If you have decided to take your next vacation in Texas, you will likely not be disappointed. Texas has a whole lot to offer both the seasoned traveler, as well as the naïve first-time backpacker. A large, diverse state, Texas has a lot of cultural diversity, as well as the Southern-style hospitality that it is well known for … a mixture of both stereotypes about Texas as well as a ton of evidence that Texas breaks its own stereotypes.
You may or may not be old enough to remember where you were or what you were doing in 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated. Whatever the case, the Sixth Floor Museum provides an excellent opportunity as part of your vacation in Texas to remember that fateful day and learn about aspects of the President’s life that you may not know.
The Sixth Floor Museum is located at the site where the murder weapon was found, the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building on Dealey Plaza. Here, the very spot where the sniper nested before shooting and killing the President of the United States is reclaimed from being a place where terrible plans were put into process to being a locale for preserving the memory of President Kennedy’s life and tragic death.
If you are bringing your family along on your vacation in Texas, you may want to include the Sixth Floor Museum not only to satisfy your own interests, but also as an educational experience for the kids, as well. The museum puts the events that led up to the assassination in perspective and gives a clear history of what happened, placing each event in its historical milieu.
The museum features a multitude of exhibits that contain more than just a timeline, but artifacts and dates about the life of the President, as well as those that chronicle the various factors that led up to the day he was shot and killed, both mesmerizing and wounding the entire nation. For younger generations, this may be a wake-up call to begin to understand how the assassination of the President changed the identity and culture of the United States forever, and how following events continued to unroll the kinds of changes we have seen since.
While in the Dallas area, there are many other opportunities to make the most of your vacation in Texas, as well, but be sure to spend at least a couple of hours remembering John F. Kennedy and his legacy, poignantly putting his tragic ending into a cultural context that helps us better understand where we have been in the past, where we are today, and what kinds of opportunities the future may hold for us.
