Austin, Texas

Painted Bunting

Yesterday was our break day for the trip. We visited an old elementary school mate of Laura, Melinda Biggs. We caught up on old times and new times. She has become the success of her family, currently as a fundraiser for a women’s shelter in the Austin area. We had a conversation filled 2 hour lunch. Then I got a chance to do a little hiking in Perdenales Falls State Park. Again, lots of wild flowers, I scared up a deer (and a rabbit), but overall it was good to just walk the park.

Oval Office at LBJ Library

Today, we went into Austin. The primary stop for the day was the LBJ library. As most presidential libraries do, it brought to mind his key achievements and challenges. He had been a teacher in a poor area of Texas before starting his political career. He became a congressman, then a senator, and after only four years, Senate minority leader, followed by becoming majority leader 4 years after that. It was interesting that even in the Senate, he managed the first Civil Rights bill (of 1957) to pass since the civil war. This from a southern Senator. While he ran for president in 1960, as we know, John Kennedy won the nomination and he settled for the Vice President nomination. After suddenly becoming president, after Kennedy’s assassination, he was probably our most effective president in getting legislation through congress: Medicare, Medicaid, the first food programs for the poor, Head Start, the 1964 Civil Rights act, the voting rights act, the fair housing act, clean water act, clean air act, auto safety, were all bills he drove through Congress. His Great Society effort did reduce the poverty rate from 20% to 12% of Americans during his 5 years of office. Of course, his challenge was Vietnam. He continued the policies of Eisenhower and Kennedy to stop the threat of Communism by aiding South Vietnam. But when it became clear that they wouldn’t make it with just advisors, he turned it into an American war. This, of course, became his downfall. He decided not to run for President in 1968, but to spend his time trying to pursue a peace agreement with Ho Chi Minh. We lose sight of all the things he accomplished because of his stance on Vietnam.

Texas State Capitol

We next toured the Texas State Capitol, primarily made of sunset red granite on the exterior. This capital was designed by the same architect that did both Colorado’s and Michigan’s capital. The most interesting thing about that capital was the annex to it, which is where most of the offices and committee rooms are – it’s totally underground, yet each of the offices is well lit by sunlight.

A few blocks away is the Texas State History museum. We were swamped by 4^th grade students who were learning their state history. This is actually a well-done museum, but with our tour of the Missions and the Alamo in San Antonio, we knew most of the early history of Texas – so much of this was a repeat. They did have a good “Spirit of Texas” multimedia presentation. They made good use of effects for getting the feel of the destruction of Galveston in the early 1900s as well as raining snakes upon the audience. We followed this up with the history of Texas from the civil war, through the 20^th century. They did a great job of depicting the cowboys, rancher, cotton farmers, rice farmers and loggers followed by the effects of the oil boom.

We finished our day by going to see the falls of Perdernales Falls State Park. They weren’t much in these dry conditions, but you could tell by the carving of the limestone rock around the falls, that you wouldn’t want to be here during a flood.