Heading home through Kansas

Mid-America Air Museum

We headed back to Colorado today, saying goodbye to Texas and Oklahoma. Tornados tore through the Dallas area last night causing major damage. Sure glad we left on Monday! Our only stop for the day was the Mid-America Air Museum in Liberal, Kansas. They had quite a large collection of civilian airplanes, especially Cessna and several versions of planes made from kits for amateur pilots. Tomorrow, we’re headed to Beth’s and then home the next day. The day ended with a gorgeous sunset.

Eisenhower's Presidential Plane

So what’s the summary of this trip? First, one of surprise, we hadn’t expected the variety of terrain we saw in Texas. The hill country was truly beautiful, the fir trees in Eastern Texas was something we would expect only in the north woods or mountains and then the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma felt like land above tree-line. The highlights of the trip was the Pacific War Museum in Fredericksburg and the Missions of San Antonio. The combination of the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas with the LBJ library also brought back our memories of the 1960s. It was an interesting trip.  
An 11 minute video of this trip with these pictures and more is available on youtube.

Kansas Sunset

Southwestern Oklahoma

Time to see the ‘gem’ attractions of Southwestern Oklahoma. We started at the Chisholm Trail Heritage Center. This is a different museum – one section has numerous interactive activities, the best was trying to decide how to drive your cattle to market when you encountered Indians, swollen rivers, troublesome cattle, etc. Another had a 4-D (with lightning, rain, wind, and smells) movie of a cattle drive. Then a animatronic discussion around the campfire of how the Chisholm trail got its name – Chisholm for whom the trail was named was one of the first to use it – not driving cattle, but moving trade goods. Others followed his tracks and thus the Chisholm trail was created from Southern Texas to Abilene, Kansas from where the railroad could take the cattle to market.

Buffalo Soldier at Fort Sill

Next stop was Fort Sill. This fort was created to police the Indian territories before Oklahoma was a state. The fort has been continuously occupied since, so the original quadrangle of stone building is still standing from 1872. This was also the home of the Buffalo soldiers as well as many Indian troops. After statehood, the fort became the home of various artillery divisions. While we were there, we could hear the boom of the artillery in the distance. While we were there it started boring and both of us got soaked trying to get back to the car.

Our camping site is up in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. Just west of Fort Sill, the terrain started changing. Hills arose filled with prairie grass, yellow flowers and large rock formations. This preserve was created in 1905, just before the Oklahoma land rush. It’s significance is that it served as a preserve for buffalo (at the time most bison were in zoos), elk (which had been reduced to just the states of Montana, and Wyoming), and big horn cattle (which had interbred with other cows). The country reminded me of how different the Black Hills are from the rest of South Dakota. There are quite a few campers up here, most from other parts of Oklahoma.

Wichita Mountains

Chickasaw National Recreation Area

Leaving Texas

 Yesterday, we arrived at Chickasaw National Recreation Area about 70 miles south of Oklahoma City. We have a beautiful campsite with electricity and water right on the lake. The weather is in the 80’s during the day, thank goodness for the breeze coming off the water. These two days are primarily for a little relaxation and some hiking. Yesterday, I hiked along the shoreline to the picnic area. Today, we hiked to the natural springs. But after 3 years of drought the springs and the creek that should flow from them are completely dry. This afternoon, I hiked the campgrounds, they’ve done an excellent job here. Anyway, it’s just nice having a break from all our sightseeing.

Our Campsite

Dallas Arboretum

Dallas Arboretum

 




 Quinceanera portrait

Mother’s Day in Dallas. We decided to visit the Dallas Arboretum and were happy we did. It was a beautiful day in the high 70’s. The parking lot was filling fast when we arrived. We strolled the grounds with many an extended family. We kept encountering young Latino girls all dressed up in flowing gowns celebrating their Quinceanera. The photographers were finding all sorts of poses among the flowers, waterfalls and fountains. Of course, there were many flowers in bloom in well-orchestrated scenes, but there were also large grassy expanses and here families had brought their picnic lunches. The gardens also had tepees, cabins, and other play areas for the kids, so it was a real family outing. We arrived at about 11 AM and spent almost the entire day. We had planned on going to the Perot Museum of Science in the afternoon, but it was such a pleasant setting, we couldn’t see leaving. After our pleasant afternoon, we went out to eat a Dos Aces in Terrel, TX for a nice Mexican dinner.

