Spring, 2005: Out

This trip report is divided into three parts: "Out," "Texas," and "Back." To jump directly to "Texas," click here.

Columbia, South Carolina
March 2, 2005

Hi, Y'all:

We're on the road again, but briefly. Too many things were going on at home that we weren't able/didn't want to leave for our usual trip.
We left our house in the care of Dan, Carrie, and Genevieve, packed the trunk of the car, and headed south. That's right: the car.


We left the van in storage in the driveway, where it has been since February of last year, and decided that the car would be more practical for a trip to visit cities rather than forests, deserts, and swamps. Shortly before we left, I drove the van up and down the driveway a few time just to keep its juices flowing. We left the bikes and scuba gear at home as well; if need be, we'll rent.


Also, we have the 100,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty on the car that we have to use up by 2010 With our usual driving of 8,000 miles per year with the car, we won't even come close; we do most of our touring in the van.


We'll have to make some life-style changes, too. With no kitchen with us, we'll be eating out more. [Stock tip: Buy Burger King or McDonald's] With no bedroom with us, we'll be staying more at cheap motels [Movie tip: Psycho was one of Hitchcock's best] With no bathroom with us....[Dietary tip: Don't eat yellow snow]

Myrtle Beach, SC

After leaving about half a foot of snow behind is in Richmond, VA, we headed for Myrtle Beach, S.C. Myrtle Beach has three things going for it: Golf (which we don't), miniature golf (which is closed until spring), and the beach (which is cold and windy). We did have the opportunity to hole-up while Sarah got over a spell of bronchitis.


On the way out of Myrtle Beach heading south we visited Brookgreen which advertises itself to be the largest sculpture garden in the world. With more than 500 pieces, some by artists of whom we've heard, I can believe their claim. The property was cobbled together, as a winter home, from three defunct rice plantations in the early 1900s by the Huntingtons, a couple with bucks. The rice plantations had deteriorated after the emancipation of the slaves following the Civil War and returned to native vegetation. The homes fell into ruin. Only the kitchen of the original plantation buildings remain; it's the snack shop.


Sarah at Brookgreen, Myrtle Beach, SC

In addition to being a sculpture garden, Brookgreen is an ecology center. Of course it is a classic example of 'old field succession,' but they also maintain domestic animals that were present on the plantations in the 1700s and ecology study areas with native fauna. The easiest to see were the red foxes (their color makes them stand out) and the alligator (which doesn't move too much at the current temperature (mid 50s). The wild turkeys were easy to see; they were all over.

Charleston

We ended up for the night just outside of Charleston and went into town the following morning. Our plan was to take a motel downtown, use the parking lot, and hoof it for the day. The plan worked: We registered (even though the room wasn't ready), parked, and started to walk. Charleston is smaller than Boston and we were easily able to see the highlights. The housing is largely antebellum, but often painted in pastels. It was interesting to see retrofitted indoor plumbing with the pipes running up the outside of some of the houses. They can do that here because it doesn't get too far below freezing for too long. (We saw the same thing done in England a few months ago.) Many of the homes have small, charming enclosed gardens which are well tended. Some of the larger homes have large formal gardens; tended by professional, no doubt.


One of the highlights of Charleston is the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon. Here travelers from other states and countries could exchange their currency for South Carolina specie. Also, pirates and other malefactors were held for a short period of time: The few days between capture, trial and execution.


Charleston (or Charles Towne as it was known before the Revolutionary War) had a 'Tea Party.' Instead of throwing the casks of tea into the drink ala Boston, the Charles Towne rebels sold it on the black market to finance the revolution. Also during the Revolutionary War, the rebels captured tons of gun powder from the British and hid it in the Exchange behind a brick wall. When the British reclaimed Charles Towne, they used the Exchange as their headquarters, but didn't discover the gunpowder. Much of the gunpowder was sent with Andrew Jackson and helped defeat the British at New Orleans.

We also visited the cradle of reform Judaism in the U.S., Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim which was founded in 1749. (They became Reform in 1841.) The current building is from 1840. It is, they say, the oldest surviving Reform synagogue in the world (which is the unfortunate result of World War II) and the second oldest synagogue in the U.S. and the oldest in continuous use.


