The Grand Library Tour days 4 and 5

I'm in Big D, my oh yes...
Big D, little a, double l, a, s

Yesterday was day two of Lyndon Baines Johnson.  He was a big man so he took up two days.  I was kind of tired and discouraged Wednesday evening so I proposed skipping Johnson City and the LBJ Ranch but now I am glad that we didn't.  My advice to future visitors...if you are short on time and can only choose one or the other, skip the LBJ Library and head for his childhood home and ranch 40 miles west of Austin in Johnson City, TX.  You will learn everything you need to know and have a much more enjoyable time.

The drive over to JC was really pretty.  Texas Hill country begins a few miles west of Austin.  It is a very scenic area with rolling hills and valleys.  There are vistas along the road where you can see for miles into the distance.  Little Texas towns dot the way.  The Pedernales River runs through hill country and into Johnson City.  For those of you outside of Texas the correct pronunciation is Per-dah-nal-es.  I don't know why.

Lyndon Baines Johnson was born in 1908 about 15 miles outside of Johnson City, TX in a little house on his grandfather's ranch.  Grandpa Johnson had been a real cowboy.  He obtained some land in  what is now Johnson City and developed a longhorn herd consisting of about 1000 heads of cattle.  He drove his first herd to Abilene, KS and sold it for $100,000.  Most of the money was reinvested in cattle but by the time he drove the second herd to Abilene cattle had gone bust and Mr. Johnson lost all of his money.  The family eventually moved to what is now known at the LBJ Ranch.  Lyndon Johnson's father was a self-taught attorney turned politician.  His mother was college educated, a rarity for her time.  When Johnson was 4 he began running up the hill near his house to a one room school. He insisted on sitting on his teacher, Miss Katie's lap.  His mama enrolled him in school where he became a voracious reader.  Mrs. Johnson wanted her children to go to a better school so by the time Lyndon was 7 the family had moved into town.  The house in town was adjacent to the original Johnson farm.  In 1951, LBJ bought his grandfather's ranch from his uncle and it became the Johnson home when they weren't in Washington DC or Austin.  Improvements were made over the years including the addition of a runway and hangar for "Air Force 1/2", the Lockheed Jet used to shuttle LBJ, his family and guests from the AF base in San Antonio.  It is said that Johnson conducted 25 % of his Presidential business from the Texas White House as the ranch became known.  The house is typical of a 50-60-70's décor house.  It isn't huge and it isn't small but it was adequate.  One thing that tickled me is that Johnson had this little amphibious car.  He would take unsuspecting visitors out for a ride and while driving down along the Pedernales (remember how to say it?) he would veer off down the bank screaming "the brakes went out".  They would land in the river where LBJ would engage the amphibious side of the car and off they'd go.  We had a delightful half day in JC and at the ranch.  We ate dinner at a local brew pub and hit the road for Arlington.  3 hours later we arrived at our hotel and hit the rack.

This morning we headed to the campus of SMU (Siri calls it "smoo") to visit the George W. Bush Museum.  The last three days we've only shared the space with a few people.  Today was a different story.  The museum was very crowded.  I'm sure its newness has a lot to do with it as well as end of the year school trips.  Yes, TX schools are still in session.  The building itself is beautiful, and difficult to get to.  Once inside you are in the middle of a huge rotunda where every 15 minutes a spiffy multi-media show takes place ala' Disney World.  The museum is interesting, lots and lots of information presented in many multi-sensory formats.  The most movie exhibits are in the 9/11 gallery.  A beam from the World Trade Center is in the center of the floor.  A docent encourages visitors to touch it.  I particularly enjoyed the Life in the White House section.  One area that's neat for kids is a section on the Book Festival started by the Bush family.  There is a shelf with award winning books for kids and a place where they can sit and read.  Overall, the museum spends the majority of space on Bush policy, the Afghan and Iraqi Wars and Overseas initiatives.

The museum is impressive but I also found it to be overwhelming.  There is so much information presented that my brain kind of turned off after awhile.  I think it is a museum that would best be viewed in chunks.  Choose an area you are most interested in and spend your time there.  Don't miss the four films at various stages of the museum.  They are worth sitting through.

Tonight is the Royals/Rangers game.  Hope last night's luck carries on tonight.  They beat the Cardinals at 3:10 a.m. this morning after a 4 hour rain delay.  Way to go Royals!

Home tomorrow.

LBJ for the USA

When I was in Kindergarten we had a highly technical toy called a spelling board.  It looked something like this:
   Being the precocious child I was I spelled out L-B-J on the first line and U-S-A on the second line.  Miss Warren apparently thought I was quite brilliant and trotted me around the school to show various adults my prodigious accomplishment.  I don't know why I remember that but I do.  I vaguely remember that I had seen that letter combination on something at home-probably a campaign pin or on tv, I don't know.  Anyway, Lyndon Johnson has a place in my memory.  I think he is a fascinating man.  Today, we visited the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas.  The building itself is a huge white structure on the campus of the University of Texas.  It would have been very modern and beautiful in 1971 when it was dedicated.  Today it is a dated, large white building.  When we walked in the lady at the desk said that they weren't set up to collect admission but donations were encouraged.  She asked us our zip code and then the lady next to her asked if I wore a lot of yellow since we were from Maize. She said she was just asking since I was wearing yellow today. Ha, ha ha...yesterday we were asked if Dorothy had her own museum in Kansas.  I don't ask Texans if they remember the Alamo or if the eyes of Texas are blue.  I mean, come on!

