When I worked at Reprise Media years ago, I always heard my colleagues who worked on the American Airlines account grumble every time they visited Dallas for a business meeting. They’d complaint that the client was based in a city as boring as Dallas, as there was nothing good to do, eat, or see there. I always felt confused, since being food-minded, all I could think was that there had to be good Texan barbecue in Dallas. It’s Dallas in Texas after all, and Dallas is a major metropolitan area. How could there possibly not be good food there?!

Yesterday for lunch, we visited Pecan Lodge, which is arguably the best barbecue in Dallas, and it did not disappoint. Despite having a line that went out the door, it moved quite quickly, and it had the second tastiest brisket we’d ever eaten, with the first being at Franklin in Austin. It was extremely moist, well-seasoned, and didn’t need a knife to be pulled apart. The pork ribs were some of my favorite, and while eating them, I thought about how much Ed would have enjoyed these. We named a wedding reception table “Pork Ribs” after some of his favorite food. The meat didn’t need any sauces, but the sauces at the table were a little salty and tangy at the same time with a hint of sweetness. They were good for dipping the pulled pork.

Whoever said there wasn’t good food in Dallas is deluded.

Visiting Dallas has been like a history lesson going all the way back to the 1960s when Kennedy was president, up to George W. Bush’s dismal presidency that ended just years ago. We visited the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum this morning and then the Sixth Floor Museum, the museum dedicated to the life, assassination, and legacy of John F. Kennedy. The museum is actually built on the same site and on the same floor where the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy multiple times as his motorcade drove through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas.

The whole exhibit was put together so well, with lots of details of the Kennedys’ lives and an almost minute by minute account of what happened on the day of the assassination. I’ve developed an increased sensitivity to hearing about deaths, especially premature and tragic ones, and my eyes overflowed with tears when I read the description of Jackie Kennedy’s reaction to leaving Dallas after her husband’s death was pronounced. The new President Johnson and the Secret Service advised her to go back to D.C. immediately, but she refused, saying she would not leave Dallas without her husband’s body. Johnson consented and had Jackie and the president’s body in a coffin aboard Air Force One. The entire flight, Jackie sat in the back of the plane with the coffin next to her.

Stories like this always get me, hearing people’s experiences of great tragedy and loss and how they coped in a life without the ones they loved. It would certainly be worse to experience loss with the public eye staring down at you every single day and evaluating your life and every facial expression.

It’s been exactly two weeks from the wedding day, and I’m still so exhausted. Every sleep I have has been such a deep sleep, and when my alarm goes off at 6:20am for the gym, I feel cranky and just want to keep hitting snooze. I resisted the urge to sleep in three times this week, so I think I’m doing fairly well.

We haven’t had a proper weekend to just rest and do nothing since Chris’s parents have been in town since our first weekend back, and this weekend, we are Dallas-bound since Chris wanted to avoid the cold of the east coast. Getting on a plane seems so exhausting now, but I will be happy when we are eating Texas barbeque soon enough. I really just want to rest, vegetate, and do nothing for just a couple of days.