Greetings from the Grassy Knoll!

Who's that in the shadows, under that tree?

Today was our last full day in Texas, and it's been fun, if unbelievably hot. We stopped at Baylor University in Waco, which is a lovely campus, and where they have two resident black bears.

could your name be Oski?

We tried to imagine Cal keeping a couple of grizzly or brown bears on the campus, as mascots for the school. The tree people protesting the stadium expansion would have nothing on the animal-rights enthusiasts sure to flood the campus if they did that in Berkeley.

We got to Dallas pretty early but were able to check into the hotel and walk around the historic West End, which is a very cool neighborhood (not in the climate sense, 100 degrees again today!). The areas is a mix of very old warehouses (its right next to the original rail yards in Dallas, from 1872), turned into lofts and offices as well as new buildings built in a similar style, lots of brick facades and nothing higher than 10 stories. There's lots of restaurants and shops, and the light rail system connects right in the middle. This area must have been crazy when the Super Bowl was here in February.

The West End is also the location of Dealey Plaza and other sites associated with the JFK assassination - a park and memorial, designed by Philip Johnson, and the Sixth Floor Museum.

Johnson's imposing, but calming, JFK memorial

clever logo

We walked around Dealey Plaza first, standing where Abraham Zapruder took his famous film, and looking up at the window was a little strange. There are even X's on the street marking where the limo was when JFK was hit.

The window

Zapruder stood here - note the Old Red Courthouse in the distance

The museum was much more elaborate than we expected. The main exhibit, titled John F. Kennedy and the Memory of a Nation is mostly photos and text on boards.Unfortunately, no photography is permitted in the museum, so all of these images are taken from the website.

typical exhibit element, photos and text

The sniper's corner, preserved behind glass

The view of Dealey Plaza and Elm Street, from the windows in the photo above, are a bit chilling, knowing what happened that day. The accompanying audio tour did a nice job of connecting the wall panels together, with interviews from witnesses of that day, police recordings, news broadcasts. The exhibit also covered the events immediately afterward - Lyndon Johnson taking the Presidential Oath with Jackie Kennedy and Lady Bird at his side, Oswald's arrest and killing by Jack Ruby, and the societal impact of the assassination.

A silent (except for military drums and bugle) film showing how reactions to the assassination around the US and the world, with a lot of footage of crying mourners, was quite emotional.

The museum has the model of Dealey Plaza that the FBI built for the Warren Commission, pretty neat. Both the Warren Commission report and the House Select Committee on Assassinations reports are discussed, as well as some of the conspiracy theories. The Museum comes down squarely in the single-shooter, Oswald-did-it camp.

The FBI's Dealey Plaza scale model

Well, tomorrow we say farewell to the Lone Star State, off to Oklahoma. It's been fun, but it's not like we're thinking of moving. Talk to you later!

An awesome time at an awesome museum

Day 13 was a quick drive from College Station to Austin, between towns engaged in a fierce rivalry for more than 100 years. So we were careful not to flaunt any A&M gear in this Longhorn town.

Our final Presidential Library, for Lyndon Baines Johnson, was today, and we definitely saved the best for last. It was incredible. The LBJ Library is the only one that has no admission charge, something that President Johnson insisted on, and he set aside part of his own family fortune as an endowment to ensure that it remains free of charge.

just a few campaign buttons there

The (obligatory) introductory film was very good, describing both the positives and negatives of Johnson's political career and presidency, and did a very good job relating his early life experiences to the huge issues that he worked to improve in American society - race relations, educational opportunities, and economic opportunity. It also described how the Vietnam War, and the strife it caused in the US, overshadowed many of his monumental achievements and caused him to (prematurely) end his political career.

Probably LBJ's most natural pose

The exhibits on Johnson's life and long (33 years, despite Lady Bird's entreaties that he not enter politics in the first place!) career in Congress very well done. There were also extensive displays on the Vietnam War, civil right legislation and its impacts, and the Great Society, of course. What really struck us was how the exhibits were structured - there was great use of location and color and design to show how the 1963, when LBJ became President after the JFK assassination, and 1968, when so many calamitous events took place in the US, were the bookends on the years when LBJ was at his greatest power but resulted in the end of his "can do" approach to politics.  

The museum had many source documents on display, such as this classified FBI report on the Student Peace Union, claiming that it was a Communist organization. Those sorts of documents help you to better understand how and why President's made the decisions that they made, right or wrong, which is the real purpose of these Presidential Libraries. The Reagan Library recently added information about Iran Contra, the Clinton Library includes an exhibit on Whitewater and the impeachment, and the Nixon Library even has many of the secret tapes available for public review. The Libraries don't have to show balance every positive with a negative, as they are meant tributes to their subjects, but they shouldn't gloss over the negatives, either.

