Dallas, Texas

April 8, 2013

We stopped at Santo, Texas to book into the Coffee Creek RV Resort, one of our favourites.  Santo is located about 50 miles west of Fort Worth.  This time around would be a little different. We have driven the highway around Fort Worth/Dallas several times in previous years but had never stopped to visit some of the sites within Dallas.

We phoned the local tour association to book a guide for the next day -- the cost $50 per person for a guide to take the 4 of us on a 3 hour tour of Dallas.

Our first stop was the JFK memorial at the spot where President John Kennedy was assassinated.  It was a totally different perspective to stand there and see how close the book depositary was where Oswald took his shots from.  It seemed so much closer than viewing it on any film clips. The actual window is on the right side, one floor down from the top. Two X's on the centre line of the road, mark the spots where Kennedy was hit. These were the second and third shots fired. The first hit a stop light cross-bar.

Texas Book Depository

JFK Memorial

original Court House (nicknamed the Red Castle)

Two years ago the National Geographic team had closed the area down for 3 days while they filmed a documentary "JFK The Lost Bullet" where they recreated the event.  The documentary details the latest theories about the assassination using the latest technology.  It is hard to believe that the 50th anniversary of the event will be this fall! At the time, we were in high school, Grade 11. It was a huge event in our lives when we were young and impressionable.

Our stop at the Pioneer Park Cemetery was interesting.  The cemetery is 154 years old and contained a monument  commemorating General Stonewall Jackson, General Robert E Lee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Albert Sidney Johnston. 

Gen Robert E. Lee

Beside the Pioneer Park Cemetery is the Pioneer Plaza which features a trail with a flowing stream and waterfall plus a re-creation of a Cattle drive in the form of bronze statues of longhorns being driven by three riding cowboys.

The statues are larger than life-size by about 1/3.

The cowboys are so realistic.

Granddaughter Maxine thought they were real. The detail is awesome.

From there we visited the Southern Methodist University and the Highland Park area (high end housing). If you saw the news clip of the grand opening of the George Bush Jr. Library, we went by it. Impressive from the outside! Sorry no pics.

One of the $million homes we passed on our drive

Our final stop was the Arts District.  There are at least 18 large buildings of unique architecture in the complex.  And amidst them all is the old Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe which was built in 1898.

The cathedral nestled within the towering buildings of the Arts District

exterior shot of the Symphony Center

Interior of Morton H. Myerson Symphony Center.

Lots of angles in the architecture.

We would have never gone to all those areas of the city on our own. Thanks to John and Pat for the inspiration to so something in Dallas while we were in the area.  It certainly was worth the price to have our private guide to take us in his car around these areas of Dallas.

The only issue we ran into while in the Dallas area was the weather.  We returned to our motorhome after our tour of the city  in sunny 85F (30C) weather.  There was a severe weather warning issued for that night.  We missed the high winds and hail overnight but got lots of rain causing the temperature to plummet.  The high the next day reached only 36F (2C).  Brrr.... A drop of almost 50F!! That was the end of our shorts and t-shirt weather for the rest of our travels home!!  Boo hoo...