Dallas, Texas

It was our last full day of the holiday, and we decided to see the world’s largest indoor stadium. Located just a few kilometres from Dallas, the hire car made it easy to reach the AT&T Stadium, and we took a guided tour of this huge facility. On the day we visited, the playing area was being converted into a rock concert stage for Beyonce the following day. Built by a Texan oil tycoon called Jerry Jones, the size of this football stadium could be encapsulated by the high-definition television screen hanging from the roof over the playing arena. It was the world’s largest video screen when built in 2009, and it dominated the view. The home of the Dallas Cowboys, the stadium had facilities that oozed money, with no expense being spared on the furnishings, floor coverings, corporate boxes, televisions, toilets – you name it. The final cost for building this thing was 1.2 billion dollars, its monthly power bill is a million dollars alone, and it employs 6,500 employees on any match day. We all agreed, however, that it lacked the character and history of the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Conveniently close to AT&T stadium was perhaps the final chapter in the story that we had been following over the past few weeks. Nearby was the Shannon Rose Hill Memorial Cemetery, where Lee Harvey Oswald was buried on the same day as John F. Kennedy in 1963. We were at the tomb of President Kennedy at Arlington in Washington last week, and now we were standing at his alleged assassin’s. The grave was relatively easy to find, since absolutely everything about the JFK assassination can now be found on the internet.
I wondered if it was just morbid fascination that made us seek Oswald’s grave. Standing there looking at the simple headstone with the name “Oswald” inscribed, I think Dayna hit the nail on the head when she said that this was like coming to the end of a journey that we set out on a couple of weeks ago. We thought about this man that had been buried below us, he was probably the only person who really knew what happened that day, whether he did the deed on his own, or whether he had been set up. We walked away all agreeing on one thing – of all the conspiracy theories that have been put forward about who really killed JFK fifty years ago, the world will probably never know the truth.
The long journey home took up a whole day of our precious annual leave. We left Dallas on a Tuesday, and arrived in Australia on a Thursday, completely missing Wednesday July 23rd. The Dallas-Brisbane leg is a newly introduced service for Qantas, and we were wondering how popular it was. If our flight was any indication, it’s a hit because our Boeing 747 was full to capacity. It took sixteen hours to complete, and another two short domestic flights had us arriving back in Launceston to be met by Leah. Both our daughters had bookended our journey home, which was a lovely way to finish. We miss them both when they’re not with us.
I wonder where and when the next holiday will be, but for now this one will provide some great memories. The world is full of beautiful friendly people, incredible natural wonders, inspiring artwork, astounding designs for buildings and bridges, and exciting cultures that just whet the appetite for more exploration.
Need to reinvigorate the holiday savings account ...

Dallas, Texas

When the time came to bid farewell to Toronto and Canada, we did so with heavy hearts. I suppose we had taken to the city because it had become Dayna’s hometown, but we also felt an affinity with it. Everyone we’d met had given us a smile or some friendly banter, and there was always something happening in and around the GTA (Greater Toronto Area - what locals affectionately refer to the downtown).
When planning the trip months ago, we opted for an alternate journey home to Australia instead of the usual Toronto-Los Angeles-Australia. The slightly circuitous Toronto-Dallas-Australia route allowed us to visit a brand new city for us, and also for Dayna and Adam. We decided to hire a car from Fort Worth airport (closest international airport to Dallas), and in air-conditioned comfort on a 40-degree day, Dayna’s phone GPS “Siri” guided us into downtown Dallas. 
Our hotel was conveniently located on Elm Street in the middle of the city. We arrived before midday, a few hours before our check-in time, so we stowed our luggage and went for a walk, heading west. Crossing a few intersections, a seven-story corner red brick building came into view, and Elm Street then went down a gentle decline while sweeping to the left before passing under a triple overpass railway bridge. Grassed areas lay on both sides of the road, and on the right-hand side was a white marble pergola sitting at the top of a small hill alongside a picket fence. As we walked through the crowds of people who were milling around, a strange feeling of eerie history came over us. We had never been here before, but we all knew about this place. A small white “X” in the middle of the road marked the very spot where John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22nd, 1963.
The official explanation of what happened that day had the shots being fired from the sixth floor of that red-brick building by Lee Harvey Oswald. That floor has now been converted into a museum commemorating JFK’s presidency and assassination. I thought the displays were very well presented and interesting interpretations of the times and chronology of events that day. The snipers nest had been set up behind glass as it was that day, and it had an unusual aura around it.
What struck all of us was how small the area really was, a fact that may not be so obvious when viewed on a screen or pictured in a photograph. The observation from a sixth floor window gave an unnervingly close view of the cars down below. Then again, standing at the picket fence on the so-called “grassy knoll” gave an even closer view of the road. We stood at the same plinth that Abraham Zapruder had stood to film the most famous home movie in history. We were standing in the middle of a downtown park in an average mid-American city where the history of the world had been changed in about ten seconds, fifty years ago.
During our Dallas visit we toured several placed that figured in the assassination story. Oswald’s rooming house, the corner where he allegedly shot police officer J.D. Tippit, the picture theatre where he was arrested, and the police station alleyway where he was himself murdered (although the roller door was closed). Perhaps the most interesting meeting we had was with a guy called Robert Groden, who was sitting on the grassy knoll selling copies of his books and DVDs. He had a fascinating history – he was a photographic technician who was called to testify at several Government assassination commissions, and was a consultant on Oliver Stone’s “JFK” movie, making a couple of cameo appearances in the movie. We also had a chat with a guy who was a witness to the shooting that day, as a 13-year old (or so he claimed). He told us that some shots had definitely come from the grassy knoll.

