Saturday we headed over to Dallas to actually go into the Sixth Floor Museum where Oswald allegedly fired the shot that killed Kennedy (I say allegedly to appease all of the conspiracy theorists among you). We bought our tickets online, but had to queue up and wait in line to get into the museum. It seemed a bit disorganized, but we were able to get through it and make our way inside.

The entire museum is laid out on the sixth floor (hence the museum name) and starts by walking you through Kennedy's presidency. You are given an audio-guide and left to walk at your own pace as you walk between each exhibit. Each wall has a different focus, but each builds on the one before helping you understand the lead up to the assassination. They introduce you to his family life, the political climate, the global landscape, as well as some of the programs he was pushing forward to paint a picture and help connect you a bit more to JFK. Probably half of the exhibit was this lead up, and I felt that they did a good job with it.

The other half was the events of the assassination. It opens with photographs taken from the Zapruder film showing the progression of the motorcade leading up to the shots being fired and ending with the car speeding away. The exhibits then switch towards the media response in the minutes following highlighting the public confusion and worry. In particular I really enjoyed the teletype machine and the actual readout from the moments leading up to and after the assassination. You could see the line by line information readout that was sent with the calm lead-up and then immediately cries to "STAY OFF" the line as new information started to pour out.

In the corner of the floor is a glass box, where they had surrounded the actual shooting location to better preserve it. Oswald had stacked up cardboard boxes behind him so as to block anyone who walked up from seeing someone perched at the window, and you are able to walk within feet of this location and see the window through the glass. 

Eerily still, the very next window is accessible, so you can look down and see the streets leading up to the book depository where the motorcade had driven as well as the X's on the pavement where he was shot.

The rest of the exhibit dealt with the aftermath of the assassination, the police response, Jack Ruby shooting Oswald, the public response, the warren commission report, as well as briefly delved into some of the conspiracy theories. All in all, I thought the exhibit was very well done.

Following our visit, we went outside to see everything from street level. We got a chance to walk over to the grassy knoll and see the street from that perspective. I wasn't quite prepared for it, but here there are a number of conspiracy theorist evangelists with posters ready to lecture to anyone silly enough to stand still for longer than a few moments. We made sure to scurry past not wanting to be held up with lengthy conversations. I took a photo of the actual spot the Zapruder film was shot from.

After that we decided to take a walk through Dallas as it was very nice day (a welcome relief after nearly 2 weeks of straight rain). We made our way past the Old Red Museum (which is a pretty awesome building), as well as the JFK memorial (which didn't really resonate with either of us). 

We also saw Pioneer Plaza:

Tomorrow we have a 4 hour drive to San Antonio where we will be for a week. Lets hope for some better weather.