This photo of the stairs captures the feeling of the place, grandiose but subtle, as you move out of the LBJ exhibits and into the archives.

Got enough papers there?

The temporary exhibition was "Left to Right: Radical Movements of the 1960s", and it was also excellent. It  started with background on Saul Alinsky and his Rules for Radicals (which we purchased in the gift shop!) and then described varied social movements including the SCLC,  Hippies and Yippies, Black Power, Womens' Liberation, Free Speech (at Berkeley, especially), The Silent Minority, Sexual Liberation, Environmentalism, John Birch, and more. There was a great combination of photo, video, and audio materials, and it would take many hours to view every last bit of it. Starting it with Alinsky and the principles of organizing communities and movements was the key, because all of them followed his rules, no matter if they were left or right-wing.

After the awesome library, we had a very nice picnic lunch, with some insistent squirrels, under some shady trees on the UT campus. We were also able to pick up a "Johnson-Humphrey" bumper sticker in the gift shop - just in time!

The view during lunch

We took in some more of the UT Campus, and picked up still more college gear (burnt orange for everyone!) at the University Co-op, a literally endless array of UT-licensed merchandise, and Allegra posed with a famous longhorn. We were surprised the paint didn't melt off in the heat, only 97 degrees today.

We also took a walk in and around the Texas State Capitol, maybe the most impressive of the capitol buildings we've seen so far.

Where's Rick Perry?

The dome is very cool, with portraits of all of the governors of Texas circling on four levels, and an elaborate floor design, best seen from the 4th floor. But it's tough to get a pic of it without anyone walking into your frame. You don't want to yell at them!

Hey, you're in my shot!

A lot to take in in one day. We are nearing 3,500 miles driven so far, and after Dallas and Oklahoma City in the next couple days, we have some long drives in store. Time to get some sleep - talk to you later!

Mmmmmmm, Rice!

Day 12 of our epic voyage took us from Houston to College Station, away from the big city and out into the gorgeous rolling countryside to the northeast.

Farewell to the seemingly endless sprawl of Houston...

We did stop, on our way out of town, at Rice University, the Cambridge of the Southwest, to look at the surprisingly picturesque campus. And, of course, to acquire a few mementos from such a lovely school - Blythe and I would willingly travel to Houston if Allegra chose to attend this prestigious university (#17 in the latest US News rankings, not that those mean everything)..

It looks almost just like St. Catherine's College at Cambridge

We really like Rice

It was a really nice drive through the Brazos River Valley, rolling from maybe 100 miles from Houston to College Station. A nice short drive (for once) as well.

Our fourth Presidential Library was on the agenda for today, the George Bush, #41, on the campus of Texas A&M University. Why is it there, when President Bush is from Connecticut or Maine (depending on who you ask)? 

Even the flags are too hot to wave

The introductory film poses that question to the President, who answered that he 'just loved the feeling, the energy of the campus.' I presume it was solar energy, because the sun was almost painful out there today, our first in the triple digits! 

The George Bush Museum seemed very different from the other three that we've seen so far, with many fewer source documents on display, even electronically. There were a lot of laudatory letters (from the public and officials), some publicly issued reports, but that was about it. The one document that wasn't in that category was a letter President Bush sent to Saddam Hussein in August 1990 after the invasion of Kuwait.

At least they let you have a little fun with the President - nice glasses, George!

Way to aim high!

The other museums had a large number of memoranda and previously classified materials on display, even the Clinton Museum. It's difficult to believe that 20 years on there are still classification and presumptive "national security issues" that prevent more source-level materials to be widely shown to the public. It would make the museum a more engaging place.

Truly a piece of history 

Like the Bush presidency, the installations about foreign policy, including the Gulf War, dwarfed the domestic stuff. The piece of the Berlin Wall in the museum is very evocative, and while there are a lot of items and information about the Gulf War itself, the whole of that part felt a little stiff. The photos of the environmental damage from the oil field fires and spills were more emotional.

We took a little drive around the HUGE Texas A&M campus, snapped a photo of the imposing Kyle Field  and found our way to the bookstore, which has been temporarily relocated into the former volleyball arena (who new they had one at A&M?).

Is that sign big enough? Can you see it from space? It seats more than the population of the town!

We actually found a place to get a good salad for dinner tonight, our vegetable intake had fallen to dangerously low levels. We are off to Austin and the final president on our trip, LBJ, tomorrow. Talk to you later!

An ironic visit to NASA...

