Kennedy Assassination site, Dallas, Texas

After our trip to Southfork the previous day we headed out into Dallas itself for our second day there.  We had stayed in the Homewood suites in Plano overnight and spent some of the morning playing in the pool before we headed out to Dealey plaza to check out one of the most famous (infamous) places to visit in the US.

We headed out to Dealey plaza and got there around lunch time.  We walked down and explored the scene itself which has a cross marked on the ground to show where the car was when the shots took place.  We also looked over the grassy knoll area which is famous as the spot where people claim to have seen shots coming on the day.
Here is my dad at the grassy knoll.  The fence behind him is pretty much the same as it was on the day.

After looking at the scene we were peckish before we went into the Book Depository so we stopped for some lunch.  Yelp had a recommendation for a small grill just up the road – The Record Grill.  It was actually very reasonably priced and the food was great.  We would recommend that place every time despite it being a tiny little cafe type place.  

Our next stop was the Texas book depository (also known as the Sixth Floor Museum) which is where the shots were said to be fired from.  It’s now a Kennedy museum and the area where the alleged shots were fired is cordoned off and left exactly as it was on that day in 1963.  There is all sorts of info in the tour which is an audio tour you do at your own pace.  Everything from the Zapruder camera where the infamous footage of the assassination was taken is on display and the suit worn by the agent who was next to Oswald when he was killed by Jack Ruby.

The interesting thing about the tour was how frank it is about the background to the event.  It does not take the view that it was obviously just Oswald acting alone.  There is a lot of info presented about how it could have been a conspiracy which surprised me at the time.  Lots of the, literally, hundreds of books about Kennedy are on display here. It lets you make up your own mind.

There is lot of footage of Kennedy as president, the assassination and his funeral.  There is a particularly poignant piece of footage of JFK Jr saluting his fathers coffin on the day of the funeral which they have incorporated well into the museum.

Upstairs is a tribute area for JFK and Jackie Kennedy.  They have quiet space for people to recollect and some incredible images of both the President and the First lady which are made up with the others images.

The image to the left is made up of mulitple images of Jackie Kennedy and they had another one of her made up of images of him.

I think they have put this together very well and it asks a lot of questions and I came away thinking it made no sense that something like this had so many unanswered questions.  We’ll probably never know what happened leading up to that day but it was fascinating to stand in the area it happened and see a site which we’ve seen in countless movies, TV shows and news footage.

Worth a visit but there is so much to see we spent hours going round it.

Capitol Building, Austin, Texas

My parents were here to visit and we decided to stay local for a visit to the historic capitol building in Austin.  This is well worth a visit if you are in town.  We arrived early afternoon and there was an orchestra playing in the main hall which was a great start.

There is free entry to the building and a free tour is scheduled every 15 mins or so so we could go round on our own or have someone talk use through it.  We opted for the tour and the guide told us all about the two areas of government.  interesting that i toured the Houses of parliament in London and the set up was very similar with the Lords and Commons separated by a long corridor…I wonder where they got this idea from ;-).

The building is stunning on the inside and we learned about how in 90’s when they were running out of room in the building they discussed building an extension which started as a building tacked onto the back but they felt this would ruin the look and feel of the building so they went a little creative and built the extension underground at the back so they have a four story extension underground which now houses offices, a restaurant, the gift shop and a few other rooms.  The dome is not actually the highest in the US but it is the biggest capitol building in terms of square footage (everything is bigger in Texas).  This is a great way to spend a little time if you have some to spare in Austin.

SouthFork Ranch, Dallas, Texas

Still accompanied by my parents we had headed to Dallas.  Well we could not be in Dallas without a visit to place we associate more with the place than any other (yes us UK folks were as hooked on Dallas in the 80’s as the US was) so we visited Southfork ranch!

This is a three and a half hour trip from Round Rock so we booked into a hotel for an overnight and took in a few other sites in Dallas as well (more posts to come).  We decided to do Southfork on the day we arrived so we checked into the hotel and then headed up there.  It’s not cheap to get in but fairly standard for tourist attractions and we all got in for about $140 (that was 4 adults and 2 kids) if memory serves me well.

The first thing that struck us was that it was not in the Dallas wilderness but actually in the middle of a lot of other houses and buildings.  They used a number of techniques to make the place look bigger when filming and the famous pool where everyone and their brother was punched in actually used a mirror technique to make it look bigger.

The owners at the time did not want their family life (an actual family lived in the house in the 80’s) so they insisted on the filming all taking place in the summer when their kids were on vacation.  So when you saw Pam or Sue Ellen in a fur coat storming into the house you can feel for them as it was probably 100 degrees outside and they had fur coats on!

The inside of the house was not used for filming in the classic series so the inside doesn’t reflect the scenes from the TV show but they have now themed the rooms and you have a JR room, a Bobby room etc.  The new series has had some scenes filmed inside (no-one lives there now) but they use it more like a TV studio and the scene where JR was killed is actually in there (not in a mexican motel where it was supposed to have happened).

There are extensive grounds which you can wander around.  There is a gift shop with Jock Ewings car taking pride of place in the front.  You can walk around the outside of the house and there is a guided tour of the inside of the house with plenty of photo ops (such as pouring scotch from JR’s decanter).

I have to say that the kids did not get enthusiastic about it in the way that us older ones did (it’s not nostalgia to them) so probably not a visit for kids who are not up with the new series but for use folk who remember this from the 80’s it was a funny, if a little cheesy, day out.

in the 80’s this was exotic in the UK so I think my parents enjoyed their time on the ranch and our visit to the graves of JR, Jock and Miss Ellie which are also on the grounds.  Worth a visit just to say you’ve been there.