The Studios at Las Colinas
North Texas's major movie and TV studio -- where Walker, Texas Ranger and Silkwood were filmed -- offers daily tours of its grounds, including displays of movie memorabilia and hands-on demonstrations of special effects (from that memorable blockbuster Addams Family Values) and blue-screen technology. You'll see the Oval Office set used in Oliver Stone's JFK, as well as costumes from Star Trek and Forrest Gump. If you've been to studios in Hollywood or the movie museums in other parts, you've probably seen more and better; however, if you've always wanted to visit a movie set, you'll at least get a glimpse here. Tours last about an hour and 15 minutes.

Fair Park
Fair Park, a classic conglomeration of Art Deco buildings and spacious grounds built for the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition, is undergoing a renaissance. Built to commemorate the Republic of Texas's independence from Mexico, it is the only intact and unaltered, pre-1950s world's fair site in the United States. Recognized as a National Historic Landmark for its architecture (the only such landmark in Dallas), Fair Park is an attraction year-round, but especially so during the annual State Fair of Texas (last weekend of Sept and first 3 weeks of Oct), which just celebrated its 50th year.The 277-acre grounds include several museums and performance and sporting facilities like the State Fair Coliseum, Cotton Bowl, Fair Park Bandshell, and Starplex Amphitheater, one of the city's top concert venues. The two major areas are the Esplanade and the Lagoon. There's much to see and do at Fair Park, so depending on your time, you may have to pick and choose. Plan on 2 or 3 hours minimum, and a full day during the State Fair of Texas. Below are the highlights:The Women's Museum, 3800 Parry Ave. (tel. 214/915-0860; www.thewomensmuseum.org), is a huge coup for Dallas. The pet project of a trio of Texas women and designed by Wendy Joseph, the chief designer behind the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., this exciting $25-million museum is an ambitious, high-tech architectural feast, audacious enough to encompass the accomplishments of women over the past century.The museum presents two dozen mostly interactive exhibits, with a clear predilection for engaging the visitor with technological wizardry. Audio guides (handheld cellphones) feature the voices of "mentors" Connie Chung, Gladys Knight, and the former Texas governor Ann Richards. "It's Amazing" is a glass labyrinth of female stereotypes, behind which are revealed several women who defied convention; "Mothers of Invention" showcases popular inventions by women (such as Liquid Paper, conceived by a Dallas secretary, and the brown paper bag). The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from noon to 5pm. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and students ages 13 to 18, and $3 for children ages 5 to 12.The Hall of State, 3939 Grand Ave. (tel. 214/421-4500; www.hallofstate.com; open Tues-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm), is the centerpiece and principal Art Deco legacy at Fair Park. Inside is a Texan's dream, the Hall of Heroes, with larger-than-life (as any Texan will tell you they were in real life) stalwarts of the Republic of Texas, including Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin. Venture into the four-story-high Great Hall, yet more proof that bigger is always better in Texas.Trains evoke nostalgic feelings of travel and exploration in just about everyone; the collection at the Age of Steam Railroad Museum, 1105 Washington St. (tel. 214/428-0101; www.dallasrailwaymuseum.com), including 28 locomotives, steam-era Pullman passenger cars, and Dallas's oldest surviving train depot, is sure to feed such impulses in visitors of all ages. The entry in the "Bigger in Texas" sweepstakes? Big Boy, the world's largest steam locomotive. The museum is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10am to 5pm; admission is $5 for adults, $2.50 for children.The African American Museum, 3536 Grand Ave. (tel. 214/565-9026; www.aamdallas.org), is the only museum in the Southwest (and one of eight in the country) that focuses on the African-American experience and culture. The standout exhibit is the fine collection of African-American folk art, supplemented by a survey of African art objects and contemporary African-American art. Admission is free; it's open Tuesday through Friday from noon to 5pm, Saturday from 10am to 5pm, and Sunday from 1 to 5pm.The small but diverse collection of marine life at the Dallas Aquarium at Fair Park, 1300 Cullum Blvd. (tel. 214/670-8443), highlights some of the weirder aquatic specimens in the marine and freshwater world, including walking fish, four-eyed fish, upside-down jellyfish, and desert fish. And who can resist watching the piranhas and sharks being fed? The newest and largest addition is the Amazon Flooded Forest, a 10,000-gallon tank with 30 species from the Amazon River. The aquarium is open daily from 9am to 4:30pm; admission is $3 for adults, $1.50 for children ages 3 to 11.The Dallas Museum of Natural History, 3535 Grand Ave. (tel. 214/421-3466; www.dallasdino.org), is the place to view the kind of wildlife that roamed Texas before steers and longhorns: namely, dinosaurs. Permanent exhibits include "Paleontology Lab" and "Prehistoric Texas." The museum is open Monday through Saturday from 10am to 5pm, Sunday from noon to 5pm; admission is $7 for adults, $6 for seniors, $5 for students ages 13 to 18, and $4 for children ages 3 to 12. Parking is free.The Science Place & Planetarium/IMAX Theater, 1313 2nd Ave. (tel. 214/428-5555; www.scienceplace.org; open Tues-Fri 9:30am-4:30pm, Sat 9:30am-5:30pm, Sun 11:30am-5:30pm), is a great place to entertain the kids with more than 300 hands-on science exhibits -- where they can amaze themselves by lifting a half-ton with one hand and playing with electricity -- and the massive, domed IMAX theater. The Planetarium features stargazing shows Monday through Saturday.

The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
November 22, 1963, is a day Dallas can't live down and the world can't forget. A sniper's bullets assassinated the nation's 35th president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, in Dallas as his motorcade traveled west on Elm Street. Whether or not there was a single shooter or more camped out on the grassy knoll below, and whether or not the Cubans or the Russians or the CIA were involved, the Warren Commission concluded that 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald fired his rifle at least three times from a window perch on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, killing JFK and critically injuring the Texas governor, John Connally. (Oswald had only days earlier secured a menial job at the School Book offices.)The redbrick building overlooks Dealey Plaza, an otherwise unremarkable spot that is ingrained in the memory of most Americans and people across the globe. The museum, the top draw in North Texas, preserves the spot where Oswald crouched and fired his rifle (now encased in Plexiglas), but it also examines the life, times, and legacy of the Kennedy presidency. The exhibit provides a moment-by-moment account of the day of the assassination and a day-by-day recollection of that harrowing November week. The display, which includes documentary film footage and more than 400 photos, summons the "Camelot" White House before getting to the event that put Dallas on the quivering lips of people across the globe. On view are images from the famous Zapruder film, whose frames have been isolated and examined more than any footage in history. However, there is no original evidence on display; everything examined by the Warren Commission forms part of the National Archives in Washington, D.C. The JFK assassination has been so hashed over and occupies such a place in pop culture that few visitors are likely to discover much in the way of new information. It is, however, a place to revisit the tragic episode and recall (or tell your kids about) the impact it had on you and a stunned nation -- as children's drawings from the period and visitor remarks inscribed in "Memory Books" at the museum's exit attest. Unless the information here is new to you or you want to relive the episode in great detail, spending no more than a couple of hours here should be plenty.Dealey Plaza, which draws two million curious visitors annually, remains a stark public square at the junction of a triple underpass, virtually unchanged from 4 decades ago. A red X marks the spot on the asphalt of Elm Street where Kennedy was struck; incredibly, many visitors to Dallas feel compelled to dodge traffic and have their pictures taken while standing on the X as cars hurtle by. Unless you really want to follow in the footsteps of JFK, however, I strongly advise against such reckless participation in our nation's history.

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