Toronto, Canada

And so we returned to Toronto for one last week before heading home. We’ve been travelling for six weeks now. We had already spent a week in this fabulous city, and so had grown accustomed to its traffic and public transport system. We still had some Toronto icons to cross off the list – the Eaton Centre (one of the world’s biggest shopping centres), Dundas Square (Toronto’s answer to Times Square), the Toronto Islands, Niagara Falls about two hours south, and the CN Tower, one of the world’s tallest structures and so prominent on the Toronto skyline. For accommodation this week we rented an apartment downtown, with the Rogers Centre and CN Tower right across the road. The location allowed us to easily explore the city, and we were able to get a good feeling for what it’s like to be a Torontonian.
It seems that the badge for Toronto city membership is to have a coffee in hand, and the most common coffee is Tim Hortens. You’ll find a “Timmies” on every corner and in every shopping centre across Canada. Tim Horten was a famous hockey player (in Australia that should be elucidated as “ice hockey”, but there is no other form of hockey in Canada), and after retiring from the game he opened up a coffee shop. Fifty years later, his name is on thousands of shops across the country, where you can buy a coffee and a bagel. Tim Hortens is as Canadian as the Royal Mounted Police and maple syrup.
 Public transport is provided by subway trains, streetcars and buses, all operating under the “T.T.C.” banner, and it is very easy to figure out where you are and what transport you need to take to get anywhere in the city. The “L.C.B.O.” are government-operated liquors stores where you buy beer, wine and spirits. The most common sports team (at least at this time of year) is the Toronto Blue Jays, whose home is the Rogers Centre. You see their logo on t-shirts, caps, car stickers, key rings, coffee mugs. You see social games of baseball in parks across the city, and we even watched Dayna play with her team for a nailbiting 19-18 win in the final innings. It’s obviously baseball in summer, hockey in winter.
We took a ferry out to the Toronto Islands and walked across them, crossing bridges to get from one island to another. It’s a beautiful and quiet part of Toronto, a long way from traffic and the rat race, with access to beaches, parks, gardens, cafes and lots of trees to find shade from the sun. It was difficult to imagine this area being subjected to harsh winters, heavy snowfalls and fierce ice storms. Our nice summer days of plus thirty degrees are matched with minus thirty degree days in midwinter. We got a good idea from locals just how much a Canadian winter can affect their lifestyle.

Washington D.C.

