Texas History, Old and New

Had an interesting day yesterday.  I started out by touring the Alamo in San Antonio.  This is where about 200 Texans...from many states and several foreign countries...fought 1500 Mexicans under Santa Anna (a devious fellow who had a long and checkered career in Mexican politics).  The Alamo defenders all died, except for William Travis' slave, Joe.  A number of noncombatants also survived.  The battle inspired Texan resistance and the following month, April 1836, Sam Houston defeated Santa Anna at San Jacinto, insuring Texan independence.  Santa Anna was captured the following day, trying to impersonate a

 common soldier. 

I moved on to the LBJ National Historical Park near Johnson City, between Fredericksburg and Austin.  Johnson began his schooling at the age of four in this one room schoolhouse.  That was in 1912; over fifty years later, LBJ signed a big education bill at this spot, with his former teacher on hand.

The graves of Lyndon and Lady Bird.  She survived him by 34 years.  In 2006, I visited another house down the road where LBJ spent some of his early years; the main ranch here was not fully open to the public then because Lady Bird still lived there.  She lived til 2007, dying at 94.  This is the family cemetery on the ranch, in a pleasant oak grove.

A Hereford bull, a descendant of one of LBJ's prize bulls.  LBJ loved the ranch; he spent about a quarter of his presidency here.  He took an active interest in the ranch, but no, he didn't shovel steer shit or shoe the horses...such tasks were left to the ranch hands.

LBJ used this jet as Air Force 1 during his presidency.  He had a 6300 foot runway built on the ranch.  It replaced a dirt strip built while he was a senator.  He loved to do politics here and had many visitors and cut many deals on the ranch.  For some reason, many of these small pix are coming out blurry...blow them up by clicking on them and you'll get a larger and clearer image.

LBJ liked Lincoln Continentals with suicide doors, and had a fleet of them at the ranch.  In the background is an amphibious car that he used with guests from time to time.

There are many fine oak trees on the ranch.  This one is called the Cabinet Oak...right next to the main house.  LBJ used to assemble his cabinet for meetings here, under this tree.  Many a discouraging word about Vietnam was undoubtedly said here.  I toured the house...couldn't take pix inside, but it was familiar to me...furnishings straight out of the 1960s and 70s.   Phones in every room...LBJ wanted to stay connected but obviously had no cell phones, so he had 72 lines in the house.  Many speaker phones.  He had a phone built into the dining table next to his chair, and another one next to the toilet in his bathroom.  There were also TVs in every room.  Two rooms had three televisions side by side...one for each network...and that's all there was!  No cable, no Fox.  Just ABC, NBC, CBS.

I've now moved on to Austin.  It has a dazzling modern skyline, many buildings having popped up just since my previous visit in 2006.

Skullers on the Colorado River at dusk, joining the throngs of people waiting for the evening bat flyoff.,

And there they go!  Every night at dusk in spring and summer, thousands of bats fly out from under the Commerce Avenue bridge in search of tasty insects. Bats are our friends...each eats over a thousand mosquitoes a night!  Late March is early in the bat season, so the numbers are only in the thousands...by summer well over half a million of the critters sortie every evening.

Austin is a hip, happenin' scene.  Lots of music, clubs, and barbecue. It's a cool city.

The Texas state capitol.

One of the new skyscrapers with nocturnal illumination.

It's wildflower season in Tejas.  The medians and sides of many highways are very colorful in early spring.  Here a dense field of bluebonnets merge with pretty red flowers whose name I don't know.

I have reached Galveston, on the Gulf of Mexico.  A strong onshore southeast wind has the ol' Gulf roiling.  Galveston is famous for its fine Victorian homes.  Like San Francisco, a catastrophe wiped many of them out...in this case the hurricane of 1900.  These are on the bay side of town, a long way from the ocean.  This particular home has a nice widow's walk on top.

A particularly spiffy place across the street from the widow's walk home.  Tomorrow I will cruise the historic district and take more pix.