, with the Grapevine Historical Society having relocated it from its original site to prevent it from being demolished in 1976. Apparently the cabin was deconstructed log by log and then transported and rebuilt where it has currently sat for the last fifty years. The Torian family itself originated from Kentucky but was part of the second wave of settlers in the area (the first wave was about twenty years prior) and helped develop the town at the time through farming. Several generations of the family were all born in the cabin, contributing to its generational significance, and with the family still having living members in the 1970’s when the demolition debate took place (and I’m guessing today), I can definitely appreciate wanting to preserve the family cabin. I’d want my own place to be preserved if a few generations of my family were born in it.

After the cabin we had pretty much unanimously decided that this was as far as we wanted to go since it was getting late and the sun was going down, plus with stores closing soon (those that hadn’t already closed since it was Sunday), we weren’t too keen on walking over a mile back to the Grapevine train station in unfamiliar territory, even if it was a good part of town and we were a decent sized group. But we did take some more photos of the immediate area since there were a few more jurassic themed attractions amongst other items of interest.

After this we started off on the return trip back to the train station where we would then take an Uber ride back to our hotel. We could have certainly had it pick us up where we were, but we saw a few things lit up for the night that looked pretty neat, and we wanted to take one last look through the train station itself, theorizing that after 9PM on a Sunday there might be fewer people there with which to bump elbows.

Siiiigh … groooaaannnn, once again the fun has sadly come to an end. I know I sound like a broken record, but to me it is always worth conveying in detail just how much this annual vacation of mine has come to mean to myself, my friends, and my family. And with Winny being able to join us this year, it would seem our little circle of friends is growing. Personally I’m really hoping another friend of mine that goes by Faceless (I think I may have mentioned him before on this site) can make it next year since I believe this is the second year in a row that he’s had to cancel due to life commitments. I can’t complain though, with me being jobless it could very easily have been my family and I that had to miss out this year. And that just makes me all the more grateful that I got to experience and participate in everything that QuakeCon had to offer this year. More than just QuakeCon, I’m grateful I got to meet up with my close friends that I only get to interact with online outside of QuakeCon. May we all get to meet again next year for good times and crazy shenanigans that are only made possible thanks to peace, love, and rockets.

The flight home was mercifully uneventful and my immediate future involves getting back to work on my solar. Stay tuned for updates on that. Until then, I’m gonna take full advantage of not being employed and sleep for a week. See you in the next one.