Our tour began with an introductory movie (are you sensing a trend?) about the life of LBJ.  Just as the movie came on a large group of elementary age children came into the theater.  Let's just say, if a couple of them had been my students, they wouldn't have lived long.  Fortunately they left after the movie.  My overall impression of the museum is that it was arranged in a confusing manner, especially on the first floor.  I mean the third floor.  Then you walked up a giant marble staircase to the fourth floor.  There is a photo that shows Johnson's casket being carried up the same stairway for his lying in state.  The fourth floor is a timeline of Johnson's political career.  He was a teacher who became a professional politician.  There was much made of the "Johnson treatment".  He was a tall, imposing man who, if he wanted something, became very insistent.  He had a habit of invading what we now call your "personal space".  He would grab you by your lapels, lean into your face a proceed to make his point.  I think it was Rockefeller who said he had a way of breathing into your mouth until your air was completely sucked out and you had no choice but to give in.  With women he was a shameless flirt.  One thing they did have that I enjoyed were phone kiosks that you could listen to excerpts of conversations he had with various people on different topics.  When you finished the fourth floor you had to take the elevator to the 10th floor for the final 3 exhibits.  The Oval Office reproduction, an exhibit on the lovely Lady Bird and a short movie about LBJ's family life.

Johnson's legacy is a great one.  Many of our social programs were started by Johnson and his Great Society.  He accomplished much during his short tenure.  It is too bad that Vietnam overshadowed his presidency.  Sadly, Johnson died 5 years after leaving office.  Tomorrow we will head over to Johnson City and the Johnson Ranch.

Off to bed.
(Dang Royals just gave STL 4 runs in one inning!)

George Bush Library College Station Texas

Hi Ya'll!

May 28. 2013 finds Ken and I in College Station, TX, home of Texas A and M University and the George Bush Presidential Library.  More on that in a minute.

I love museums.  I love looking at photos and artifacts about places and people and times past.  When we travel I am always delighted to find and visit unique museums.  My poor children spent many vacation days dragging through some historical place or another.  When Erin was just a little girl, maybe 3 or 4, we were walking through the lobby of the Dolly Parton Stampede Dinner Show in Branson.  She spied a huge oil painting of Dolly on the wall.  She looked up at me and said "mommy is that lady dead or alive?"  So, it's no stretch to imagine that we are on a vacation in which every day will be spent in a museum, specifically presidential libraries and historic places.  Ken and I couldn't decide on a vacation for this summer.  I think we were both reluctant to plan a long trip that would take us far away from Wichita or that we would have to pay for in advance.  Back a few weeks ago when I wasn't mad at the Royals I mentioned that they would be playing the Rangers the first weekend in June.  I suggested that we could perhaps spend the last week of May visiting the 3 presidential libraries in Texas and end the week at the Rangers/Royals game.  Ken thought that sounded like a plan so here we are.

We left Maize around 8:00 a.m. Memorial Day Monday and drove to College Station.  We drove through Moore, OK along the way and witnessed the terrible devastation along I-35 from last week's monster tornado.  It was indeed bad but I do have to say it wasn't as surreal as driving through Greensburg, KS a month after a tornado swept the town away.  I think it was more personal.  I knew what had been there and it wasn't there any more-literally.  I have driven past Moore several times and it was shocking to see the piles of debris but it wasn't as moving.  It was good to see that the Warren Theater was still standing and that the parking lot was being used as a staging area for the utility companies.

My navigational skills weren't very sharp yesterday and we gee'd where we should've haw'ed a couple of times but we finally made it here after 8 hours of driving.  Our hotel is nice and we were upgraded to a King Suite-a larger room with a couch-they will get a good review on Trip Advisor.  We tried Freebird World Burrito for supper and after hitting the local Wal-Mart called it a night.

 We spent today at the George Bush Presidential Library.  We arrived at 12:00 and following the educational video began our tour of the museum.  I was thoroughly impressed both with the lives of George and Barbara Bush and with the interpretation of the museum.  It is a gorgeous facility with well planned exhibits. The layout is more or less a winding path leading you chronologically through the life of President Bush.  I was most impressed with the strong values of faith, family and leadership that molded the life of both the President and Barbara and how they passed these values on to their children.  The tribute to their little daughter Robin, who died just shy of her 4th birthday was especially touching.  There was a little gold charm that the President had carried with him for many years that had her name on one side and "love forever" on the other.  At the end of the museum there was an exhibit about Project C and the human genome project and the research being done to eradicate cancer.  The Bushes talked about finding a cure for cancer and that had Robin been alive today, she most likely would've survived her bought with leukemia.  All in all we spent 4 1/2 hours at the library.  Dinner was at the Olive Garden across the parking lot from the Ramada and we returned to our room where we both crashed.  I slept for an hour, Ken for 2--we will be lucky if we sleep tonight. 

Tomorrow we drive to Austin and will visit the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library.

Good Night All!