When I woke up, I felt completely refreshed. I was in Texarkana, looking across the street at Texas from my Arkansas bedroom. I got myself checked out of the place and walked over to Wal-Mart to get some groceries for the road. In Texas, the roads have a different speed limit for night time than in the daylight. I was about 3 hours from Dallas, and it was sunny out. Lots of wide-open skies and farms (much like Kansas) although all the farms have fences. Oh, and those cute little titles of the farms like "Springhill Ranch" or "Robin's Ranch" or "Ironworks Farms".
It started drizzling as I came into Dallas and by the time I saw the cityscape, it was a slow downpour. Didn't matter really, I just had a few things I wanted to see. I pulled off the highway, not knowing particularly where I was except that the scene of JFK's assassination was somewhere near Market and Main streets. I quickly drove right by the old Book Depository building, and parked. There was a museum up on the 6th floor, which covered everything from JFK's rise to power and all of the conspiracies surrounding his assination, including a glassed-in view of the book boxes Lee Harvey Oswald used to snipe and kill President Kennedy right down the street. It was eerie looking out his window onto the street, just next to the grassy knoll.
It was an amazing experience being there where all that history happened. I walked out to the knoll and tried to imagine how that day must have changed the lives for so many Americans. I ended up leaving the city on the same route that Kennedy's limo took when shots were fired, and headed out to the second thing I wanted to see in the city- a piano bar, recommended by Pat's family. Turns out that I couldn't find it- at least in the address that was listed, and I decided not to stick around to eat anyhow, since I wasn't hungry.
I hit the road again to head for Houston. It was 4 hours away and the rain hadn't let up, so I figured I'd go for it. The ride to Houston was pretty uneventful until I was about 30 minutes away. The road opened up to 10 lanes, and stores, gas stations, hotels and lights, lights, lights, lined the sides of the Jersey-walled highway. It was wild. It never seemed to let up.
When the highway peaked at the crest of a drizzly hill, I saw it- the most beautiful cityscape I've ever seen thus far. Houston is gorgeous. I pulled off the highway to go exploring. Since the rain hadn't let up yet, I opted to drive around instead of walking, but saw the Astros stadium, and views from four different corners of the well-designed city.
Once I was south-east of the city, I drove through more overpasses than I've ever seen. It was a maze of archways and bridges- A concrete design that I can only imagine from the air is spectacular. It looked like 20 different roads were coming together on 5 or 6 different levels. It was a sight to see. Michelle got me into a really inexpensive hotel room and I finally hit the sack.
Today: NASA's Johnson Space Center, then off to Corpus Christi.