Dallas Zoo and George W Bush library

Beams from World Trade Center

Now for the other Bush, George W. Bush. His library opened last week, so the crowds were pretty heavy. The exhibits went from childhood almost immediately to his bid for Governor of Texas except for acknowledging a drinking problem during that about 'silent' period. But then again, there was considerable space spent on the 2000 election, the back and forth of which way Florida had voted, culminating in a Supreme Court Decision – lamenting Florida’s poor election controls, but agreeing that the votes had to be counted according to the existing state process. The key policies of the early Bush administration were to provide tax cuts to move the economy forward, the “No child left behind” program to ensure that poor Americans had sufficient education opportunities, and surprisingly a World AIDS program to reduce that disease in Africa. The best part of the library was the days around September 11^th – it vividly brought back those memories , especially the destruction of the World Trade Center. America didn’t know what would happen next, and Bush did his best to get us to return to a normal life as quickly as possible. Of course, Congress passed the Patriot Act giving new powers to the Federal government to monitor terrorist activities in the U.S. and his administration started using “intense interrogation techniques", that many would consider torture, to determine what other terrorist activities might occur. The fact that none have occurred since then in the U.S. (while many have occurred world-wide) is considered a success of these policies. There is also a lot on both the War in Afghanistan and Iraq allowing you to see the strategies considered, taken, and the results of those decisions. One of the more interesting aspects of the museum was “decision points” where you are faced with a decision (our's was about Katrina: should we let the National Guard handle the situation, send federal troops without police power, or invoke the insurrection act and send troops with policing power). The group decision was to invoke the act, Bush chose to send troops without policing power (which is what Mary and I chose).  The museum finished up with other policies of the Bush administration: adding drug benefits to Medicare (which passed), an immigration reform bill and changing Social Security with private accounts (both of which were never passed). No matter what one thinks of Bush, this was a good summary of his administration.

Lion at Dallas Zoo

In the afternoon, we went to the Dallas Zoo. While it is a rather small zoo (we saw all of it in 3 hours), it obviously has been recently modernized. Most of the exhibits were large environments with a minimum of bars and fences. That was particularly true for the gorilla, lion, and cheetah exhibits. It being a Saturday, the zoo was crowded, but that also meant we had lots of activity going on. We saw the feeding of the Nile Crocodiles, Orangutans, and a bird show. Our highlight was the bird exhibit with a nice selection of colorful birds: a toveta-golden weavers, saddle-bill storks, and red and yellow barbets. And --- we finally saw a tiger, they’ve hidden from us in India and during our last two zoo visits.   

Red and Yellow Barbet

Texas State Book Depository

Last night, the lightning was close and frequent, and it poured at least an inch of rain. But the rain stopped sometime after we went to bed. It’s amazing how much this reminds me of the north woods of Wisconsin. Lots of fir trees close to the road and the periodic lakes or rivers. As we head toward Dallas this morning, the country transitions to more deciduous trees, rolling hills, and dairy/cattle farms. We’re staying at the Bluebonnet RV Park about 30 minutes to the east of Dallas. It was recently picked as one of the top 100 Good Sam parks and it shows – a clean campground with large sites, a pool and even tennis courts.

Shots from far right window on sixth floor

After lunch, we head into Dallas to explore the Sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository from where Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F. Kennedy. The museum is well done with lots of photos, artifacts (like many of the cameras that captured what we know of the shooting), videos and an audio tour of the museum. It starts with Kennedy’s campaign and election, goes through many of the key programs he initiated: the Peace Corp, the Space program, and the fight for a Civil Rights Bill (which Johnson would eventually get passed). Then it goes deeply into the trip to Texas (primarily a political trip) and the fatal day he was shot in Dallas. The most interesting items, however, were the subsequent investigations into whether Oswald acted alone or not. There was the initial investigation by the Warren Commission, then another by the House Committee on Assassinations 1978 (where they concluded that there was a 4^th shot that missed from the grassy knoll.  Of course, there have been many criticisms of the initial investigations and many conspiracy theories, but we probably will never know. It was also interesting to see the film of the funeral and public parade of Kenney, ending with Jackie lighting the eternal flame. This was a well done museum and well worth the time. We also went to the JFK memorial a few blocks away, a simple memorial from the people of Dallas.

George H. W. Bush Library

Situation Room at George Bush Library

We headed east from Austin to reach College Station, Texas and the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library. George served as a pilot in World War II, was shot down, and rescued at sea. He came home to marry Barbara, and moved to Texas, where he eventually founded a petroleum company and made his fortune. His father had been a congressman, so he tried his hand there. Failing a Senate bid, he ran 2 years later for a congressional seat. He would again try for a Senate seat and lose in a close election. President Nixon asked him to become the Republican National Committee chair, just after Nixon's second election and the Watergate affair. He would later become Ambassador to China, the U.N. and was head of the CIA for a year. He ran for President in 1980, but Reagan won the nomination and then asked him to become Vice-President. He finally won the Presidency in 1988. But with a Congress led by the Democrats, he didn’t actually get much legislation passed. His big moment was Desert Storm, after Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait. He did get the U.N. to apply sanctions and then ratify a multinational force to free Kuwait. Of course, this became the shortest war in American History. The museum had a great multimedia presentation on the war, giving you the feel of a soldier in the war. The rest of the museum tended to emphasize the importance of family in his life, his long marriage to Barbara, and the success of his sons in politics.

Desert Storm Simulation

We headed for our campsite in Huntsville State Park, but the GPS system sent us in the wrong direction. The weather is quickly worsening, so we happened upon a camp resort next to a lake and found a campsite just before the lightning storm began. We managed to get set up just in time before it began pouring. It may be a long night.