In an interesting and sad turn of events during the Civil War (The War Between the States here), believing that Sherman was on his way to burn Charleston, the congregation sent their torah scrolls and their organ to a synagogue in Columbia, the state capitol, for safekeeping. Unfortunately for them, Sherman burned Columbia, starting with the synagogue, and didn't go to Charleston at all.


On the way out of Charleston, we visited two plantations. The first, Drayton Hall (1738), is the oldest preserved plantation in the U.S. open to the public and the oldest surviving example of Georgian-Palladian architecture in the South. (Our house is also Georgian, but in the North and not so old.)


Second, we went to Middleton Place (early 1700s). It boasts America's oldest landscaped garden (and pretty large, as well). Only one of the three major buildings is still standing. The mansion and 10,000 book library were destroyed by the 56th New York Volunteers in February, 1865 as well as many of the statues in the gardens. (It seems that some New Yorkers are still volunteering to destroy building and deface statues, and vandalize books.) The surviving building was reconstructed to become the family's home by 1870 and continued to be so for more than 100 years.


Camellias were first planted (according to family tradition) here and make up much of the green-walled paths. The Middleton family were big names in South Carolina: a signer of the Declaration of Independence, president of the Continental Congress, governor of S.C., and U.S. representative to Russia (but not all the same person). This plantation is large and, in addition to the house tour, has artisans such as potters and ironworkers demonstrating their skills. An up-scale restaurant prepares traditional South Carolina dishes; it isn't cheap. Touring this plantation can be a whole-day affair.



March 6, 2005

Columbia, SC

We spent several days in Columbia, South Carolina's capital. The first morning we spent an hour at the state Capitol Building. Construction on the edifice began in the late 1850s, but took a hiatus during the Civil War and was not completed until 1907. We spent some time watching debates in both houses of the legislature. One of the debates involved a new federal initiative to require states to enact tougher seatbelt laws by threatening to withhold transportation funds. Several legislators spoke in opposition of the S.C. bill to fine drivers if backseat passengers are not buckled-up. (“I don't care who's in the White House,” said one 'state's rights' advocate.)

A statue of John Calhoun greets visitors who use 52 step stairway to the main entrance. Unfortunately, because of new heightened security, visitors enter through a ground floor side entrance for scanning. The Craftsman multi-tool that I wear on my belt and causes problem with NYC museums was no problem here. Some people can recognize the difference between a weapon and a tool (or, perhaps, a fashion statement).

There are many other statues and monuments on the grounds of the capitol. Of course, there is one of Strom Thurmond who served nearly half a century in the U.S. Senate and also served as governor of S.C.

There are two large monuments of note. The African-American History Monument traces more than 300 years of the history of African Americans in S.C. A part of the monument has four stones for visitors to touch which come from regions of Africa where South Carolina-bound slaves were captured. Second is the Palmetto Regiment Monument which honors the men who fought in the Mexican War of 1848. It is the oldest and most elaborate of the monuments on the grounds of the capitol.

Also on the grounds of the capitol is the Confederate Monument; an obelisk erected in 1879 and a flagpole flying the flag of the Army of Northern Virgina (the ubiquitous Confederate flag). The Confederate flag flew over the statehouse for several decades and was on display in both houses of the legislature until 2000. Those flags are gone (to the State Museum).

Most of our afternoon was spent in the South Carolina State Museum. The museum has dioramas of S.C. habitats, displays of prehistoric S.C. animals, and a traveling exhibit, dinosaur predators. Cultural history is presented in displays of plantation and rural life. Special attention is paid to Mill Life and textiles.

On the science floor, there are numerous hands-on devices to teach scientific principles, particularly in physics. Particular attention is paid to native son Joseph Goldstein who won the Noble Prize (1985) for his work with cholesterol.

On a historical note, we saw a full size model of the CSS Hunley, the first successful submarine. (It sunk the USS Housitanic during the Civil War. The Hunley attached an underwater bomb to the wooden hull of the Housitanic with a spike. It looked much like a narwhal with its single forward-projecting tusk)

More battles of the Revolutionary War were fought in South Carolina than any other state. One of the first was at Fort Moultrie (a week before the Declaration of Independence, 6/28/1776) in which the British were kept out of Charles Towne harbor, the largest seaport in the South. The hastily-built fort was constructed of palmetto logs which absorbed the cannonballs rather than shattering. This battle is commemorated by the palmetto on the state flag.

