Back in Dallas

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Geo: 32.778, -96.7956

Thursday night we spent in Hope, Arkansas. When we got up on Friday, we went to visit Bill Clinton's boyhood home. He lived there from birth to four years old, but was there often until he was ten since it was his grandparent's home.

Arriving in Dallas Friday afternoon, we stopped at El Fenix for lunch then checked into The Highland for the weekend. Phil had time to finish grading most everything so we will have most of our time free for the next couple of days. For dinner, we walked to Campisi's Italian restaurant, also known as The Egyptian. It's a popular local bar and restaurant that is known as the place where Jack Ruby had dinner the night before he shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Phil liked his pizza; my veal scallopini was oily, overcooked, and bland. Also, they brought out chicken the first time rather than the veal I had ordered. The restaurant is less than a mile from the hotel and made a nice walk in the evening.

Today, we started with breakfast in the hotel, then walked to the SMU campus to visit the Bush Presidential Center. The museum is small, but beautifully and well designed with some interactive displays. Phil stopped in the replica of the Oval Office to try out the desk. We had lunch in Cafe 43 at the Center -- lump crab salads with bread. On the walk back to the hotel, we stopped in La Madeleine to pick up sandwiches for dinner in the room.

The last time we were in Dallas, we stayed at this hotel and had one dinner at Knife, the in-house restaurant. It was good, but not wonderful and definitely overpriced so we did not plan to have anything but breakfast here. Phil's high school reunion took place in this hotel so we decided to stay here again even though our last visit wasn't that great. The last time we stayed here, the Wi-Fi never worked for the two nights and the service was ho-hum.

We went to Phil's reunion this evening. It seemed to be pretty well attended -- maybe 200 people of the over 1100 class members. Only one of his close friends was there, but it was nice to see him and nice to visit with some others, too.

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