Washington - 27th October 2012

Today was our last day. There is so much we haven’t done, and so much on the list to do, that there is going to be lots that is going to have to wait until next time! After an early start, to try and get in as much as possible, we grabbed a coffee along the way and went to meet a walking tour guide that I had found on the internet.


The company is called Monumental Stouries, and is a free, tips only, tour. We met Tim, the guide, on Constitution Avenue just off the north grounds of the Washington Monument. It turns out that there is only one other couple on the tour – an American couple, the lady coming from New York and lives one block away from Madonna and the gentleman who went to law school with Mitt Romney. Made for a very interesting tour. The lady also was working on the 65th floor of the World Trade Centre when the plane hit, and gave a very graphic encounter of how she escaped.

Tim was so knowledgeable about the monuments and history – and whatever he didn’t know the American gentleman filled in. A real bonus! We started by walking over to the World War II monument, and then through the Constitution Gardens and by the Reflecting Pool towards the Vietnam Monument. As we were at the World War II Monument, Tim saw two secret service sniper guys on the top of one of the buildings, and said that usually meant that Marine One (helicopter) was on its way in. He explained that if there were three helicopters, one would be carrying the President, if there were two it would be the Vice President, or one it could be anyone! There are thirty Marine One’s altogether. There were only two, so looks like we didn’t get the top man today. The reflecting pool had just been drained and had 34 million dollars spent on having pipes connected to it to keep it clean. This apparently has done two things – allowed algae to grow on it so is not clean at all, and keeps the water moving so that it doesn’t reflect. We must have been really lucky the other day when we had a perfect reflection. It certainly wasn’t today.

We then went to the Vietnam War Memorial, a black granite wall with names of every American that lost their lives engraved in the wall. It sounds a bit morbid, but it actually is very poignant. It is cleverly designed to seem like a knife wound cut into the ground, deeper in the middle than at the ends. So many things are left every day at the wall be relatives and friends of the soldiers – all that are collected at midnight and stored. A Harley Davidson motor bike was left one year by a motor cycle group – so that the deceased could “take a ride” at any time they felt like it.

We then went to Lincoln’s Memorial again, and again had more and more information on this and the surrounding area. We walked around the back of the temple, and had a great view of the Arlington Memorial Bridge and Woman’s Monument in the cemetery. From here we walked to the Korea Memorial. A garden type monument with nineteen stainless steel soldiers that looked as if they were walking though hills and swamps. The expressions on their faces were so life like – just as if they were feeling fatigued and really wanted to come home. A wall went down one side of this with faces etched into it of actual soldiers that served in the war.

From here, we went to Martin Luther King’s Memorial – the newest addition. This was a huge stone sculpture, with many of his quotes engraved into the walls surrounding the sculpture. The entrance is made of a huge rock split into two, that you walk through the middle. His image has been hewn out of the block that came from the middle and moved forward. Very clever. One of the quotes on the side of his image has caused much controversy, so is going to be redone at some point with the whole quote instead of the cut down version which has apparently changed the meaning. From here, there is a view of the tidal basin over to the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial. It has been a beautiful day again, but our feet have just about given up. This walk took five hours – way over what it supposed to, but was so interesting with the conversation that nobody seemed to mind.

We grabbed a cab and went to one of the restaurants that was recommended by the guide book, one of the locals, and the tour guide – Old Emmitt Grill which is virtually next to the White House. It was well worth the visit.

Clam chowder and lobster – and the biggest lobster I have ever eaten. And it was so good! Well chosen for our last meal in Washington. It was then back to the hotel and pack for our flight at 11.20pm out of Dulles Airport and back to the UK. Just in time – Hurricane Sandy is due in the next couple of days, and is predicted to be the worst storm to hit the area in decades.  And our $55 hop-on hop-off bus ticket was used for one bus for two stops – not the best value for money purchase we have ever made!

Washington - 26th October 2012

Today was the first day with no real plans – lots of things to do, but nothing put on the schedule. Which meant we faffed around and achieved very little! On the news this morning was a warning that Hurricane Sandy was on its way - the weather was going to remarkably change by Sunday, and the hurricane was due in on Tuesday. Somewhat glad we are shipping out Saturday night! It was definitely more cloudy today, but still was warm enough for a t-shirt only.


We thought we would try the hop-on hop-off bus, and duly picked up a leaflet and set off for the bus stop. We traditionally always do this, and most of the time regret it as we hang around wasting time waiting for buses that go in usually the opposite way we want them to go. Will we ever learn our lesson? Having not even opened the leaflet until we get to the bus stop, we are hit by the price. $45 for one day, $55 for two. That is massive, but we are here now. There is also a combo – buy the night tour as well for $80 total. The bus pulled up, so we had to make a quick decision. I left Paul to negotiate with the bus driver and went upstairs. It was past the next stop before he came up – he had to book the night tour and decided where to get on and he was not pleased he had to make a decision on his own!

We were heading initially for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, where they did free tours between 12.30pm and 2.00pm. The bus was going in the right direction – hurrah! We got off, and then spent twenty minutes trying to find the place. In the end we went in the Commerce building and got the security guard to point us in the right direction – which was the opposite way that we went when we got off the bus. We approached the building and the queue was huge – this wasn’t something that you could book, you had to just turn up. So we got in the queue. I spied a hot dog stand the other side of the road, so decided to do the “American” thing and had a chilli dog. It wasn’t as nice as what I had imagined – it tasted just like a hot dog at home and I don’t really like them. Oh well – at least I tried it.