The Battle of Cowpens (portrayed in 'The Patriot,' but set near Charles Towne for the film) also played an important part in the war. Mostly, the South Carolinians kept the British occupied with numerous small skirmishes and kept troops from the larger battles lead by George Washington and others in the north.

In the same building as the State Museum (and the tax office) is the S.C. Confederate Relic Room & Museum. It is larger than one may expect and the vitrines (a fancy name for glass display boxes) present artifacts for all of the wars in which South Carolinians have participated. One unusual item was General Beauregard's tooth (extracted after the war to treat pyorrhea).

We saw names that we recognized from Charleston. We learned that a boat belonging to F. Mordechai, whose home we saw two days earlier, was used to transport the Federal troops from Ft. Sumpter to New York City. When in Charleston, we saw Silver's five & dime and Silver's clothing store, both on King St. Are they related to Silverberg (also of King St. but in 1861) who was the original manufacturer of Confederate caps?

Friday was a beautiful day with lots of sunshine and mild weather. What does one do on such a day? We went to the zoo, of course!

The Riverbanks Zoo is only twenty-five years old, but looks newer. The reptile house is state-of-the-art and showed off our slithery friends in all of their finest with well-lit and well appointed enclosures. It was the best of many fine exhibits. One unusual activity: Giraffe feeding. A buck (a dollar, not a male giraffe) buys some carrot pieces to feed to the long-necked animals lined up near the raised (of course) platform. I had a chance to pat a giraffe of the head. I learned that they don't like that. Giraffes don't bite the hand that feeds them; at least not mine.

Another out-door activity was our private (we were the only visitors at the time) tour of the Lexington Museum, a collection of homes and out-buildings, moved to the site, from Lexington County's past. After the tour, we had the opportunity to chat with the guides about goings on in the area.

We finished the evening at the Columbia Museum of Art which was opened only seven years ago. It is not large and has few works from big-name artists, but we spent a pleasant, if short, time there.

With all that we've read about the South and the Evolution-Creation issue, we took note that all exhibits that we saw represent the accepted scientific viewpoint.

Augusta, GA

Augusta, Georgia had less for us than we expected and we were out of there in a few hours. In the early 1800s Augustans(?) harnessed the Savannah River and built numerous mills and factories along its banks. Today, an impressive 15 year old brick 'Riverwalk' makes the Savannah River a tourist attraction and a site for family outings.

Along the Riverwalk is Ft. Discovery, a hands-on science center that is only ten years old which has many activities. Most of them, however, are physics activities and concepts. We both enjoyed experiencing the gyroscopic power of a motorcycle (secured in place) which helps keep it upright while moving.

Also along the Riverwalk is the Morris Art Museum which appears to be about the same age as Ft. Discovery. While the science museum was poorly visited for a weekend, the Morris was almost empty. Although we knew that there were other visitors, at no time were we in a room with others. Maybe it was the multi-tool on my belt.

After Augusta, we spent a brief, but pleasant visit with our Madison, Georgia family catching up on local events. While there we had the opportunity to see a newborn calf, sit in the recently renovated antique tractor, and visit a giant coop containing thousands (?) of chicks running around. The following afternoon we left for Atlanta.

Atlanta, GA

As with Augusta, we didn't do much in Atlanta, either, but not because there wasn't much to do. As Dan went to school here and was married nearby, we've visited many times and have already seen the sights. Some bear revisiting, but not this trip.

We did go to eat at The Varsity , the worlds largest drive-in, with our GA Tech nephew. We had learned about it on a PBS feature on hot dogs. At one time The Varsity employed 100 carhops. We tried the specialty 100% beef hot dogs; Nathan's has nothing to fear.

Alabama

Alabama has poorer soil that most of the other states of the South. The soil did not lend itself to the development of the genteel agrarian lifestyle, so few plantations. There was much 'sharecropping' in which landowners took a share of the profits from those tilling the soil. There were different levels of sharecropping depending on what the sharecropper brought to the arrangement (tools, mules, etc). There were ½, 1/3, and ¼ sharecroppers.

Driving in Alabama has some peculiar difficulties. For example, in driving from Birmingham to the Southern Museum of Flight, the conversation went something like:

S: Take I-20 West.

A: We want to go east.

S: The sign says I-20 W goes to Tuscaloosa. We want to go toward Tuscaloosa.

A: Tuscaloosa is west; the museum is to the east.

S: The museum is toward Tuscaloosa.

