Feelin' great after yesterday's win (and the "real" Texas beef that Dad had for dinner) we embarked on our final two tours of our trip. Now, growing up, my parents lived in Texas and they always told my brother and I how it never rained in Texas. When I was 13 and they took us on a cross country road trip we drove through the pan-handle of Texas. It rained the entire time. This would be my only other Texas experience, and guess what: it's raining today. Irony folks.
So we departed under drippy and overcast skys for the Texas Stadium Tour. It was very cool, we got to visit the luxury boxes, the club room (where Troy Aiken announced his retirement from football and TO signed his recent contract extension - remember the huge bowl of popcorn?), the locker room, the infamous tunnel and the field!
Here's Dad in one of the luxury boxes. For only $3,200 you too can have this box, 8 tickets to the game, food for 24, a case of soda, a case of beer and 3 full bottles of liquor! The price is so reasonable that companies rent them out for the year! This box belongs to the City of Irving. 
Tax payers love football so much in Texas apparently they pay for this sort of thing!
Unfortunately, Neman Marcus was doing a photo shoot on the field (in the rain?) so there was a crew there building some sort of platform over the infamous centerfield star. Dad encouraged a little bit of rebellion and I jumped in the middle quickly so that he could take a photo! Kiss the Star! 
This is me in the endzone closest to where our seats had been the day before. It would be a better photo if those people weren't in the way! Photo shop! For a mere $500,000 you too could own this endzone. If you feel that price might be too steep, guess what, there's more: VIP tickets to the final game in Texas Stadium (vs. Baltimore), photo session in your end zone with Jerry Jones before the game AND a post-game tailgate party in your endzone! Wowie! I also had a chance to sit on the 'Boys bench, right near about where Tony Romo had spent some of the day before!
And finally, there's my Dad at the 50 yard line! Go Cowboys!
We learned that Texas Stadium will be imploded after the season. Turns out that while Jerry Jones owns the stadium, he does not own the parking lot. Not much you can do with a stadium with no parking! 
After our Texas Stadium Tour (and the rain) we headed out to Valley Ranch! We had a different bus drive than usual for the lucky 30 folks who got to go. Unfortunately, this bus driver didn't know where to go, and some how missed the HUGE white building with the giant Dallas Star on it.... so we drove around in a huge bus through some condo developments for a while, before the bus passengers nearly mutinied and started yelling directions at him based purely on the location of the afore mentioned building. We did make it there eventually!
Here's Dad in front of two greats: Lee Roy Jordan (that's whose jersey he's wearing) and Roger Staubach. These paintings are in the hallway at Valley Ranch, there is one of each member of the ring of honor. 
We also go to visit the on-site TV studio (who knew they had one?), it's not where the press conferences are held (because that's acutally in a hallway, we got to see that too). But here's Dad and I sitting behind the desk (we have no explanation for the inequitability of the heights of the chairs). 
And here is a parting shot of our FAVORITE bus driver (he rocked) and Ronni, the Maximum Sports Connection goddess. She really rocked it out. Everything about this tour was seriously awesome! They took care of everything, and all we had to do was sit back and have an amazing time. 
This weekend went by super fast! It was totally amazing and I had the best company, my Dad (the reason I'm a Cowboys fan). He picked it right, we had to go before they moved out of Texas Stadium. That's where the Cowboys have played my whole life, and to miss seeing it would have made me sad. Now I can't wait to do this again! Maybe I can convince Ray to do an "away" game at the Giants next year......