We left Amarillo on July 3 and headed for Dallas, home of JR, the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders and the site of JFK's assassination. Big surprise, we arrived to ghost town. The best place time to stay in a fancy hotel for really cheap is July 4th. The $300 room was reduced to $85 and for $50 more, if we had splurged, could have had the $500 suite. Loving discounts and special deals I urged Stephen to consider but being practical and Scottish we went for the regular room. It was not disappointing.
After a splash in the rooftop pool we headed to the hotel's restaurant and got significantly sloshed, returned to our room and admired the various pre-July 4th fireworks from our 32nd floor perch.
July 4th began with a visit to the site of JFK’s assassination and the 6th Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza store. Being the only sightseers at 9:30am on Independence Day we were literally chased across the street, the exact site if the shooting, by a wee tour guide desperate to make some cash on tourists. We escaped into the Museum store and agreed that the place was a morbid reminder of that terrible day. Secretly we wondered if the neighboring businesses weren’t a bit thankful for the vicinity of the tragedy, as it afforded them business.
It began to rain so we ran back to the hotel attempting to dodge raindrops. No luck, my hair had that special frizzy blow-dried windstorm look. But the run was fun and we felt like little kids playing on a big empty stage set depicting downtown Dallas.
Four hours later we were finally in Houston. I can’t offer any more details about arrival since I fell asleep and only awakened as we pulled into the hotel’s parking garage. We’re Back! After a snooze we visited the new house, which had a moving van parked out front indicating that the previous residents were still packing. Knowing that this would delay our move-in we headed back to the hotel and decided not to worry about the situation. Instead we joined 20 or so other guests in the darkened top floor conference rooms to watch the various fireworks displays.
We all agreed that the downtown Houston display was spectacular! It was ten minutes of multi-layered and multi-height fireworks. Everything is bigger in Texas. Visiting the house again today Stephen pointed out that our view of the Houston Skyline would guarantee us front row seats at next year’s display.