We got in on the last but one tour – there were a lot of people behind us that were turned away. We had a quick DVD on the history of the building and American money – there are two facilities that print money, the other one is in Fort Worth, where we had just come from. Then we had the tour that took us in galleries above where the money is printed. We started by seeing the paper going in and having one layer of print on, then another, and then the serial numbers and the seal and then cut and stacked. It all takes a small amount of time to get stacks of money. If the money is printed in Fort Worth, it has a small FW printed on it. Most of ours we had was printed there. It was a bit like a newspaper printing press – it just kept coming and coming. Apparently all pieces of paper are accounted for, so none can go astray!

We then went outside to the bus stop to wait for a bus. And we waited, and we waited. Then a bus came – that was so full there was standing room only downstairs. I didn’t think it was a good idea to get on that, so we started to walk to another stop. Another bus came along, and that was full as well. Now I was getting cross. We decided to go and get something to eat, and then go back to the hotel for jackets as we had to meet at the White House for the night tour at 5.45pm. We actually ended up at the Elephant & Castle – which turned out to be an English Pub. I had roast beef and bread & butter pudding. Bizarre. We sat outside – it was on Pennsylvania Avenue – when all of a sudden there was no traffic whatsoever on the road and deathly quiet. The waitresses said that President Obama was on his way – the second time today. So, cameras at the ready, we took all the police motor cycles, probably the car Obama was in (who knows), as well as the twenty or so other blacked out cars that was in the line. Oh well, that brightened up the meal!

We then thought we had enough time to walk back to the hotel, and then back again to get the night tour. Wrong. We didn’t get back to the hotel until 5.20pm, and we needed to be back at the White House for 5.45pm. Jackets grabbed, we went down and got in a cab. “To the White House in fifteen minutes please”. I think we must have got the grumpiest taxi driver ever. He asked us if we knew it was rush hour, why had we waited so long, and didn’t English people look at the time. But, he tried his best to get us there, and he did. I don’t know why we hurried – the tour bus was twenty minutes late! I did predict that earlier, but was only joking.

We had a guide called Ralph, and he made up for the semi bad day we had had. He was a lovely guy – and it turns out as a fourteen year old he had been at the Lincoln Memorial when Martin Luther King made his “I have a dream” speech. We went around all of the monuments and he gave us witty stories and information all the way. The whole city was alight with the bright lights on the marble monuments. He told us, at the Lincoln Memorial, that the sculptor had made another face on the top of Lincoln’s head of Robert E Lee, and at night you could see the grim reaper’s shadow at the back of Lincoln. You could certainly see the shadow, although the face looked more like the lion out of the Wizard of Oz. Who knows.

We went to many monuments that we hadn’t already been to – the whole city is built around monuments. I am sure we won’t be able to do them all. One of the famous ones of the Marines at Iwo Jima was in neighbouring Virginia (over just over the bridge) where they were getting ready for one of the biggest marathons in the USA on Sunday. Another good reason to go on Saturday! It was a good tour, and ended the day on a higher note than it started!

Washington - 25th October 2012

This morning I had prebooked a tour to the Capitol Building at 11.00am. We took the metro the opposite way to Capitol South, which was a short distance from the entrance to the Visitor Centre. There was not so much security here – no official ID required even though this is the equivalent to our Houses of Parliament. The Capitol building is home to the US Congress and its two legislative bodies, the House of Representatives and the US Senate. After going through security we were in a huge hall called Emancipation Hall, where everybody congregates before going on tours. And there were hundreds of people going on tours. School groups, private tours and just the general public like us. We were taken into a theatre initially, where we learned a little on the history of the building and how the American system works. From here, we were given ear phones that were connected to our guide’s microphone, so everyone could hear perfectly.


The building is full of statues and works of art. It was explained how many artists and how long it took to paint all the different parts of the building. Inside the actual dome is a beautiful painting by an Italian artist called Brumidi. The guide was extremely knowledgeable – saying more than once that the English burned the place down at one point in history. Oh dear! We went into the original room that the Senate used to meet in, but because of its rounded ceiling there were spots in the room that sound didn’t travel to. Would do for those MP’s that fall asleep then! All rooms are exquisite, and I felt very honoured to have been able to visit.

As we were leaving, the guide said that we may be able to get passes to visit the gallery of both the House of Representatives and the Senate – so we did. We went and sat in the balconies of the empty houses – the house is in recess until after the election in a couple of weeks time. I shall watch with interest the swearing in of the president now I know where it is taking place.

We went and grabbed a quick bite to eat before making our way to the Library of Congress, just opposite the Capitol Building. There is a tunnel that links the two which we could have used. This featured in the film National Treasure, and I felt I knew it already. The film didn’t do it justice. It was absolutely beautiful. There were free tours, and we joined the next one. A volunteer explained that this is the biggest library where there are no books on view – all books have to be requested and got for you from a member of staff. This is the biggest library in the world – and is being added to at a rate of 13,000 items per day. Wow! And it must be the most beautiful as well. There was a private party being prepared for this evening, so the library was shutting early and ours was the last tour of the day. Wonder how much that is costing?

