The "Big D" | Dallas skyline at night - Trinity River |
My wife and I lived in Lewisville, Texas, just north of Dallas, for about a two-year period in the early nineties. I had transferred from the company location that I worked for in Georgia to one they had in Dallas.
We found Dallas to be a pretty interesting city, and if you visit there I would highly recommend seeing Dealey Plaza. I was a young kid when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, but still have a very clear memory of being in school and having it announced by our teacher, with a news feed actually piped in over the classroom intercom system. To walk around at the location where it happened is very sobering. I don't remember if at the time we lived there the "sniper's nest" in the former school book depository where Oswald took the shots was open to the public as a "museum", but I believe it may be these days. At any rate, it's the location of a monumental event in American history and well worth taking the time to visit.
I'm sure Dallas has changed and grown even more since the fifteen or so years since we lived there, and I've read that it has more shopping centers per capita than any other U.S. city, but one area we remember that was really neat was the West End Marketplace. An old warehouse/factory location that was renovated and converted into shops, restaurants, and clubs. There are a lot of high-end retailers in Dallas, and it's home to many major corporations including the famous Mary Kay Cosmetics, which was located just down the street from where I worked.
Fair Park is located just on the outskirts of the city, and is a sprawling, beautifully landscaped complex that hosts the annual state fair, the Dallas Zoo, the Dallas Aquarium, and has museums and performance facilities and more. It has the largest collection of 1930's Art Deco exposition style architecture in the U.S. It's far and away the nicest outdoor park area I've visited anywhere.
For those old enough to remember the "Dallas" TV show, which was hugely popular at the time, a visit to South Fork Ranch which was the TV home of the Ewing family is a treat, and only about a half hour's drive from the city. A lot of it was filmed here. It's a very pretty Texas ranch style house and a nice piece of property. They have guided tours with some cool memorabilia from the series, and we have pictures of my wife and myself laying on "J.R.'s" bed (G-rated, LOL). These were taken back when we were using a film camera instead of digital, and I'm too lazy to scan and touch up for posting here. One thing that really struck me was how much smaller the actual main house is than how I remembered it from TV shots. Not that it's small by most standards, just that it was filmed in a way to make it look much larger.
If you run out of things to do in the greater Dallas area, which could take a while, you can always visit Fort Worth, which is a short drive down the Interstate. The Fort Worth Stockyards Historic District is a must-visit for tourists. The area was a major hub for cattle drives and the buying and selling of livestock in the old west days, and today includes restaurants, shops, and is home to Billy Bob's, the largest country and western music venue in the world.
My wife and I were born and grew up in the southeast U.S., so that will always be our preferred home, but we found the Dallas and surrounding areas to be one of the nicest and most interesting places we've lived. On the downside you have the usual horrible traffic in the main city and on the Interstates, and the usual large-city crime, but where don't you have that in a major metropolitan area. Summers can get blisteringly hot (but it's a dry heat, LOL) and fairly cold at times in the winter with the occasional snow or ice. A lot of major U.S. cities I've visited have a certain "feel" to them based on their history and how they developed as manufacturing or commerce locations and their historic pasts. Dallas looks and feels like money, having developed from the huge amounts of oil-related revenue back in the heyday of that industry in the U.S. |
email me
add as friend
Comments for jss1018 about Dallas