My Dallas visit covered the flashy downtown, Pioneer Park, with its cattle drive sculpture and Dealy Plaza.  There are other sections of Texas’ second-largest city, including the Heritage Center, that could be the focus of another visit, but my main concern was the heart of  Big D.

The area along the Trinity River, and its views of downtown, from the west, gave me a fine first impression of a city that had mainly been seen from the freeway, in years past.

Like San Antonio, Dallas has preserved its exposition-period tower.

It has also preserved the cabin built in 1841, by Dallas’ founder, John Neely Bryan.

In the same downtown park, Founders Plaza,  there is an homage to those who died in combat.

The most iconic building in downtown Dallas is the red sandstone Dallas County Courthouse, now known as the Old Red Museum.

Just north of the Big Red is the Purse Building, a preserved former government records office, now converted into shops and restaurants.

Here is the core of downtown Dallas.

After an hour in the Dallas Public Library, I found my way to Pioneer Park, and enjoyed the cow culture sculptures,  a small waterfall and a pina colada icy.

My final stop, in this 50th commemorative year of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, was Dealey Plaza.

As it was 6 PM, on that Saturday evening, and my heart was a bit achy, I headed on down to the Liberty Hotel, in Cleburne, TX, and pondered just how far we’ve come, as a nation, since 1963.  I’ve been in Cleburne, once before, in May, 2012, and my stay at the Liberty fulfilled a silent promise I made back then.  It’s a well-appointed business hotel, with a fine eatery, Caddo Street Grill, located just behind.  I enjoyed Saturday dinner and Sunday lunch there- courtesy of a feisty, but hard-working wait staff.

My journey was entering the home stretch, with a few stops remaining in the familiar turf of Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado.  My biggest journey was to be the one I took inside myself.