The last place we went to was overlooking one of the reading rooms where members of the public who are registered with the library can request books. I knew this room – it was in the film. And apart from a few little additions that the movie director made, it was exactly the same. Great! We then had to leave as tables were being laid – and an ice skating rink was going to be laid in the main hall!

We walked from here towards the White House. Paul had been itching to go there, and now there was no stopping him. He didn’t want to stop anywhere on the way – he just wanted to get there. On the other hand, I did want to stop and see things on the way. So he sat whilst I went and looked at the Senate Fountain and reflecting pool (another one!) and then over to the Taft Memorial. There’s that man again! And there were squirrels everywhere. I have never seen so many squirrels. We had seen an odd one every day we have been here, but here there were eight or ten of them all hopping about burying their nuts. They are quite tame.

I reckon the White House was probably a couple of miles walk. It was cloudy this morning, but now the sun had come out and it was lovely. We got to the White House, back or front not sure – the bit where there is a half circle of pillars – and took a few photos and that was it. A bit of a let down really from what we had done already this morning. Might have been different if we had managed to get on a tour here. From here we picked up a cab to take us back to the hotel. A couple of quick drinks, an hour to let the feet recover and then out again on a walking tour entitled “The Most Haunted Houses”.

We, again, grabbed a quick dinner on the way. We met at a house called “The Octagon” and decided to walk. It was virtually next to the White House, so you can tell how compact this city is. It really is good to walk around. We heard various stories as we made our way round of the houses, and the area, and people that used to live here and some still visit – apparently! The bit I wanted to do was around Lafayette Park – an area that features strongly in David Baldacci’s Camel Club books. We walked around the side of the White House, and had various houses on the way explained as to their history. It was quite busy with people and traffic, so it wasn’t really scary at all. The stories were interesting though – and the guide was obviously a believer! Paul was not, and thought the whole night was a load of baloney. The guide did say that 70% of the time, someone got something “unexplained” on their photos. One chap looked at his on his camera, and there was a ghostlike woman’s shape in one of the upstairs windows of Stephen Decatur’s house. Spooky!

Washington - 24th October 2012

We had a very leisurely start to the day today – and had breakfast in a little café just down the road from the hotel. We put $5 each on a metro ticket, and got the blue line towards Franconia to Arlington Cemetery. It was a beautiful day again, really warm. Coming up from the metro, the cemetery was about a four hundred yard walk. One end of the road is the Women in the Military Memorial, and a mile or so the other end, over the Arlington Memorial Bridge, is the imposing Lincoln Monument.


We only had an hour or so here – we had a Pentagon Tour booked for 2pm. The tour that they offer in the cemetery on a little bus takes just over an hour, with stops, so we elected to walk to the Kennedy Burial Site and then come back for the tour after the Pentagon. The trees in the cemetery were so colourful – this must be one of the prettiest times of the year to come here. The browns and oranges were so vivid. We walked the twenty or so minutes to where the eternal flame still burns – and has done since Jacqueline Kennedy lit it when her husband, JFK, was buried. She is now buried there with him, as well as two of their children that died within a few days of birth.

The rows and rows of gravestones are all in straight lines – very military fashion. No flowers on any though – although the ones we had passed were mostly from World War II so they may not have had many surviving relatives. We headed back to the metro, and had to put another $5 on the card – apparently paper cards have a $1 per trip surcharge. If you are here for a few days and are going to use the metro it is worth buying a Smart Card. We only had one stop to go for the Pentagon – it said to report 30 minutes prior to the tour, and we were duly there ten minutes before that. Security was similar to that of airports, and we got in in about five minutes flat. So, we had to wait for over half an hour. It is such a busy place – so many people coming and going. There are over 23,000 people that work in this building – it is massive. The US Department of Defence is housed in this building, which incredibly took only 16 months to build during World War II.

I don’t know what I expected, but what I saw wasn’t it! We had a security briefing from a young group of lads that represented all of the armed forces – one marine, one army, one navy and one coastguard. Each of them took a group of us – there must have been about 50 people on the tour, mostly British would you believe from a college in Brighton! We started off through a shopping mall. There is everything here that anyone could want to buy – because of the amount of people that work here and the security they have to go through to get in and out, it is easier for them to have everything they need inside. They even have a bank and a DMV(driving license office, where the wait is nowhere near what it would be in a general one!).

The five sided building has five rings – a small one on the inside going out to the biggest on the outside. There are five floors, and over twelve miles of corridors. We walked some of the corridors, which were very clinical and clean. The walls were decorated with various themes, from a wall for General MacArthur to walls with quilts that were donated from all over the world after the 9/11 attack. There are elevators up and down, and a park area in the middle where rank is not recognised. As this is a military establishment, and approximately 12,000 officers stationed here, a lower ranked person would be forever saluting so the middle has been made a neutral area. There used to be a hot dog tent in the middle that the Russians had eyes on and thought it was the entrance to an underground bunker. Probably is!

