Dietz Summer Road Trip

This morning we woke up and headed out of Arkansas. We had a lot of driving ahead of us so we hit the road pretty early. No sooner did John said “I have to pee”, did we see a sign for Hope, Arkansas. Oh you don’t know what’s in Hope, Arkansas?! Well as of yesterday we didn’t either. This is the town of President Clinton’s boyhood home, which is now a National Historical Site. It was about 9:30 am and we walked right in, used the rest room and next thing we know we were getting a private tour by a National Park official of the house. It was great to learn more about Hope and see this piece of history. When we were done we hit the gift shop, bought a Clinton bubble head and headed towards Texas! 
   
 

Our first stop in Texas was actually about an hour away from Dallas in Sulpher Spring. This was not planned, but it was time for lunch and John is on a quest to try the different fast food burgers of the local cuisine. We saw a sign for Whataburger and decided to stop there. They advertise 100% fresh american beef, or something to that sort. John agrees it was fresh but is waiting to come across an In-N-Out burger to announce his title of Best Fast Food Burger. 
  
We continued on a little further to finally reach Dallas, specifically Dealy Plaza. This is the site of the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. There is a museum now in the old Book Depository on the 6th floor, which is where Lee Harvey Oswald fired the rifle. You cannot get right up to the window, however it is preserved and recreated to resemble how investigators found it that day. They have a webcam there that allows you to see out of the window that LHO shot from. I believe you can access that here. 
We then went outside and walked the plaza. There is a white X on the road that marked where the fatal shot occurred.  We stood where Zapruder stood and filmed his infamous video.

 John got a book at the gift shop for his classroom. On our way out of town we drove the same stretch of road on Elm street where the fatal shooting happened. 

A few hours later we arrived in Austin, TX. We showered and headed out. Our hotel was right downtown and within walking distant of 100+ restaurants and bars. We went to Moonshine Patio Bar and Grill. There was a bit of a wait but with 3 bars, 2 of which were outside, we took that as the opportunity to enjoy some local Austin brews and Pretzels with Pimetto Dip (quickly becoming a new favorite thing). We were seated after about 45 minutes. Chicken and Waffles and Cornflake Chicken Salad were our dinners, followed by more local brews. 

 
After dinner we walked about 2 blocks to the 6th street music district. The road is blocked off and you can walk in the middle of the street back and forth to the bars/clubs. Austin is known as the Live Music Capital of the world (not to be confused with Music City- Nashville, from our first night). Of coarse we had to check it out, fun and weird as promised. More local brews (I see a pattern happening here) were consumed and we listened to a band on a rooftop who played bare foot (as many of them do) and looked/ sounded like a ZZ Top/ Zac Brown Band mashup. Austin is a great place for people watching. We stayed out for a couple hours and had a great time!
   
   
We enjoyed our last night in the comforts of a hotel, for tomorrow we start a long stretch of camp-site reservations! San Antonio and The Alamo tomorrow, we will try to post when we can!