A visit to Washington D.C. is actually a lesson in American history, and if you had six months to spare, you could visit all the memorials and museums to get a thorough grounding in how the United States came into being. Unfortunately we only had four days, so we had to decide on what we would see.
My personal favourite was the Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institute. Yes, I admit to being a flight nerd, but to actually see the Apollo 11 command module, and a real Lunar Module (that wasn’t sent to the moon), and a Gemini and Mercury capsule, was mind-blowing to me. Couple that with a Spitfire, Mustang and German Messerschmidt from WW2, and I’m away with the stars. Perhaps the most amazing exhibit was the original Wright Brothers flyer that flew at Kittyhawk, North Carolina, as the first powered flight machine in 1903. Back then, that must’ve been akin to science fiction coming true. Speaking of science fiction, the only fictional piece on show was the real model of the starship Enterprise that was used in the original Star Trek series in the 1960s.
It was difficult to visit some of the Washington monuments without conjuring up a scene in a famous movie. The Lincoln Memorial with its reflecting pool, into which Forrest Gump jumped to run to his sweetheart Jenny, or Jim Garrison met Mr X in Oliver Stone’s “JFK”. More importantly, we felt a feeling of deep respect when standing at the spot where Martin Luther King made his “I have a dream” speech in March 1963.
Eight months after Dr King’s speech, came the assassination of the American president in Dallas. We visited John F Kennedy’s tomb at Arlington, where he has also been joined by his brothers Robert and (most recently) Edward, and his wife Jaqueline. What was particularly poignant was that we will be seeing where that murder took place in a week’s time, on our way home to Australia.
Everything in Washington seems to be soaked in symbolism, and it’s hard not to learn a little about the country as you explore this city. We made it to the top of the Washington Monument, which is a tall granite obelisk giving amazing views of the city, even to the Pentagon a few kilometres away. This lookout brings the whole vicinity into view and into perspective. This was another place that I left with the feeling that I must return to it one day, and allot more time to roam the many memorials and museums.

Washington D.C.

After exploring several options, we decided that the best mode of transport to get us to Washington was by rental car. With four of us on board (wife Anne, daughter Dayna, sister Allison and me), it was the cheapest option, and enticed us with a different perspective for which to see the countryside. Little did we know …
Armed with a GPS on her phone, Dayna took the driver’s seat, being the only experienced left-hand driver amongst us. We trained to Newark airport to fetch the car, which also gave us a head start out of a busy New York City. The aim was to have a break and a meal in Philadelphia en-route to Washington. We accomplished that mission without any drama, with a bonus visit to the Liberty Bell five minutes before its 7pm closing time. In front of us was a two hour drive to Washington. Dayna telephoned our hotel to advise them of our late arrival.
Thirty minutes down the multi-lane freeway, we noticed a heavy black cloud approaching to our right. “We might be in for some rain,” I boldly declared. Dayna passed me her phone, suggesting I check the weather forecast.
I then said “Over the next thirty minutes, a severe storm front will pass over Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore“, as the lights of Wilmington passed by our right-hand-side.
“Yeah, sure Dad”, said Dayna disbelievingly, as the rain started to pound the car. We had to shout to be heard.
I continued to read the forecast.  “Warning – damage force winds are associated with this storm front. Residents are advised to tie down loose items, and motorists are advised to take extreme caution.”
“Dad?” queried Dayna, now looking at me with wide eyes. “You’re joking, right?” For once, I wasn’t.
We all peered to the road ahead, just in time to see a mini-cyclone cross the road just metres in front of us. En route it had picked up dust, leaves and debris to accentuate its cyclonic shape, and we only avoided driving into it by Dayna’s careful slowing down. There was a very quick democratic vote to pull off highway and find a safe place to ride out the storm. There was no opposition from anyone in the car. We parked in an empty carpark behind a hotel, away from trees and power poles, found a local radio station to get updates, and waited.
It was a nervous twenty minutes as the storm passed. The weather radar on Dayna’s phone showed a long band of heavy cloud running north/south, moving from west to east, directly over us. I think we all visions of the tornadoes that the American mid-west is renown for, where cars, cows and houses are sucked up into the vortex. Dayna even mentioned that she felt like Helen Hunt from the movie “Twister”. The storm passed with no damage done except for a few nerves, and we continued on into the night.
Arriving in downtown Washington, our hotel, the Marriott Mayflower Renaissance, appeared and it was obvious that Dayna had chosen well, as this hotel was most salubrious. We entered a huge foyer that continued down a long passageway. We later learned that several staterooms and ballrooms lead off this chandeliered hall, and every U.S. President had walked down this hallway to attend a special gala dinner. One of the rooms had a plaque telling the story of how Winston Churchill had whispered a dirty joke to someone next to him, concerning the Chinese Premier’s wife. The special domed ceiling of the room carried his words to the other side of the room, where the Chinese Premier was sitting. That domed ceiling is still there today. Another plaque in the hotel told of the interrogation of a suspected Russian spy who had been detained by the U.S., and actually named the room number where the interrogation took place. It wasn’t our room, but our room was very comfortable, and our room was palatial compared to some other rooms we had stayed in over the previous month.

New York City, U.S.A.

