I knew our Texas t-shirts would be trouble. "Are you from Canada?" the lady in the gas station asked. "Well I guess I'm not from Mexico," I replied.
Christine dropped us in downtown Dallas at lunchtime and after a quick sandwich we headed to Dealey Plaza, site of the John F. Kennedy's assassination. It was very surreal, standing in a place that I'd seen so many times in photos and films.
The sixth floor of the book depository, from where the (alleged) shots were fired, is now a permanent museum about JFK. I was expecting something a bit morbid, but the displays were an excellent historical record of the administration and an honest appraisal of its legacy. It was a little soft focus (I seem to remember the US agreeing to withdraw missiles from Turkey in exchange for the ones disappearing from Cuba, rather than Kennedy bravely facing down the communist threat as reported here) but everything was dealt with, from botched police investigations to the many commissions, reports, and conspiracy theories that have come out since that fateful day.
After that we attempted to wander around, but Dallas is a working city with little time for a couple of tourists (even ones as obviously dressed as us). We gawped at the tall reflective buildings like the out-of-towners we are and then caught the air-conditioned train home. I think tomorrow we might get back to our country roots in Fort Worth.
Always the way.
Dealey Plaza - x marks the spot.
The book depository.
A shadowy figure on the grassy knoll.
Hannah and some big, shiny, oil-money buildings!
