Dallas TX and on to Abilene TX

November 3 Tuesday

We got up and broke down camp to leave for Dallas by 8:30. We had three destinations – the Kennedy Assassination Site, The Galleria, and the National Boy Scout Museum… well GPS Lady led us to all three! It was not her fault that there was no parking at the Galleria for a 9 foot high Sprinter…so we only experienced 2 of the 3!

It took about an hour to drive to Dallas from our campground. The skyline was outstanding and some of the curtain wall skyscrapers were just beautiful. We found parking very near the assassination site and walked around to view the grassy knoll and the motorcade route. The 6th and 7th floors of the Texas Book Depository have been turned into a museum of video and photos from the time of the assassination. For our generation, the assassination is one of those events - everyone can tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when Kennedy was shot. The museum was very well done and remarkably included information on many of the various solutions to who shot Kennedy. The corner window where the shots were fired and where the gun was found are as they were then. Numerous photos and recordings tell the story very well but they allowed no photos to be taken.

Grassy Knoll and Texas Book Depository

We then drove to the Galleria – Jane really wanted to visit Nieman Marcus but alas after driving around for some time we decided we would have to walk too far from anywhere we could get the Sprinter a spot…so we drove on to the Scout Museum which was in nearby Irving.

The highlight of the Scout Museum was 40 of the 52 original Norman Rockwell paintings of scouts. We were able to photograph all 40 that are on display. They have to rotate the paintings as they only have room to display 40 at a time. There were numerous rooms of very interesting historical displays in this museum.


Ben and Jane at Scout Museum


Ben Tries out his Aim

After our touring we headed out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, heading west.

We were planning to drive until about 4:30 and that ended up with us in Abilene. With a population of 120,000 Abilene seems small after three days in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. We stopped at a grocery for a few things and found a nice site at a KOA campground that has electricity and internet and cable TV – everything we need for a connected evening. We can catch up on election results, watch NCIS, and catch up on email. Jane is way behind on the blog and will hope to get all the narrative posted and some photos. We had a great dinner tonight – the leftover steak, potatoes, and Ben’s pecan pie from Saltgrass. Along with salad from the grocery we stretched the great meal from last night into 2 meals!

Tomorrow we head further west – through Midland/Odessa and on to Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains National Parks. The tree colors were good in the Guadalupe Mountains the week before we left home - hope they still are. We may be without internet again for a few days…. Weather is great – in the high 70’s to low 80’s daytime and 50’s at night.