We then went into the area that the plane had hit in the 9/11 attack. A room had been decorated as a memorial to the 184 people that lost their lives on that day – 59 from the plane and 124 who were working in the Pentagon. It hit the building at over 500 miles per hour, but apparently hit the ground first before bumping into the building so this may have been one of the reasons why so few lives were lost. It does look quite sturdy! When we got back to where we had started, we had walked over a mile and a half. No pictures at all were allowed to be taken on either the inside or the outside – paranoia considering we hadn’t seen anything of importance!

We made our way out of the building, and then walked around to the back of the building where an outdoor memorial has been built. It is a beautiful area – each person has a bench with their name on, with water running underneath it and reflecting off it. All people are in age order, and depending if they were on the plane or in the building depends on which way the bench is pointed. All of the benches are laid in the direct path that the aircraft was pointed when it hit. There are many trees also planted here – a very sad but lovely place.

It was so hot now – we walked back round to the front and got on the blue line again and went back to Arlington Cemetery to finish the tour. We bought the tickets ($8.75 each) and got on one of the little trolly buses that left every twenty minutes. The first stop was the Kennedy site. The guide did tell us that there are 26-31 funerals every day here, and they will reach capacity by 2037. The older graves have all sorts of different headstones, but since 1947 they have only been the same uniform headstone. There are two presidents buried here – JFK and Taft. Never heard of him! With every grave, there are up to three people in it. The military person, and a spouse or dependent if they so wish. 285,000 plots so far I think – times by three. That is a lot of bodies! We then went to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where some sort of ceremony was going on with school children and wreaths and a bugler or two. We walked round the amphitheatre – not sure what they use that for, and then back to the bus. This chap used a tape to give information – not a patch on the one before that knew everything and some. We reached the point where we had started, and felt we had had enough of the Cemetery – beautiful as it was. No idea how they fit in five funerals an hour here – it would need to be military fashion I think.

We then decided to finish the afternoon by walking over the Arlington Memorial Bridge to the Lincoln Monument. It was further than it looked! The walk was very pleasant, but feet and body were struggling to keep co-ordinated. Cyclists share the sidewalk with walkers, and you have to be on your toes to hear them coming and avoid them. We eventually reached the monument just as the sun was going down. When it shone on the white marble it looked stunning. We walked round to the front of this Greek inspired temple, and looked up the steps to see Abraham sitting regally in his chair. The steps were full of people – sitting, standing and going up and down. This really is one of the icons of Washington. Whether it is Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, or just one of those scenes from umpteen movies, everybody knows this. Looking back to the Washington Monument from the top of the steps, the reflecting pool does exactly that – reflects everything. The suns last rays were catching the trees and the pool was full of reflections. Looked good – but apparently it is a 2000 feet vat of duck poo!

We decided to grab a cab back to the hotel – just in time for Happy Hour. Didn’t even know there was one until the drinks were lined up. We chatted to a chap from Ohio who thought his vote was going to be the one that decided who the president was going to be, and a local who gave us some ideas for dinner. We took one of them, and went to the Taj of India. It was indeed a good choice – and very good value for money. Will have to try another one tomorrow!

Washington - 23rd October 2012

This morning we have got a flight from Dallas Fort Worth to Washington Ronald Reagon Airport. Firstly, we have to try to get this car back to Hertz in the same condition that we got it in! The bags went in the boot of this one – as Paul said, it didn’t have a roof in it as well. All checked out, and a smooth journey to the airport, and made it without any mishaps. Hurrah!


A quick bus trip to the terminal, and then checked in for our American Airlines first class flight. More points – thank you American Express card! Thought we were going to get breakfast in the first class lounge – but no! A first class ticket doesn’t get you in the lounge here. On an internal flight, you have to have a membership card to the AA Admirals Club, or equivalent gold BA club membership. I am only blue – all these free flights don’t count, and I hardly ever pay for one! Oh dear – back to Starbucks and try to find a seat at the gate. It wasn’t too bad, the coffee was good, and we only had to wait a little over an hour.

The flight was just over two and a half hours long, with watches going forward one hour. We were fed a fairly decent lunch, so at least the hunger has been kept at bay. The seats were very comfortable, but no inflight entertainment on this short flight. Good job I had my Washington Guide book to read!

We landed and because it was into the domestic airport it was nowhere near as busy as an international airport. Someone even got our bags for us – first class passengers have orange tags on their luggage, and there were a couple of chaps pulling all the orange tagged bags off. I suppose they have to do something to justify the extra cost if they don’t let you in the lounge. There were plentiful taxis waiting, and it took twenty or so minutes to get to the Fairmont Hotel. This airport is also a lot nearer the centre than the international airport. The taxi was just under $20.

Very nice hotel in the Georgetown district of Washington, which is where the university is. A quick change, and we headed out for a walk we knew not where. We headed for the Potomac River, which was about half an hour away. The streets here are very different to Dallas, and many other American Cities. It looks a little like a leafy lined England in many places. So many trees and green spaces, and very few high rise buildings. The leaves are turning a beautiful red colour – it is said that the fall colours are just as nice in these parts as they are further north in New England.

We came to the river at just before sunset, and there was a lovely seafood restaurant with tables outside overlooking the river. An excellent place to stop and people watch. The weather is still very warm here, even at this time of night. There were several crews of rowers on the river racing, with a man who looked to be the referee shouting through a cone. Could have been from the university I suppose – wonder if they have a race here with another university like the Cambridge and Oxford boat race?

