The Grassy Knoll and Rangers

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Well it was quite a hot day yesterday.  At one time my phone said 104.  Yikes!  And humid!!!! We started the morning by going to the place where JFK was shot.  I’m sorry Dallas but there really isn’t anything to see here of interesting besides the JFK stuff.  So we ran into one of the conspiracy theorist guys. They will talk to anybody who will listen.  Anyways he gave us a personal tour of the whole area. He was interesting to listen to but again he is a conspiracy theorists so he tells you what he thinks happens.  Now he had some of the same ideas I did…you know the infamous grassy knoll shooter than was never discussed. 

Anyways we walked around the whole area and eventually went into the book depository building…you know where Lee Harvey Oswald did his shooting.  Firstly, the tour was $16. Ouch! And Secondly, no pictures.  Such a scam…by the $30 book in the gift shop if you want pictures…no thank you.  The displays were very nice and took you through the time…but $16 was a bit much. 
Book Depositry
So after that we escaped to the Old Courthouse where the Dallas Visitor center is located. We did this mostly to escape the oppressive heat and humidity.  But the guy working the desk was very nice, gave us a map and pointed out a few things to see that might be interesting…and FREE!  One of the suggestions was Pioneer Plaza.  It is the largest bronze sculpture.  It shows a cattle drive and it is awesome! I definitely suggest it if you ever visit Dallas. 

The Pioneer Plaza was quite the walk from the visitor center and it was 100+ degrees so we were desperate for some water.  Well the only place to buy water was Mc Donald’s.  Downtown Dallas isn’t a very charming city. It isn’t like downtown Minneapolis.  At least in downtown Minneapolis there are shops and restaurants everywhere with nice outdoor seating.  Downtown Dallas has McDonalds.  And since it is really the only restaurant it is packed.  We stood in line for over 20 minutes to order and another 10 minutes waiting for our water/smoothie/hamburger.  They didn’t have milkshakes…all Eric wanted was a milkshake and they didn’t have any!  Weird! There was hardly any seating and we ended up sharing our table with another lady.  Mass chaos!!  They charged me $1 for my water cup. LOL! We cooled off and made our way back to the car.  We drove into the art district to see the cathedral for the Dallas Diocese…it is in desperate need a repairs. Yikes! 
Pioneer Plaza
We finally got to Walmart!  It has to hurt Walmart’s business where there is a game in town because let me tell you, you can’t get to it on a game day! We picked up our few items. The view from the parking lot is really cool…Cowboy Stadium!  
Walmart Parking Lot View
We stopped at Dairy Queen so Eric could finally get his milkshake.  Hey Mom, they don’t have chocolate ice cream at the Dairy Queens here…never.  Weird!  We spent the rest of the afternoon cooling off in the pool and in the room.  We had to get our game face on for the Twins game…game face…ya right. I bring that up because our hotel has been taken over by LSU fans and apparently they are the rudest fans in college football.  They play in Cowboy’s Stadium today…thank God we are getting out dodge!

Rangers’ stadium is nice but not that great.  First of all I was built in the 90s I think and so they didn’t embrace the open concourses.  You can’t see the field at all from the concourses.   It is something we are spoiled with at Target Field. The stadium really didn’t have anything special about it. It was completely “boxed in” so no open scenic views of anything.  It kind of has the Miller park feel to it except at least at Miller Park you have the windows so it brightens up the place.  This is definitely not my favorite at all.  The fans were really nice.  Behind us was a couple who have a home in Dallas and one in Fort Myers, FL where the Twins have their spring training.  They are season ticket holders for the Rangers and for the Twins Spring training.  SO that was cool.  They were talking about spring training and how they players look so different. It was nice to sit next to people that don’t hate us.  Next to Eric was a family who are from Colorado originally but moved to Dallas many years ago.  They were very nice as well.  Everybody that we talked to said how much they like Target Field.  The people in front of us admitted that Ranger’s ball park isn’t the best and mentioned how they liked the open concourses at Target Field.  So I’ll take that feather and stick it in my cap.

Rangers Stadium
Wow I’m really long winded this morning…At the game after one of the innings a Twins player throw a ball to a man in the crowd…well lets rewind to June 2012, shall we?  We were at a game in Pittsburgh and we meet this nice couple from South Dakota.  Three days later we ran into them in Cincinnati. Ok back to 2013…guess who got the ball thrown into the crowd…well it is the same couple!  Isn’t that crazy? After the game, I talked to them and he gave me the ball!!! Isn’t that cool?  They are going to Houston too and we are going to the same game. Maybe we will see them there??

Time to get ready for our drive to Houston!

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