Ah, New York City, it’s good to be back. I’ve now visited you three times, the first was 34 years ago, BC in my life (Before Children), and you scared the living daylights out of me. I was too young and too inexperienced with overseas travel, and you were the first international city I’d ever visited. You were loud, dirty, crowded, and frightening, but brimming with sights to see and things to do. Years later you beckoned my whole family in the year 2000, when my kids were young teenagers, and we saw you through their eyes – loud, dirty, crowded and frightening, but they learned a lot about life and the history of the world and the United States. Exactly a year after that visit, you came under attack and suffered unimaginable disaster.
So I have now come back for a third time. Maybe I’m a little older and wiser than my previous visits, because I can see beyond the noise, the garbage in the streets, the crowds and the fear to see a vibrant and exciting city.
Our hotel was on 79th Street on the Upper West Side, two blocks from Central Park, and a short walk on our first afternoon took us past so many familiar places. There was the Beacon Theatre, where many of my favourite artists have played, and the Dakota building where John Lennon lost his life, and Strawberry Fields just over road, the small section of Central Park that Yoko set aside as a Garden of Peace in her husband’s honour. There was Broadway, the Lincoln Arts Centre, and Columbus Circle, diners and the subway. We arrived on July 4th, American Independence Day, but celebrations were subdued, almost as if people were enjoying a day off at home, enjoying a hot summer’s day. Three million people gathered by the river to watch fireworks that night, but we watched them on TV.
Venturing downtown there’s the Empire State Building, where I was very happy get my sister to the 86th floor observatory, as she is afraid of heights. A hop-on, hop-off bus tour took us through Harlem, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. A ferry took us out to the Statue of Liberty, giving us not only gave us a close-up encounter with the Grand Old Lady of New York Harbour, but also the classic view of the Lower Manhattan skyline. There was something wrong with the view, however, something drastically different to our previous visits. That anomaly came next in our touring itinerary.
The 9/11 Memorial and Museum can hardly be called a tourist attraction in the strictest sense, and it was not something we were particularly looking forward to seeing. It felt like an obligation. No matter how well we know the story of what happened, after seeing countless news reports and documentaries, we were not prepared for the solemn symbolism and the confronting exhibits. The footprints of both of the Twin Towers now contain the three thousand names of the people who died, and fountains cascade water into the holes left by the demolished buildings. Dayna mentioned that the water could represent the millions of tears that have been shed since that fateful morning. Beneath this area lies the ruined foundations of the former World Trade Centre, transformed into large underground spaces containing images, artefacts and explanations. It was silent, intense, bewildering, but I sensed that it was New York’s way of dealing with the aftermath of an horrendous episode in its already colourful history. We came away feeling achingly sad for the families of the victims, but reassured that the city has bounced back with gusto. Directly nextdoor stood a brand new skyscraper, the Freedom Tower, that soars over everything else in New York City.
New York people are friendly, fun and helpful. A guy sitting on a park bench randomly struck up a conversation with me, and was fascinated to know where I was from. As we said our friendly goodbyes and I was walking off, he called out to me, “… and the dingo did it.”

New York City

The word “iconic”, in its strictest sense, refers to an object of religious devotion, so to call New York City as “iconic” is probably not accurate. Then again maybe it is, when you consider the number of songs that have been written about it, or the frequency of famous landmarks that you pass as you stroll its streets and avenues.
After a short flight from Montreal to NYC’s regional airport La Guardia, we checked into our hotel on 79th Street, and then headed downtown on the subway. Getting off the train at 42nd Street and emerging at street level, we found ourselves in the middle of Times Square. Crowds of people were around us (in fact, half a million people go through Times Square every day), and you are compelled to look up. You find yourself in a glass canyon, the sides soar into the sky around you, and there are huge advertising televisions everywhere you look. Gigantic screens in colour blast you from all directions, while cars, trucks and taxis all sing the same song as they honk horns as if in a choir.
Our first full day in New York was actually spent out of New York City. Due to complete chance, our visit coincides with a concert by Crosby Stills and Nash at an outdoor amphitheatre at Bethel Woods Centre for the Arts, which is a two-hour drive from New York City. We were able to catch a bus from the city to the venue (although the return journey was another story, one for relating over a wine and a couple of hours. Thank goodness we had Dayna still in NYC, able to hire a rental car for a rescue mission). Why would we want to go to that trouble to travel so far? Bethel Woods Centre of the Arts has been recently built on the site of the Woodstock Music Festival of 1969.
The setting was idyllic – pasture and farmland surrounded  by thick forests and serene lakes. Before the concert, we ambled a short way down a country road to where a plaque has been placed to commemorate the concert. Standing at a farm fence, I could’ve been looking over any large grassed paddock anywhere in the world, except that 45 years ago, this paddock had more than 400,000 people, for three days making it the third largest city in New York State. I have listened to the Woodstock soundtrack and watched the movie so many times, that standing there looking at an empty paddock gave me goose bumps.
The Arts Centre had a museum of memorabilia from Woodstock, and it was a fascinating snapshot in time – a time when the world was rapidly changing in the late 1960s. The concert that night was great too.