We had a lovely dinner, and the sun was spectacular going down. The planes seem to use the lie of the river to land, so several were coming in over our heads all evening. Some old time music started playing a bit further up the promenade, and several very old cars pulled up – I think there was some sort of private event going on. They were waved up the promenade – then a policeman on a huge motorbike came along and pulled them over and looked as if he was giving them a ticket. Obviously didn’t get the correct authorisation!

We walked a bit further up the promenade to a lovely fountain display, then turned and followed the road grid system back to the hotel. It is so easy to find your way when one direction of roads are numbered and the other direction has letters – you always know exactly where you are. Wonder if I will eat those words at some point?

Dallas - 22nd October 2012

It was a leisurely start to the day – I haven’t been to bed that late in years! We took the Mustang north of Dallas to Arlington to have a tour of the Dallas Cowboys Football Stadium. It was about thirty minutes drive, and we stopped for breakfast on the way. Well, that is to say we tried to stop for breakfast. But in a country where every other place is an eatery, we couldn’t seem to find anywhere that served breakfast. We tried a place called Boomer Jacks – looked OK. I ordered a chicken sandwich (it was noon by this time – we didn’t start very early) which turned out to be a chicken burger with fries. Not the healthy start to the day that I was planning!


We arrived at the impressive stadium and bought our tickets for the VIP tour – it goes every thirty minutes and costs $27 each. The stadium is just over three years old, and is amazing. It seats around 80,000 people, but they sell standing tickets that can make it up to about 110,000. The standing areas are not that big, so how they get that many people in there I don’t know. And I don’t think that many of them will be able to see. There are cars on show in the stadium, and fountains that do a jig when the Cowboys score. But they weren’t working today. There is a massive screen hanging down from the roof, that I can’t remember how big it is, but it is the biggest in the world. The stadium is the biggest dome in the world – there is not one pillar in the way of any seat. There is a retractable roof – and yes, you’ve guessed it, it is the biggest and quickest retractable roof in the world. It is an amazing structure. We went into the “club” seats, which have access to a private club for the day as well as having a seat. Very posh – not a bit like our football stadiums. Then we went into the private suites that are for hire on ten or twenty year leases – absolutely the seats that I would like to have if I went to a game. I bet they are a pound or two to buy!

Then we went into the locker rooms. The cheerleaders have their own locker room, with the current years team all marked up with their names and photographs on each locker. The Dallas Cowboys have their own locker room with each locker costing in the region of $1000. Again, each locker is named so everyone has their own. It looks more like a bedroom than a football locker room. The away team, apparently, doesn’t have anywhere near such a nice room. We then went out onto the pitch – not real grass but something that can be rolled up and stored when the stadium is used for something else. Each different game needs a different pitch, so even if it is college football rather than NFL they have to roll up the pitch and put another one down. Was a bit special being on the pitch though – I will have to now watch a Dallas Cowboys game.

We went from there back to Downtown Dallas. The guide book I had bought had a self guided walking tour of downtown in, so we decided to do that this afternoon. It started at the Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK from the sixth floor. The sixth floor has actually been turned into a museum now, called the Sixth Floor Museum funnily enough. We bought tickets to go in - $16 each – and got the audio equipment as it was about an hour of background, the actual shooting, and what happened next.

It was really interesting. The pictures and films that they had set the scene, the window that he shot through was set up as it was then, and it went through all the events as they happened. Unless, of course, you believe the conspiracy theories that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t working on his own. Who knows? We left the museum and walked to the Grassy Knoll that the conspiracy theorists said one of the shots came from, and all around the area.  The window that he was shot from is just above Paul's left ear - not the top floor the one below it.  There are two white crosses on the road – one for each of the shots where he was shot. From there we walked past Dealy Plaza, named after the man that founded the Dallas Morning News. From there we could see a huge tower that housed a revolving restaurant. I think we might try that tonight!

Our walk took about two hours, and took us past a mixture of old and new buildings. There is a really bizarre memorial for John F Kennedy – a lump of concrete in a box like structure with openings on two sides. Not pretty at all – but is called a “brooding structure”. Hmm. We then passed a building that houses the Conspiracy Museum – but it looks as if the museum has closed. Perhaps they have given up! There is “the worlds largest ensemble of bronze steers and horseback riders”, but you could actually give this one a miss. Reminds me of Milton Keynes! One of the tallest buildings in Dallas is here – 72 stories of Bank of America. Loads of lovely glass bank buildings around here – can’t be that bad in the banking industry at present then.

There are train tracks on some of the roads. The DART transportation system has trains on several routes that seems to be very efficient. We touched the Arts District and the West End during the walk. Fountain Place is one of the tallest buildings in Dallas, that has “an oasis of bubbling fountains” in it’s grounds. But it must be national no fountain day today, as none of them were working either. Bizarre. We passed an area that was full of weird little black birds – they were everywhere on the electricity lines and in the trees. All squawking and making a fuss! Just after this, every person we saw happened to be black, and an awful lot of them. I think we might have just wandered into the wrong part of the city! No problem – it wasn’t long before we found where we had parked the car. And it was still in one piece!