Standing in front of a rocket engine at NASA - feel the irony?

Another day on the road, rolling through the bayous of Louisiana and the petroindustrial hellscape of the Texas Gulf Coast (no offense to any Texans out there).

We started the day trying to take a look at the Tulane University campus and pick up some gear, but we had to go off-roading on Audubon Blvd and then we couldn’t find a place to park, since there are all of four parking spots for non-students. How are we supposed to show support for the Green Wave? (No offense, Emily M. and all other Tulane alums).

Naturally we stopped for a quick photo op at the Louisiana State Capitol bldg in Baton Rouge. Interesting that it's an office building rather than a classic legislative building (dome, gold statue on top, two wings, etc.). It was VERY quick, because the heat at 10 am was unholy. Also, the roads in the entire state of Louisiana are in poor to awful shape - and we know because we've driven a lot of them! (No offense, Sarah H. and any other Cajuns out there).

Which floor is the governor on?

We were finally able to get a good photo of the stateline sign coming into Texas, where they are kind enough to put it on the grounds of a rest stop. The next sign down the I-10 says "El Paso 847". It is a shorter drive from Los Angeles to El Paso than from the eastern end of Texas to El Paso! 

When we finally arrived in Houston, we zipped over the the NASA Johnson Space Center for some good space learning. 

Rockets, rockets everywhere...

We ended up on a very "touristy" and somewhat disappointing tour around the JSC in a tram that felt like they got it used from Universal Studios. Blythe and Allegra felt that it was very watered down and that NASA needs to jazz it up, make it more like Disneyland. It was cool to see the Mission Control room from the Gemini and Apollo missions, refurbished to its 1960's glory, but those consoles are primitive! And the seats in the observation gallery are clearly original from 1965.

Has anyone seen my slide rule?

We also got to stand next to an actual Saturn 5 rocket, which is unbelievably massive.

I can't even see the other end

Blythe said that, from an art history perspective, the Apollo 8 mission logo had the greatest impact. Allegra and I agreed. 

While at the JSC, where every tour guide was bemoaning the end of the space shuttle program (the last launch, of Atlantis, is scheduled for July 8th, we heard about 59 times), I was expecting to be accosted by someone for my choice of shirt, but it never happen (no offense intended to any space shuttle program veterans out there).

We finished the day off at dinner with aunt Mary Beth, her boyfriend Lou and her son Androsh. We had a very fun night out, and a late one, too - until 9:30!

And after that late night, time to sign off. More Presidential Library-ing tomorrow in College Station, so we will talk to you later!

Now we are REALLY in the South!!

After ten days and more than 2,900 miles behind us, we have reached the farthest point from home, the lovely and humid New Orleans. Today we didn't have any emotionally evocative experiences, but not every day has to be so serious. This is our vacation, after all.

Our view for most of the past few days has pretty much been this.

the open road in the South

The home of the King

We started the day at Graceland - why else come to Memphis, the ducks? Graceland is a large home, but not unbelievably so, and we only took about 45 minutes to get thru the house and mediation garden, where the King is laid to rest. The audio tour is excellent, which is good because a tour guide would be hopeless...there is no room for a guide AND a bunch of shuffling tourists. The house wasn't built as a museum.

Mr. and Mrs. Presley, you have a lovely living room

The Jungle Room is cool, especially the green shag rug on the ceiling.

The TV Room is cool in yellow and navy blue, but what is with the white monkey on the table?

The racquetball court is unreal, with the walls covered from floor to 25 foot ceiling  with gold and platinum records.

Did you enjoy the tour? Thank you very much...

And the JUMPSUITS!

Yes, Steve wishes this was his closet

There is certainly more to see at Graceland, including a car museum and the King's airplanes, but we had many miles to go today, so we took off to the south.

Yes, the plane is called the "Lisa Marie"

Somewhere on the road thru Mississippi, we saw this obelisk - what the heck?

Next stop was Jackson, Mississippi, near Pearl, the hometown of our good friend from Brooklyn, David H. We stopped at the state capitol building of course, so a little southern photo op.

Our destination for the day was New Orleans, which we hit in the late afternoon. We walked thru French Quarter, taking in the sights (and smells) of Bourbon Street. It was crowded, loud and bright, and we saw a gay pride parade, so it was kind of like being in New York, but even more humid. We got caught out in a little rain, and had some coffee and beignets at Cafe du Monde, a typical tourist time in the Big Easy.

Bourbon Street as few see it, in daylight

No, we did not partake of any of the magic green elixir

On the banks of Old Man River

Tomorrow we are off to Texas. Time to sign off, and we will talk to you tomorrow!