Direct to Dallas

I’m currently scheduled to fly to London for business in late-July. This next flight will be another round-the-world ticket that has me stopping in New York and Hong Kong on the way to and from the UK. My itinerary includes the new Sydney to Dallas non-stop route Qantas began flying last month. The 13,800km flight is currently recognized as the world’s third longest non-stop commercial route. Garry and I will also be flying the same route again in September when we head to the USA for our grand southwest road trip through New Mexico and Arizona.

The photos above were taken in 2005 when Garry and I stopped for several days in Dallas. It's a bronze sculpture in Pioneer Plaza, a downtown park, that depicts long-horn steers being driven to market. The incredible artwork contains more 70 bronze steers and 3 trail riders, each cast slightly larger than life. The animals make their down a small hill, across a shallow stream and on towards the park's open ground.

While in the USA next month, I’ll be taking a weekend side trip to Memphis, Tennessee. My interest in this city was pricked a few years ago when I found myself in transit at Memphis airport. While waiting for my next flight I read a summary of the local sights and vowed to return. I’m hoping to visit Graceland, the former home of Elvis Presley, sail on the Mississippi in an old paddle and steamer and tour the infamous Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. These days the motel houses a museum devoted to the American Civil Rights movement.

The following weekend while en-route to London I’ll be dropping in to see my brother and family in Austria. My visit will be a mini-family reunion as my parents will also be visiting at the same time. Phew! July's going to be a busy month.

Doing Dallas

Here’s another retrospective post about our time in Dallas and Houston in February 2005. At the time I was conducting a sales roadshow around the USA spruiking the virtues of my company's Asia Pacific network. Garry and I tacked a quick three-day holiday in Texas on the back of the trip before returning to Sydney.

After spending a weekend in Chicago, I flew across the country to Portland for a day of meetings while Garry headed to Texas. He had 36 hours to himself in Dallas before I arrived on a red-eye flight the following morning. My flight from Portland departed at 23:55pm. It was an all too brief 3.5-hour flight. However, thanks to the magic of time zones, I landed shortly after 5:30am. Not a red-eye route I’d recommend for anyone!

 

Our first day together in Dallas was spent exploring the Downtown area. This naturally included a visit to the infamous Sixth Floor Museum on the edge of Daley Plaza. This museum, housed in the former Texas Schoolbook Depository building (now the Dallas County Administration Building), commemorates the Kennedy assassination. 

Inside we saw the window from which those deadly bullets were fired and learned more about the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. It is undeniably chilling to look down at the streets below and imagine the mayhem the shooter must have witnessed that day. I was reminded once again of the privileged life I’ve lived, standing in the presence of yet another historical location.

The plaza itself appears frozen in time. A small park beside Houston Street's triple underpass remains unchanged since that fateful day. The grassy knoll is still there and the parklands look exactly as they did in the infamous Zapruder home movie. A small painted cross on the road marks where the first bullet struck the president. Naturally, we explored the grassy knoll, noted its elevated vantage point, and debated the existence of a fabled second shooter.

Interestingly, before the tragic events of 1963, Daley Plaza's primary drawcard was its pioneer history. In the nearby Founders Park, opposite an austere memorial to JFK, there's a plaque commemorating the city's first settlers. A simple log cabin in the midst of the park recalls those early days. While researching this post I learned that the cabin is a restored replica of John Neely Bryan's home. It's reputed to be the first house built in Dallas.

Once we’d had our fill of bloody American history, we made our way over to Pioneer Plaza. I’ve briefly posted about this urban park before. It holds the world's largest bronze sculpture, a monument to the cattle drives that depicts forty bronze longhorn steers under the guidance of three cowboys. We stopped to take an obligatory tourist photo of me rodeo riding one of these enormous steers.

At this point, it became clear that there wasn’t much more to see in the Downtown area beyond the typical street market district or a local art gallery. At the behest of our Lonely Planet guide, we decided to finish the day by taking a train to nearby Fort Worth for dinner.  This gave us one final Downtown highlight.  As the train pulled away from the station, we were delighted by a fleeting final look at Daley Plaza's sloping lawn and gracefully curving roadway.

The Lonely Planet promised Garry a meat feast in true Texan style at Riscky's, a local BBQ institution. Needless to say, we soon found ourselves dining on an enormous platter of ribs, and other carnivorous delights. Garry was suitably impressed as you can see in the images above.

The following morning, we flew to Houston to visit the Johnson Space Center. We booked our flights with Southwest Airlines. At the time it was, and still is, the USA’s largest budget airline. While neither of us is a budget airline fan, we were curious to experience this iconic budget airline. 

Southwest was surprisingly good. From start to finish, the airline staff was always efficient, friendly, and proactive. For example, upon arriving at the airport we discovered that our flight had been canceled. However, the airline has flights scheduled every 30 minutes between Dallas and Houston. As a result, we were transferred onto a later flight without a moment's hesitation. 

Follow this link to learn more about our adventures in Houston.