Final Hours in Dallas...

So my time in Dallas is drawing to a close. It has been a relatively relaxing week. Today I went downtown. I have been hanging out on the outskirts where the hotel and training facility have been, but I thought I would probably regret if I didn't go down town, so I did.

Once I got down town I wasn't to sure about where I would go or what I would do but my mom mentioned going to see where JFK was shot. I hadn't really thought about it but drove around only a few minutes before I ran across the memorial, the Library, and the 'grassy knoll'... I walked around on the warm Texas night in the quiet memorial...observed the different tourists that were there. Mostly older...a man with his not nearly excited teenage son...walking about, anxiously pointing out things obviously remembering the day like it was only yesterday...his son following behind with his hands shoved deeply in his pockets. There was an odd 20 something guy dressed in shirt and tie...looking up at the 6th floor window and snapping pictures of the 'X' in the road, then glancing back up at the window as if he was calculating if the fatal shot could actually have come from there...as if he was going to solve the crime all this time later...

For me it was a small realization that I don't appreciate my history enough. A realization of how much this one second in time meant to the whole country and here I was in Dallas not even caring if I saw the historical site. There really wasn't much to it but with there is an energy from the people who were alive and can remember where they were when Kennedy was shot, that surrounds the site. I put 40 minutes on the meter and when I got back to the car I had 3 minutes left, I couldn't believe I had been gone that long...but it was the best 37 minutes spent here in Dallas, and probably the most memorable.