Going Through The Big D and I Do Mean Dallas

Trust me, the Devil saddled on my left shoulder has nearly convinced me just to book that plane ticket last-minute and head south to Dallas again.  However; the Angel on my right is still clinging to the end of her rope and helping me realize I do better work from home.  

Don't you worry though, like I said above, I do my best work from home - I can guarantee you will be more than satisfied with the brand new goods I've found and ordered this week just by being a keyboard warrior. ;)  [Read until the end for more details on my authentic turquoise initial necklace.]

Brianne tossed the idea around for weeks. She hadn't been to market since she took the dive to open the store and managed to weave her way around Magic in Las Vegas. It was time. We needed new inventory, we needed to meet with our reps, and we needed to scout for new brands. So we did it. We went to market, WESA at The Dallas Market Center, downtown Dallas, Texas. 

As usual, it went nowhere near according to plan. Everything really is bigger in Texas. We decided that driving would be our best option. There were four of us gals going [Brianne, Kenzie, Jaden, and myself,] so in the effort of saving ourselves the cost and struggle of checking luggage we packed it into the back of Brianne's Yukon. She picked me up in the middle of the night. We got a few miles down the road, nearly hit an escaped feedlot steer, and found our way to pick up the rest of the posse.

In the 16 hours it took us to get to the Big D we stopped for a few Monsters and Mountain Dews. [None for sleeping beauty, Jaden, though.  She was well caught up on sleep after this trip.]  We tried to be proactive and get our cooler ready for our rooftop pool experience.  B tried to buy a case of beer at 4 a.m. somewhere in Missouri and found out that's against the law. Apparently, there is a time frame in which you can purchase alcohol and we were not within the window. Who knew? Luckily she was not abducted by the convenience store attendant that night, we surely believe that will be her way to get to heaven.  We carried on, stopped for lunch at a little diner in Oklahoma, and then we pushed south. 

After we made it through the 10 lanes of Dallas traffic, we found our Air B&B parking garage, but the code we had didn't work. It was hour 16, we wanted nothing more than to get into our room, grab our swimsuits, crack a drink, and jump into the rooftop pool, but nope. We were parked illegally and ready to have a come apart. God bless the sweet man from the front desk that came out and helped us. I'm positive he could sense our manic energy through the automatic doors.

Surprisingly, we made it inside just before sundown. We hit up the pool and kept Brianne from 1. Kidnapping a few little puppies and 2. Going downtown on a whim after she had been awake for almost 48 hours [she's still mad about that to this day.] With a few quick hours of sleep, we pulled our boots on and hitched a ride to the market center. We spent three days watching fashion shows, walking a million steps through the temp booths of cash and carry, meeting with our sales reps, and bumping into a few of our social media idols. 

For us girls, it was our first taste of the vast wholesale world of the Western Industry. We had several floors to explore that were jam-packed with the goods and products that create the heartbeat of our lifestyle. There are levels dedicated to western fashion, levels for western home decor, levels for tack and ranch supplies. If we could name it, we could find it. We shopped our hearts out to bring back the best products we could find. 

Though we didn't want to leave the rooftop pool, we made our way to the Fort Worth Stockyards. Brianne white-knuckled us back through the Dallas traffic to get there, but we made it safe and sound. Surrounded by the vision of Wild West cowboys we walked up and down the street, shopping and learning some history. We watched the Longhorn cattle drive and checked out the museum, then we found our true gem from our trip to market, Penny.

 

Penny was the original Longhorn skull that we had in our showroom. She was covered in turquoise stones and she was coming home with us. Thank God for that because it gave us something to think about on our drive north, "What should we name her?" We had a few good options, but we settled on Penny. Brianne has frequently been told that she resembles Penny from the Big Bang Theory, so that fit perfectly. On another note, the original storefront of Broker Leather was no more than a glorified closet which left us with one, not even half, a wall to hang the new skull on. That wall just so happened to be directly behind the check-out counter. Her new place had the ultimate view of the cash and the best vantage point to watch our PENNIES. After we got home, we kept her in the herd for as long as we could, but one of our customers fell in love with her.  That customer was extremely persistent that Penny belonged on her wall.  So we packed her up in an absurd amount of bubble wrap and sent her off to a new life above a mantel in Arizona. That girl has seen some things during her time in our pasture, it's probably best for all of us that she can't talk. 

All in all, we made it back. The Yukon got us through our trip, even though we wore out the cruise control somewhere in North Texas on the way home and it punched its one-way ticket to being a work car for Payne. We unpacked our bags and continued to grow our pasture with our new products. 

I hope to see Dallas/Fort Worth again soon, we promised there would be concert tickets for Billy Bobs with our names on them someday. Until then, Brianne will keep running her tail off to bring home new goodies where and when she can. 

Much Love.

xoxo,

Marley

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