The Kennedy motorcade made a left and followed the path of these cars towards the underpass
There's a white "X" painted in the middle of the street where Kennedy was shot
Derek is a Whataburger fan
East Texas Oil Museum in Kilgore
Closed...thwarted again!
Last night on the roadSaturday June 7
June 7 was Helen's 40th birthday and she didn't seem to mind spending it on the road. For better or worse, her 40th was a non-event. Leading up to her birthday she was too busy trying to finish out the school year to reflect much about the significance of turning 40. When I asked if she wanted to do anything special - she said, "not really". I haven't been able to see that turning 40 has affected her in any way.
I think Helen would enjoy if I were to sweep her off her feet and do something special, although she can't really envision or verbalize what that something special might be. Unfortunately, neither can I. We're both unbelievably even keeled - you might even say emotionally flat line. Generally, I think it's great and love the predictability and enjoyment I derive from the general day to day without needing anything "special". In many relationships, it's the "special" days that screw everything up because of the expectations involved.
We knew we wanted to see the Dallas area, but we weren't sure what we wanted to see that was unique to Dallas. We read that Dallas is the shopping mall capital of the world with more mall space per capita than anywhere else, but shopping's not our thing. We decided on the 6th Floor Museum located in the book depository building where President Kennedy was shot. It seemed like the most uniquely Dallas thing to do.
The museum was really busy. It was a Saturday, so that may have been why there were so many people or everyone else picked the museum as their thing to do in Dallas as well. I wonder where it ranks in terms of popularity compared to other Dallas attractions.
The museum doesn't allow any type of photography inside so we were limited. It was an incredible experience. To me it was the place on our trip that evoked the most emotions. There were many beautiful places and NASA was cool, but this place was special. It was almost overwhelming for me to stand on Elm Street and see the "X" that marks the spot where Kennedy was shot and to look down from the windows in the book depository and see just how close a shot it was. You could have thrown a rock and hit him.
The museum was extremely well done - exhaustively covering all the angles of the events leading up to, including, and following the assassination. It really gave you a feel for the charisma and hope that Kennedy brought to the nation (kind of like Obama now) and the despair that followed. I did not realize that this was Jackie Kennedy's first public appearance following the death of their premature son, Patrick - only to have her husband die in her arms. I don't know how she went on.
There was a special exhibit sponsored by Kodak that detailed the various home movies and photographs of the event. They detailed the background on each of the every day people that photographed the event - what they were doing that day, what type of camera, etc. It was surreal to see all the normal family video mixed in with the brutality of the assassination. I think the museum purposely left the family stuff in to give you the shock effect - much like the nation was shocked. The most famous home movie of the event is the Zapruder film.
Adam and Derek seemed to enjoy it as well. Everyone gets a tape player as they enter the museum for the audio tour. Derek was finished before all of us. It was a good experience for him after learning about the Presidents in school. Helen stayed with Adam and smoothed all the times where he felt personally affronted when something would go wrong with the player or he would get out of sync. And, of course, he was too cute with his mouth hanging wide open as he listened and made his way.
We headed out of town for home. We stopped at the East Texas Oil Museum in Kilgore, which is where the Texas oil boom started. It was a neat town with a bunch of decorative oil derricks all over town. They decorate them all for Christmas - I bet it's really pretty.
For lunch, we finally stopped at a Whataburger. There aren't any in Atlanta, so we've never eaten at one, but they're all over Louisiana and Texas. They started in Corpus Christi, which is where their headquarters is. Derek kept bugging us to stop at one, but we would put him off in order to eat something more authentic. When we finally stopped, Derek thought we were joking. It was actually really good. Probably even better than Wendy's - our favorite. Whataburger is more expensive, but the ingredients seem really fresh and a notch above other fast food.
We weren't sure how far we would make it, but we thought we would get farther than Jackson, Mississippi. Not. We tried a couple hotels, but they were filled for some reason before finally settling on a Hampton Inn. Nothing special...but at least they had a free breakfast.
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