A quick change at the hotel after the concierge made us reservations for the 560 restaurant by Wolfgang Puck – the revolving restaurant that we had seen earlier. I googled him when we got back – a very famous chef with a lot of fine dining restaurants. We took a cab – Paul was having withdrawal symptoms from wine, and I didn’t think I would be able to see over the great big hump in the bonnet of the car. The elevator whisked us up the fifty floors very quickly – one side was glass so the view was great even on the way up. We met a banker in the lift – so I knew that the menu was likely to be quite costly at this point! We were there then, so hey ho.
The food was absolutely delightful – one of the best meals I have ever had. The flavours were amazing – and the service was excellent. A good choice for our last night in Dallas!

Dallas - 21st October 2012

Funny old start to the day. We went out to the car to drive to our Uptown Dallas Food and Cultural Walking Tour that I had prebooked to find that someone had tried to break in and had slashed the soft top. Oh dear. We went back to the hotel and security came out and took some pictures. The car park is massive, and it was really full when we got back last night so had parked quite a way from the hotel building. There is a secure fence all the way round – but obviously not secure enough. Thought it better to get a cab to join the tour, instead of leaving it somewhere else public where another person could have a go!


We started the tour about fifteen minutes away from the Renaissance at 11.15am in the West Village Shopping District of Dallas at a restaurant called Baboush – a mix of Moroccan and Lebanese. We had three dips – a tomato, a hummus and an eggplant – to go with the hot pitta bread to start. It was really tasty – and as we hadn’t had breakfast it went down well. There were a total of ten people on the tour – mostly American apart from us and a couple of Mexican girls that we were watching with interest from the window trying to park their car and hitting the one behind several times. They got out, and never even looked to see if there was any damage then walked over to join us in the restaurant. We then had a meat dish in another sort of bread – can’t pronounce the name. It was lovely.

We then left there, and crossed the road to get on the trolley. This is a free service that has a limited route. They found the tracks under the road twenty or so years ago, and decided to start the trolley route again. There are four cars in use – all originals that have been restored. The one we rode came from Melbourne in Australia. We got off a couple of stops later, and walked into the oldest district of Dallas called State Thomas. This has been deemed a historic area where the old houses are preserved – old as in a couple of hundred years at the most. Most of Dallas’ history doesn’t go back more than one hundred years. We went into a bed & breakfast to have a quick look at the rooms (can’t quite work out why) and then went on to the next food stop called the Red Mango, which specialises in speciality frozen yoghurts. We had taster cups of the Red Velvet, Pomegranite, Nutty Potion and Peanut Butter – all natural and really, really good.
We then walked past the McKinney Avenue Tavern – the place it is rumoured that Jack Ruby drank at the night before he shot Lee Harvey Oswald. We are struggling for places of interest I think! Dallas is not a good walking city – I had read this before, and struggled to find any walking tours at all. It is a city that you definitely need to have a car, as everywhere is on main roads with no sidewalks. But, Vanessa the Tour Guide had a large red “Stop” sign that she boldly held up in the middle of the road whenever we needed to cross!
We moved to the next restaurant, the Ketchup Burger Bar. Well, I am certainly trying things here that I would not normally have. We were served with deep fried pickles (yuk) and two sorts of fries, one with white truffle parmesan cheese coating. These then had to be dipped in the four ketchups that are famously made here. For someone that never has ketchup, it was really nice. The spicy one was delicious – not a bit like Heinz tomato ketchup that I was expecting.
Onwards now to the TexMex, Primos. This was really popular – it was heaving. There was a Dallas Cowboys football match on live – that might have had something to do with it! We had nachos with a dip, then a plate of various texmex dishes that were superb. This is a really good way of trying new food that you wouldn’t really order. The jalapeno pepper was a bit hot, but the rest was lovely, with a gorgeous cheese dip that was poured all over it. And it came with one of their famous Marguerita’s! We left with the Cowboys in the lead – unfortunately it was an away game in the Carolinas otherwise I would have loved to have tickets.
We then made our way to the area where we started, and finished with a “dessert to go” from a really, really busy restaurant called Breadwinners Café. It was either a strawberry or chocolate cake ball – sounds awful but was absolutely delicious. This restaurant is famous for its desserts – and the rest is probably not bad considering how many people were sitting down to eat. This concluded the tour, and we got a taxi back to the hotel to collect our poor car and take back to the Hertz office. This will sort out how good the insurance is!
The journey back to the airport was a little over twenty minutes, very easy with the Satnav. Paul did comment that his petrol usage was better than the guy who rented it before – it had gone up from thirteen miles per gallon to fourteen. Good job we only had it for a couple of days. We pulled up, and the attendant looked at us with an open mouth. “Oh my” he said. Quite! We had to go and fill in an Accident Form – they only have the one form, irrelevant if it was an accident or not. That filled in, we were given the keys to new car and off we went. Seemed too easy!
We went to bay 177, and Paul smiled when he saw a lovely blue mustang with a white badger stripe all the way down the middle. Let’s hope we bring this one back in good order! We drove back to the hotel, and I think I know which one he prefers. No lorries overtook us this time!
We then had a couple of hours before we had to get ready for the Madonna Concert. An ideal opportunity to use the roof terrace and pool – it was now 91 degrees – a beautiful day. It soon went, and we left the hotel at just after 7pm for the short journey to the American Airlines Centre where the concert was being held – we had heard nothing to the contrary so far! We got a taxi, thought it better than trying to find somewhere to park. We collected the tickets at the “Will Call” desk, bought a horrendously priced $30 programme, and took our seats. Really good seats – and the stadium was amazing. It was supposed to start at 8pm, and around 8.30pm a chap called Benny Benassi came on and played records. No idea who he was – Paul thought we had gone to Ibiza! Most around us seemed to know him – I did google him and he is a famous Italian DJ that has a net worth of about 14 million dollars. Hmm. Not too bad then.
He was on for about an hour, and then we had another hour of nothing. I was beginning to think the laryngitis had set in again and we weren’t going to see anything. By this time it was after 10.30pm and I was ready for bed! Then she came on – and what a show. She was on for two hours – and it went like a shot. She put some of the youngsters to shame with her energy and enthusiasm, and the pure spectacle of the whole thing. Apart from a couple of very tall young people right in front of me the view was great. I got some good shots – even though the woman’s hand in front featured in a good many of them! She was also very political – making several comments on voting for President Obama. This in deep George Bush country. Didn’t seem to make much difference – everyone loved it. I think this ranks as the best live show I have seen – and Paul enjoyed it too. Good job, as it was his birthday present!