A: No, it's not.

S: (Looks at map) Oh! Take I 20 East...toward Tallapoosa

As amusing as this Tuscaloosa-Tallapoosa confusion may be, consider it at 60 MPH about a mile from the exit.

If only left and right were on the map....

I guess that Tuscaloosa was on her mind. We had just been to the Birmingham Zoo and learned of the dental problem with Alabama elephants: Their tusks are...you know.

Birmingham, Alabama

March 6-9, 2005

The Statue of Vulcan is the symbol for Birmingham. It was built to proclaim the the predominance of the iron industry here, now it commemorates it. It is the largest cast iron statue in the world and the second largest statue in the U.S. after the Statue of Liberty. There is no competition in the arena of size: Our girl could easily step on 51' Vulcan with barely the raise of her hem. Built here for the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Vulcan deteriorated over the years (Largely due, no doubt, to the acid rain caused by the emissions of the iron industry.) Vulcan's renovations were completed last year.

What do you do when it's dreary and drizzly? Go to the zoo! Actually, when we went to the Birmingham Zoo, it was only dreary; the drizzle started later. There were few people there. We were the only ones visiting the lorikeet enclosure and spent a while discussing the zoo and its residents with one of the keepers as the colorful Australian birds flew around occasionally perching on us. (We were happy to emerge poop-free.) We were among the six people watching the sea lions being fed. Maybe the weather kept the people away, maybe it was the high admission: $11.00 for adults.

Sarah and the lorikeets.

It is a medium-size zoo that is in a rebuilding phase. Although the exhibits are adequate, I can't say that anything is outstanding. The reptile house can be considered above average. They do have an arrangement that we've not seen elsewhere: Social animals are in a single house (different displays) without regard to phylum.

Across the road from the zoo is the Botanical Garden. Few things were in bloom. We checked out the pansy and bulb beds and the greenhouse, then split for the indoor science museum downtown.

The McWane Science Center, which we have visited before, has changed their exhibit space. The entire third floor was devoted to the King Tut exhibit. There was an extra fee to see this exhibit of 120 replica artifacts; we didn't see it. We had seen, and were very impressed with, this exhibit when we saw it several years ago in a different museum.

Most of the second floor has become an attraction for young children, Richard Scary's Busy Town, with many small-size activity centers. Although I like to play with science stuff, these activities were too juvenile for me. There is, however, a bicycle that one can ride out on a high wire (over a net). We each took a turn. This was NOT for young children, but had to be on an upper floor because it is not as impressive to ride a bicycle on a wire on the ground.

Allen rides on a high-wire at the McWane Science Center.

We made the most of our second day here by visiting a variety of places. We started our day at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, an African-American church, in which four girls were killed during a bombing in 1963 during the Civil Rights era. A large stained-glass window over the balcony was a gift from the people of Wales, UK from collected funds.

The price is right (free) at the Birmingham Museum of Art; parking included. They have one of the largest displays of Wedgwood. There's more than just knick-knacks, and not just jasperware. They also have a fair-size collection from various Asian cultures and Africa.

Looking at art worked up an appetite that we quenched at the Irondale Cafe which was the setting for the novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe on which the film FGT was based. Lots of trains went by.

After lunch we took in the country side at the Ruffner Mountain Nature Center (very small). We helped the ranger by pointing out an improperly labeled display and he removed the item. This is a least the third time this trip that we have alerted guides or docents to errors. Most times, we just keep quiet.

The Southern Museum of Flight is a small museum near the Birmingham Airport that we have been visiting about every other year. Most of their aircraft are locally built. I find it fascinating to see aircraft powered with chain-saw motors or put together with pop-rivets (saves time and doesn't require skill, says the sign). They have some commercially built and military airplanes, as well. They are currently building a new wing :-)

On the way back to our motel, we stopped at Sloss Furnace, one of the iron foundries that put Birmingham on the map. Opening in the late 1800s, the foundry employed 2000 men in the arduous task of turning ore into pig iron. It was said that if the company had been using animals instead of men, the ASPCA would have closed them down. With advancing technologies, by the mid 1900s the foundry only needed about 250 employees. This gave the former employees the time to visit the unemployment office, follow their wives around, or watch “As the World Turns.” Today, they'd surf the web.