Montreal, Canada

Waking around Montreal was like being in France, because French is the first language. For an outsider, it's very strange when considering that you’re still in Canada. Restaurants, bars and taxis all have the same greeting, “French or English?”, and everyone appears to have mastered both languages. Our great fortune was to be in this beautiful city at the same time as the Montreal  International Jazz Festival. We had contemplated playing excessive dollars to see artists like Aretha Franklin or Diana Ross, but our bank balances thought better of it. Instead, we just roamed the streets to soak up the atmosphere, and soon discovered that it was like drowning in honey. The quality of bands playing for free was outstanding.
Over a few downtown blocks, the stages were many – some were set high above our heads, with large speaker bins projecting sound over a wide area, while others were much smaller in tents with a small bar at the side. The music emanating from all of them were exciting, infectious, totally free, and stretched the boundaries of jazz. We witnessed a local band called The Fat Tuesday Brass Band playing pure New Orleans jazz, a big band with a 15-piece brass section called The Sub Beer Band, and a dynamic rock/jazz trio from Denmark called Ibrahim Electric. The Danes were very exciting and we bought their CD, met them afterwards, and when finding out where we were from, they asked us about Princess Mary. They were three ordinary guys who made extraordinary and inspired improvised music, and were very friendly and approachable.
Afterwards, we ventured down to Old Montreal, found a restaurant, and were charmed by a waiter with a keen sense of humour. The Jazz Festival vibe had filtered down to the narrow streets of this historic part of town, several blocks away from the stages. It was with some remorse that we headed back to our hotel for an early morning departure for New York in a few hours. Montreal begs us for a return visit one day.

Toronto, Canada

I guess every country has its national day. Australia’s is every January 26th, while Canada’s is every July 1st. This meant that during our visit to Toronto, we were able to participate in Canada Day only two days after celebrating World Pride. A pretty wild coincidence. There were many events across the city, from concerts in parks to parades through the streets, and of course fireworks across the city to end the day. During the day we ventured down to a nearby park where a local rock radio station were staging rock bands all day. We listened to a very good Steely Dan cover band, followed by a Fleetwood Mac cover band, from a backstage vantage point courtesy of VIP passes through Dayna’s work.
In the few-hundred strong crowd were stalls selling typical Canadian fare: poutine, beavertails, barbeque spare ribs, and lemonade (made from real lemons). Poutine is French fries smothered in gravy and melted cheese. A beavertail is a flat sweet pastry with a coating of sugar and cinnamon (no beaver is involved at all). All of it delicious. Of course the crowd was a sea of red and white, created by hundreds of Canadian flags, t-shirts, sunhats, and anything thing else that could be worn or flown. We returned to Jill and Walter’s later in the afternoon for a leisurely barbeque on the deck, and at 10pm we walked down the road to watch the fireworks being fired from the same park where we were that afternoon. It was just as well that we could walk, because the whiskey had come out beforehand. All in the name of celebrating being Canadian. 
It was interesting to witness the country’s attention to a couple of unlikely sporting compatriots abroad. While the soccer World Cup surged toward its finale in Brazil, the absence of Canada meant that only small pockets of interested immigrants gathered around televisions in bars and restaurants around the city. The most important sporting event for Canada was Wimbledon, where Eugenie Brouchard and Milos Raonic had made it to both the women’s and men’s semifinal. Quite a feat in the country’s sparse tennis history.
The following day was time to continue our journey, and Dayna joined us for a side trip to Montreal, New York City and Washington over a week. The short flight to Montreal left from Toronto’s city airport, only a few minutes’ walk from Dayna’s apartment. This small airport is situated on an island, and the only way to get to the airport is to catch a ferry, that takes you all of 50 meters from the mainland to reach the airport. It was quite strange, and supposedly the shortest ferry ride on the world. Flying out over the city gave a tremendous view of the Toronto waterfront, and flying into Montreal gave us an equally tremendous view, including the iconic Olympic Stadium from 1976, still standing high and proud.