We left with the thousands of other people, and walked part way back to the hotel before we found a taxi. We arrived back and went to back at nearly 2am – surprised I was still awake, but was still buzzing. What a spectacular night!

Dallas - 20th October 2012

After a full twelve hours sleep I woke up at 8.00am and my body clock in the zoned that it should be in. Excellent!

After a lovely shower and a quick look around the facilities of the hotel we got in the car and set off for South Fork Ranch. We set the satnav – without putting the hood down this down – and it said we had about three quarters of an hour drive. The weather is beautiful. Clear blue skies and 76 degrees at 10.00am. I think it was a good idea we got the satnav – we seemed to have change roads rather a lot of times, and I am sure we would have got lost had we not had our little lady telling us where to get off! Dallas seems to be a rather sprawling city – lots of high rises, freeways and shopping malls. Most of the journey was fairly built up, and it was only when we were a lot nearer that the landscape changed. Very upmarket housing estates though, not the large open spaces that I had imagined. When we had about a mile to go, Paul got a CD out and put it in to play. I did wonder what on earth he was doing – he had got Seb to burn the Dallas theme tune onto a CD so we came along the road with that blaring out. It did set the scene though – I had to laugh.
We pulled into the driveway (not the driveway, one next to it) and drove up to the visitors centre. The tickets for the tour were $10.75 plus tax – it goes every thirty minutes. There is a walk through to get to the tram – photos are taken for a souvenir in front of a Dallas neon sign. If I looked anything like any of the Ewing women I might have bought it, but sadly just being there didn’t do anything for me at all! The walls were full of pictures of the cast at various junctures between the 1978 start of the series, and the end in 1991. There is now a couple more showing how old they all look as the new series has just started again. The gun that shot JR is in a cabinet, along with a few hats and other props. And a huge gas barbeque – it was apparently Dallas that launched gas barbeques into being. As they always ate outside, a barbeque company was tasked with providing a large gas one that was scaled down to go on sale to the general public.

A tractor then pulled a couple of tram coaches around the grounds and over to the Ewing Mansion. Nothing looked as big as I thought it would. The grounds were quite compact, and the house was only a tad larger than a normal house. The grounds were laid out for a wedding – there was apparently one this afternoon, but it was the same place as they filmed when one of the Ewing family members got married at the ranch. We were treated to a background talk by a very eccentric lady who knew all there was to know about South Fork – from the beginning when they had to get the original owners permission to use it for filming, to the next owners that went bust and then to the present owners that have turned it into a tourist attraction and conference centre.
We were then given a tour of the house, the main rooms and the bedrooms. It really didn’t look that small on the telly! The bedrooms were tiny. But I think most of the indoor filming was done in a studio rather than here. The outside part and the swimming pool were as I remembered them. I will have to buy the DVD’s and watch it all over again! All thirteen years worth, plus the new ones. Paul and I had our picture taken outside the front door – still didn’t look like Bobby and Pamela though!

After that, we were free to wander around for as long as we wanted. We went into Miss Ellie’s Porch Deli and had a sandwich and a hot chocolate, and then wandered around the grounds. We took a picture of the drive that was shown on the opening scenes of the show – that was apparently done in so many takes it made the drive look about three miles long when it is only probably about 500 yards. They also used to put talcum powder on the drive so it looked as though the cars were throwing up dust. Tricks of the trade.
There was a few cattle and horses grazing in the fields, and so all the stables and cattle barns are actually used for the animals. Elenor’s cottage in the new series is just at the end of the drive as well. We went back to the car, and drove down to the driveway that was used for the opening shots and took a couple of pictures – well, as we were there…