Montgomery, Alabama

March 9-11, 2005

This is the state capital. Our motel is only a few blocks from the Capitol Building. We've been in so many motels so far this trip, I'm afraid that some night I'll forget the room layout and urinate in the closet.

After the one hour + drive from B'ham, we visited Old Alabama Town , a collection of shops and homes from 19^th and early 20^th century Alabama. Building were brought to the site and arranged onto two city blocks; one for shops, the other for homes. Historic homes that are not open to the public are along the adjacent street. We spent several hours there, then broke for lunch.

After lunch, we wandered the galleries of the Montgomery

Museum of Fine Arts . This museum is significantly smaller than the Birmingham Art Museum, but costs the same. [Free] You seem to get more APB (art per buck) in Alabama than other states.

It was chill (well below normal) in the a.m. and President Bush was coming to Montgomery (Auburn University) to promote his Social Security agenda. What do you do when it's chill and the president is coming to town? Go to the zoo!

The Montgomery Zoo is small and has few animal houses. The animals are kept on grassy plains arranged by continent. Predators are kept separate from prey, of course. In one odd arrangement, North America, the nene (Hawaiian goose) is in the same enclosure as bison and deer.

Reptiles are in a modern building with realistic displays. The alligators are kept outside and at the current temperatures, they don't move very much. As we appeared to be two of the six visitors that morning (and two of those were in carriages), the coins sitting on the back of one of the alligators must have been tossed there one or more days ago. Some were still stacked showing how little alligators move when they're cold. I still wouldn't go in there.

Back in town (within easy walking distance from our motel) were the other sites that we visited for the day. The old Capitol building (used until 1985) is much less elaborate than most other historic state capitals. One can see the entire building well in under an hour.

A few blocks away is the MOOseum, sponsored by the Alabama Cattlemen's Association. A small exhibit on the ground floor of the Cattlemen's building; it's designed to get children to eat more beef. We learned a thing or two about cattle ranching in Alabama.

Also in the area are the Civil Rights Memorial with a quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Dexter Street Baptist Church where he was pastor from 1954-60. It was in the church that the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 was coordinated.

Mobile, Alabama

March 11-13, 2005

Before we even got into town, we visited the Mobile Botanical Garden and the Mobile Museum of Art. Both were small. The art museum is only three years old. Although they had works of art from all of the populated continents, there weren't enough from any to fill a room of their own. The botanic garden is free, but not really worth it; certainly not between camellia and azalea season.

Speaking of green things: The following day was the St. Patrick's Day parade (a few days early) in downtown Mobile. The parade, like the Mardi Gras parades, consisted of floats with riders tossing bead necklaces and other trinkets to the crowd. There were much fewer floats than Mardi Gras, but also less of a crowd. Therefore, Sarah got just as much plastic stuff as usual. Of the things that were different with the St. Pat rick's Day parade: Plush leprechauns and fresh cabbages.

The highlight of our visit to Mobile was 'Deuteronomy in Dixie' at the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center. The exhibit here is part of a multi-city tour of Dead Sea scroll fragments and other artifacts from the Israel Antiquities Authority. Discovered in 11 caves along the Dead Sea beginning in 1947, the fragments are the oldest surviving texts of the bible and other religious texts of a Jewish cult living along the Dead Sea in Israel more than 2000 years ago. A small group of experts have been piecing together the fragments like a jigsaw puzzle and translating them. As a testament to the Masorites who hand-copied the books of the bible for millennia, there are few differences between the text of these documents and those that we use today. Until the discovery of these scrolls, the oldest known bible was from about 1,000 years ago. Upon exiting, one of the museum people commented that if it took us less than an hour to see the exhibit, we didn't really see it all. We spent about three hours.

One of the fragments has the section of Deuteronomy which contains the Decalogue, but the commandments are in a different order than what is used today. The curators, who pointed out the different arrangement of books in the bibles of Jews, Catholics, and Protestants and some other differences, missed the opportunity here to point out that the different faiths have different arrangements of the 13 commandments in their Decalogues, but keep the total at ten. (Otherwise it wouldn't be a Decalogue.)

The curators could also have pointed out that the different faiths have different translations of the commandments. This would have made the exhibit even more meaningful to the people of Alabama as there is a continuing controversy over a Ten Commandments monument placed [and later removed (along with the Chief Justice)] in their Supreme Court building.

