We left Spring and drove on to Dallas – three and a half hours up the State, it feels like we have entered Texas – The Lone Star State proper. Driving the I45, Texas is greener than Rosie imagined, they have just finished a long, hot summer and there is still alot of lushness in the flat fields that line the arrow straight interstate.
Dallas loomed up out of the flatness like a mirage in the hazy late morning light. Gleaming glass buildings reflect the sky and lush green trees frame the skyline. We were headed straight for Wild Bills Western World….The Operator was looking forward to getting his cowboy on and was in the market for a new pair of boots and a hat….Texas style.
Reduced parking charges in the city on the weekend…$5 for 24 hours, we parked in the heart of the Historic West End right next door to our destination. A neon Long Horn skull flickered above the door, a proper bell tinkled when the door was pushed open and that beautiful smell of leather washed over you when you walked in.
The staff were mainly men, clad in jeans, cowboy boots and stetson hats, big belt buckles gleamed on their waists and the nearest gent touched his hat and said….’Howdy Mam’. True!
Stacks of hats, shelves of boots, racks of belts and cases of belt buckles filled the store.
Cowboy Hat Etiquette 101 – Straw hats and light colours are worn in summer, felt and hide hats in darker colours are worn in winter. Going out in the evenings, all seasons you mainly wear a light coloured hide hat. Always take your hat off when you enter some one elses house or when you are in church. In restaurants it is optional to take your hat of when you are eating.
So……The Operator tried on hat after hat…..Rosie sat in the corner on a cowhide chair with legs made out of longhorn horns…..is this what it is like for men when we woman folk go shopping…..boring! After trying on 15 or so styles….The Operator decided that the Texas style hat pinch wasn’t for him.
So….he moved onto the boot section….Rosie was looking at the gator/snake skin fancy coloured styles….The Operator opted for a plain tan work boot style….’good, solid, entry level cowboy boot for a first time wearer, when you get used to the heel and want anther pair for best you can go for something fancier’ said the cowboy salesman….
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The Operator got a free ‘Texas Star’ belt buckle with his boots as a complimentary gift and I must admit, he rocks those heels, yeeeehaaaa!
We wandered around the historic area of Dallas, full of tall, huge red buildings which were former warehouses built in the 19th century and newly converted and re energised into trendy shopping and restaurants.
On the fringe of this area is Pioneer Plaza, it contains the largest bronze monument in the world of 49 larger than life Texas Longhorns and 3 trail riders. It commemorates the nineteenth century cattle drives along the Shawnee Trail, which was the earliest route by which longhorn cattle where taken to Northern rail heads.
The trail passed through Austin, Waco and Dallas until the Chisolm Trail (through Fort Worth) syphoned off most of the traffic in 1867.
Dealey Plaza was our next stop, the infamous site of John F Kennedy’s assassination on 22 November 1963. I have seen the curved road and three lane underpass on TV and in photographs…..but, standing there on the footpath verge looking at the two Xs on the road which mark the striking of the snipers bullets that murdered Kennedy was quite emotional and sobering.
The area was mobbed with people, taking photos from the roadside and clustered together in groups in the shade under trees listening to unofficial conspiracy theorists that sell all the angles for a tip after their talk.
The Texas School Book Depository is the red brick building behind The Operator, this was where Lee Harvey Oswald was employed on a temporary contract. It was from the second window down from the top, on the far right of the building that the fatal bullet was fired from that killed Kennedy.
Rosie didnt realise that the actual ‘Grassy Knoll’ was a piece of unremarkable raised berm to the right of the underpass, scrubby trees hang low to the road and there is a plain wooden picket fence at the top.
Where the person in the red top is standing on the edge of the footpath in the middle of the picture, the Grassy Knoll is that rise behind those trees. The picket fence is 20 metres back from the grass berm.
After the bullets were fired at Kennedy, eye witnesses at the time questioned by police said they saw a ‘puff of smoke’ from the barrel of a gun come from that ‘grassy knoll’ , hence the lasting name. 80% of eye witness were also sure the gun was fired from this area and not from The Texas School Book Depositary where Lee Harvey Oswald’s sniper nest was found. Witnesses also said there was a man with a gun dressed in a suit by the fence on the grassy knoll, he identified himself to onlookers as being CIA detail for the security entourage. He disappeared from the scene in the aftermath and that man was never identified.
The Depository is now a museum and is a great self guided visit, an audio tour that comes with the ticket gives you the events that led up to the assassination, civil and national unrest of the time and then a second by second time lapse of the fatal event and a follow up of the aftermath.
It is really impressive and moving. So many angles and factions to take into consideration, even though Oswald (allegedly) pulled the trigger, who was really the mastermind behind it? Was Oswald a puppet? Did Oswald really do it?…..the Russians had beef with Kennedy, as did the Cubans and the Mafia, the state of Texas had very vocal Kennedy opposers and there were rumblings that the CIA exterminated Kennedy. The only certainty, aliens, had absolutely nothing to do with it.
No photos were allowed in the museum, Rosie took a sneaky pic from the window next to the snipers nest which is encased in glass…The Operator was my wing man shield.
Rosie found it quite incredible that the level of interest of an event that happened so many years ago is still so amazingly polarising to people from all around the world. Is it the event? Or, is it the JFK factor? Half of the people visiting this site including Rosie and The Operator were not even born when this man was murdered. A lot of people present in that museum viewing the presentations lived through this event, some were talking about where they were on that day in all parts of the States. Some were wiping away tears. Many were remembering this and that about Kennedy himself. Its nice to see that the history is still very much alive today.
New interchanges criss cross over head as we leave the city, we are diverted onto newly formed, hard compacted dirt roads as we skirt the old areas that are coned off and then diverted again to the new dusty unsealed roads, our navigation never missed a beat and we finally made it to Fort Worth a city of 830,000 in its own right 45 mins from Dallas.
We are staying out of the city in The Historic Stockyard area…..welcome to Cowtown, Rosie and The Operator are off to the Rodeo….will show y’all around tomorrow.