We drove back to Dallas downtown, and thought we would try the Texas State Fair that the rental car bus driver had told us about yesterday. We did happen to hear that Madonna had cancelled her concert due for tonight as she has laryngitis. Is that something that can get better after a day? Hope so, otherwise we have come a long way for a cancelled concert. It is a three week long fair, and is in a place called Fair Park. The satnav was programmed again, and it took us directly to the Fair. We parked in a little car park for $15 – someone was making good money whilst this was on – and walked about ten minutes to the entrance. There were hundreds of people going in – it apparently has around three million visitors over the time that it is on. And the place is huge – massive. It is like the Suffolk Show, but about ten times bigger. Well, we are in Texas.
There was a big building full of cars – virtually every new car that you can buy. One beetle had a map of Texas painted on its bonnet. That kept Paul busy for a minute or two. Then there was an actual fair part – so many stalls and fluffy toys to win. But they weren’t small fluffy toys – one of them was as tall as the man that won it! The amount of food stalls, and rides just kept on and on. And kept getting bigger and bigger. There was a huge ferris wheel and a skyway that took you completely over the top of everything. Then there were the scary rides – and there were loads of them that threw you upside down and round the corner. Reminded Paul of the flight over the Bungle Bungles. Won’t be going on any of them then!

We then watched a BMX stunt show – they had a couple of world champions there so not just some kid they had paid a couple of quid to do a turn or two. Very good – got some good action shots. Then we went to see some Pig Racing. Yes, that is not a spelling mistake. We watched pigs racing – for oreo cookies. Bizarre, but quite funny. They ran so fast all my pictures got were blurred images. They even put a jump in one of the races.

We watched a horse show, and went through some of the cattle sheds, but our feet were now beginning to tell us that we had been on them for hours. It was such a good Fair, and there was so much going on, we could have stayed for a good few more hours. There was a huge stage, and later on the Commodores were on. But even that didn’t tempt – especially as Lionel Richie is playing in Birmingham tonight, and I have no doubt the others may not be the originals either! We had one last wander through a California Redwood that has been turned into a three room mobile home (the chap that lived in it was there to tell the story) before we headed back to the hotel. Madam satnav did her stuff, and we were back in about fifteen minutes. And there was a message on the phone saying that the Mustang was ready….

Dallas - 19th October 2012

We flew from London Heathrow on the British Airways direct service to Dallas Fort Worth that left at 11.45am. We decided to travel down the night before, as the check in was still early if there was a delay on the M25. Hilton have a new hotel at Terminal 5 – although this is a little like a Ryanair flight. The terminal 5 part of the address is definitely poetic licence – after travelling around terminal 5 and then up and down the motorway we eventually found it the other side of the M25. I suppose you could say it was fairly near – as near as Ryanair flying you into a city and then putting you on a bus to actually get there. Then “we” had to park the car – another new car park called Click Park. Another one at Terminal 5. Apart from the concierge in the Hilton having never heard of it, and nobody actually knowing where it was, the manager resorted to google maps and printed one off for Paul – who at this point was not happy with his travel agent! Not only did he have to park the car, he then had to get back to the terminal, and then back to the hotel. After planning to arrive at 9pm, it was now 10.30pm – well it is us we are talking about! Off he went with the car – I hoped he would be back in time for breakfast. Only half an hour later he arrived saying that went better than expected. A few palms had to be crossed with silver, but he persuaded the car park transfer to take him back to the Hilton – who also had never heard of it and insisted that it was at Terminal 4. Never mind – alls well that ends well.


The flight – spent unfortunately in economy – was not too bad. It was on time, the entertainment system worked, and we had three seats between the two of us. Can’t ask for more really. We landed at 3.15pm local time, and had a relatively short queue to get through immigration. Only a customs form to fill out, as the ESTA has now replaced the green visa waiver form. Finger prints and photo taken, and the bags appeared on the carousel as soon as we got there. That is where the “smooth” bit finished. The queue to get through customs with the bags took about half an hour – Dallas is the third busiest airport in the world, and it sure seemed like it when everyone had to go through security with their form.

We then had to get on the rental car bus, which arrived within about five minutes. A ten minute journey to the rental car building – all major renters are in the same place here – and the only one that had a queue was Hertz. Who had we rented with? Hertz. Paul wanted a Mustang like Steve McQueen had, so I booked him one. Or so I thought. When we got to the front of the queue, it seems they were missing a Mustang. After much tooing and froing they offered us a Chevrolet Camero soft top. “This is much more expensive” said Raschid. “Irrelevant, when you don’t want one” says I. So, the manager thought she knew where a Mustang was, and went to look for it. An hour and a half later we left the rental place in the Camero – Paul wasn’t too upset as this was the car used in the Transformers movie and was his second choice. Had to put the roof down to get the bags in the back seat though, as there wasn’t much of a boot! And we had the promise of a phone call to swap it over as soon as a Mustang appeared. Ha!
We set up the sat nav, which I got them to throw in as we had been waiting for so long, to get to the Renaissance Hotel in Dallas. It said about thirty minutes, so not too long. After a couple of wrong turns, and a good tour all around the airport vicinity, we got on the freeway towards the hotel. Surprised me when we were overtook by a lorry though – we had over 6 litres under the bonnet. I bet he laughed. It didn’t take us long to get there, and we found it quite easily when we got used to the satnav. The difficult bit was we couldn’t hear it very well with the top down, and the sun was shining directly on it so you couldn’t see it very well either. Hey ho.

We checked in, chucked the cases in the room, and went to the bar for a campari. It was about 1.00am on our body clocks, but thirst took over from tiredness. They had campari in the bar, so the hotel passed the first test! The rest of it was not too bad either, but will leave the grand tour until tomorrow!