Get Off Your Couch

Day 26 – “This is where the first shot hit. This was the second shot. This was the kill shot.” Today I had the pleasure of getting a quick tour of the JFK assassination zone in Dallas from a Kennedy buff. Don’t worry. This isn’t going to turn into a conspiracy theory blog.

I talk a lot about travel here. It’s become one of my passions. Everywhere I go I always get that “I cannot believe I’m standing here” feeling. You know what I mean. I can’t believe I’m standing where the twin towers fell. I can’t believe I’m at the Eiffel Tower. I can’t believe I’m at the Coliseum. I can’t believe I’m watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Next month it will be I can’t believe I’m standing on the Great Wall of China.

Side note: As I sit in the Dallas airport at the Chili’s bar writing this post, I can’t believe how much money I waste on the Verizon wireless card. It is a complete piece of crap and not worth a dang. Don’t buy it.

Today, I couldn’t believe that I stood where President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald at 12:30 pm on November 22, 1963. I’ll never forget the morning of September 11, 2001. I literally just fell to sleep from spending a night in the emergency room where I received treatment for a stress fracture in my foot when my roommates bust into my room “wake up! An airplane just flew into the World Trade Towers.” I limped to the TV just in time to see the second plane hit live.

This is where Lee Harvey Oswald took the shot. Note the three arched windows next to a square window to the right. That’s the window he shot from:

The kill zone:

That was the defining moment of our generation. I will one day tell my child where I was when the towers fell just as my father told me where he was when he learned that President Kennedy had been shot. It was the defining moment of a generation. I mean, do you remember how vulnerable you felt when you learned that terrorist killed so many people? Just imagine how vulnerable you would feel if the President had actually been killed. If the President can be killed, we are all vulnerable. So is our nation. That thought scares the crap out of me. But our parents actually felt it. They saw the President shot in the head as he sat beside his wife. Crazy!

Not only did I get to view a spot so important to America’s history, but I also ate the most amazing dip of my life. Yes, I know the two are so equally comparable. If ever in Dallas, go to Matt’s Ranco Martinez, a fantastic Tex Mex joint:

The Bob Armstrong dip is just SICK. It’s ground chuck, zesty chile con queso, fresh guacamole & sour cream. FOR REAL! Everything really is bigger in Texas, especially the food.

I tell you about JFK and the Armstrong dip in hopes that you will get out of your house and experience all that our world has to offer. I didn’t travel until I was out of college. My parents rarely took me past the boundaries of our county. So now I’m living it up. I want to see everything. I want to taste everything. I want to experience everything.

Trust me, you may be the most close-minded person in the world, but seeing new cultures and witnessing how other people do things will make you grow in ways you never thought possible. You will understand why people feel they way they do and even if you don’t change your mind, you’ll be able to make better arguments. Get out of your home. Turn of the TV. Get off your couch. Travel.