Our second day in Dallas started off right. We got breakfast in the Historic West-End at a place called Ellen's, which was awesome. The bartender (we ate at the bar) gave us all sorts of great local tips about what to do, and he served me this delicious meal:
That's two poached eggs with spinach, tomatoes and bacon on a bed of cheesy grits with hollandaise. It was as good as that sounds. All my favorite breakfast things in one. I need to figure out how to make grits.
Next stop was the former Texas School Book Depository, which is now the Sixth Floor Museum. If you don't already know what I am talking about, this was the location where JFK was shot in 1963. See the sixth floor corner window? That is where Lee Harvey Oswald was.
We went through the museum, but this was another situation where cameras weren't allowed. They didn't ban me from talking about it though. Two super cool things on the tour:
After leaving the museum, I got to live out a longstanding dream of standing on the grassy knoll:
If you don't already know, as a kid I was obsessed with conspiracy theories. In the fifth grade, my obsession was the Kennedy assassination. I watched the movie JFK more times than I care to admit. Standing on the grassy knoll was a big thing for me.
Here's Brian across the street from the grassy knoll. He is frowning because he said it was not a place to smile. He has a point. We had just walked across an "x" in the road, where they have marked the probable places where Kennedy was hit.
Next, we walked over to the Kennedy Memorial down the street. It was an enormous, square concrete cube, that is hollow on the inside:
So, after that depressing bit of U.S. history, Brian and I decided to take our breakfast bartender's advice and go to Cowboy Stadium. This is not normally something we would do, but we really needed something different to get the sad feeling out of the air after spending the morning listening to the story of JFK's death.
Cowboy Stadium did not disappoint. It was incredible. The picture I got here does not do it justice:
It a whole lot of sparkling, clear glass with a retractable roof, and it is massive. Driving around it, we were so impressed, we decided to go see if we could get a tour. We were in luck. After paying for our tickets, we went through the tunnels, and emerged in this club room/bar area:
That is how we entered the field. We were no less impressed with the stadium when we were standing on the field:
Brian took artsy photos with my camera from the end zone:
Here I am:
Brian was having a blast rolling around on the field. Now he says he will know what it feels like to fall on the astroturf (which was shockingly realistic and cushy like grass).
There was a massive TV screen that was nearly the size of the whole field:
We got to see the cheerleader locker room:
And the Cowboy locker room, which is fancier:
Brian got to pretend he was telling the press about the Cowboys in the press room:
And before we left, he continued to pretend he was playing football, running around and diving like a little kid. In his defense, ALL of the guys touring the stadium were doing this. They even had footballs out on the field, which we let the true Cowboys fans play with.
Here's another shot from the stands as we left. Notice how the left side is brighter than the right? Workers were literally vacuuming the grass on the one side of the field and they were repainting the lines.
After Cowboy Stadium, we headed back into town to get some drinks and dinner. Dinner was tacos at Urban Taco:
And Brian got churros for dessert (they are one of his favorite things):
We did find some fun bars in Dallas. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures. But, if you go to Dallas, I recommend going to the Quarter in Uptown and Barcadia in Knox-Henderson (which has vintage arcade games for a quarter, just like our beloved Barcade back in Brooklyn).
That's two poached eggs with spinach, tomatoes and bacon on a bed of cheesy grits with hollandaise. It was as good as that sounds. All my favorite breakfast things in one. I need to figure out how to make grits.
Next stop was the former Texas School Book Depository, which is now the Sixth Floor Museum. If you don't already know what I am talking about, this was the location where JFK was shot in 1963. See the sixth floor corner window? That is where Lee Harvey Oswald was.
We went through the museum, but this was another situation where cameras weren't allowed. They didn't ban me from talking about it though. Two super cool things on the tour:
- They preserved the corner area where Oswald fired the gun. It was behind glass and reconstructed with similar boxes to how it was on that day (the FBI and CIA took a bunch of the original boxes as evidence).
- They had the FBI diorama of the neighborhood at the time of the shooting that was created for the Warren Commission. It was about 8' by 8', and it had string to show where the bullets went. It gave an excellent perspective on the size of the trees in '63 compared to now.
After leaving the museum, I got to live out a longstanding dream of standing on the grassy knoll:
If you don't already know, as a kid I was obsessed with conspiracy theories. In the fifth grade, my obsession was the Kennedy assassination. I watched the movie JFK more times than I care to admit. Standing on the grassy knoll was a big thing for me.
Here's Brian across the street from the grassy knoll. He is frowning because he said it was not a place to smile. He has a point. We had just walked across an "x" in the road, where they have marked the probable places where Kennedy was hit.
Next, we walked over to the Kennedy Memorial down the street. It was an enormous, square concrete cube, that is hollow on the inside:
So, after that depressing bit of U.S. history, Brian and I decided to take our breakfast bartender's advice and go to Cowboy Stadium. This is not normally something we would do, but we really needed something different to get the sad feeling out of the air after spending the morning listening to the story of JFK's death.
Cowboy Stadium did not disappoint. It was incredible. The picture I got here does not do it justice:
It a whole lot of sparkling, clear glass with a retractable roof, and it is massive. Driving around it, we were so impressed, we decided to go see if we could get a tour. We were in luck. After paying for our tickets, we went through the tunnels, and emerged in this club room/bar area:
That is how we entered the field. We were no less impressed with the stadium when we were standing on the field:
Here I am:
Brian was having a blast rolling around on the field. Now he says he will know what it feels like to fall on the astroturf (which was shockingly realistic and cushy like grass).
There was a massive TV screen that was nearly the size of the whole field:
We got to see the cheerleader locker room:
And the Cowboy locker room, which is fancier:
And before we left, he continued to pretend he was playing football, running around and diving like a little kid. In his defense, ALL of the guys touring the stadium were doing this. They even had footballs out on the field, which we let the true Cowboys fans play with.
Here's another shot from the stands as we left. Notice how the left side is brighter than the right? Workers were literally vacuuming the grass on the one side of the field and they were repainting the lines.
After Cowboy Stadium, we headed back into town to get some drinks and dinner. Dinner was tacos at Urban Taco:
And Brian got churros for dessert (they are one of his favorite things):
We did find some fun bars in Dallas. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures. But, if you go to Dallas, I recommend going to the Quarter in Uptown and Barcadia in Knox-Henderson (which has vintage arcade games for a quarter, just like our beloved Barcade back in Brooklyn).
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