The exhibit is very popular and tickets were sold out each of the days that we were here. We bought our tickets the night before we went and the earliest time we could get was 5:45p.m. We saw many people who had purchased their tickets on-line before coming to the museum; they had bar-coded print-outs in their hands. The are many church groups coming by bus; we saw their names on the cafe reservation board and the buses loading.

Some of the items that we found interesting include one of the oldest surviving pair of phylacteries, a text of psalms in ancient Hebrew with the tetragramaton written in paleo-Hebrew for emphasis, and the community rule forbidding defecating on the sabbath.

In order to demonstrate the continuity between the writers of the Dead Sea scrolls and the present, the exhibit ends with a Czech Holocaust Torah on loan from a synagogue in Atlanta, GA.

To see "Texas," the next portion of this trip, click here.

Spring, 2005: Texas

Houston, Texas

March 14-21, 2005

Howdy,

It is said locally that everything is bigger in Texas. This does not seem to apply to museums. That's not to say that the museums aren't good; some are.

We spent our first day here at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston . The museum is housed in two building connected by an underground passageway. The larger of the buildings was opened in 2000. We were fortunate to be here to see the special “Cartier Collection” of jewelry created by the famous French company (This show closes next week.). I was surprised to see such extravagant pieces made at the turn of the 20^th century in platinum, rather than gold; not that there weren't enough gold pieces in the collection. It was also interesting to see carved emeralds, rather than cut stones. They lacked sparkle and didn't look like gems. I offered to get Sarah a piece of Cartier jewelry, but she didn't think that I would get more than ten feet.

The permanent collection is adequate, but none of the paintings are spectacular. They have many works by some big names in fine art such as Modigliani (10 letters), but not their better works. Last year they bought their first Rembrandt, a bigger name (Rembrandt van Rijn (16 letters); it's a portrait of a woman. To give you an idea of its quality, it's previous owner had it in storage for most of the last century. It's no wonder that the painting was for sale. The MFAH didn't really buy the painting, they bought the name.

The feature painting at this time is La Fornarina by Raphael. It is in the U.S. for the first time on loan from Italy for a three city tour. It's really good! The man has a future in art.

What is spectacular at the MFAH is their collection of gold pieces from Africa, particularly Ghana and the Ivory Coast. As Africans recycle old gold items and keep items as family treasures rather than selling them, it is rare to see antique gold items on display in museums and even rarer in such quantity. The items on display were almost all the gift of a single collector.

Sarah at Bayou Bend.

Also part of the MFAH, which we visited on another day, is Bayou Bend, the home built by Ima Hogg, the daughter of Texas' first native-born governor. Built in the 1920s, the home is furnished with pieces spanning three centuries arranged in period rooms. President Bush the First dined here with heads of state. In the formal gardens, we found a shady spot and relaxed a while enjoying the ambiance.

The 'formal garden' of Bayou Bend.'

Another part of the MFAH is Rienzi, the former home of other rich people. These people collected antiques, primarily European china and porcelain, and tours are given. Tours are every half hour by appointment and limited to five people; we were the only ones on our tour. Our guide was very knowledgeable and shared his knowledge freely; too freely. It was way too much information for me; I'm not all that interested in porcelain and china. Like the porcelain and china, my eyes glazed. Following the tour, we were the only visitors to the property and spent some time sitting on the veranda imagining what it would be like to live in a place like this. (Too much to dust)

During the rest of the week we filled our days with activities, we often visited several venues a day. Some places of particular interest include:

The National Museum of Funeral History claims have the largest collection of funeral memorabilia. There are photos and/or memorabilia from the funerals of several presidents including duplicates of the caskets of JFK and RWR. There are hearses spanning three centuries and many unusual caskets; some utilitarian, others elaborate. There is a collection of brightly colored fantasy coffins from Ghana in many shapes: fish, chicken, shallot, crab, and others. Items used to embalm and prepare a body for burial are also displayed. Coming from a culture that does not embalm and frowns on elaborate coffins, we found the displays interesting. The museum is part of a school of mortuary sciences.

The Houston Zoo has animals well presented. Nothing special, not all that large. They recently opened a new building: Natural Encounters. It is advertised by a banner across the entire zoo entrance as a being 'unique.' Is has several small exhibits of various ecosystems behind glass. There is a low tunnel where children and small adults can crawl beneath the water of the ocean exhibit and see fish from below. We saw nothing unique about this building. A keeper explained to us that there is an area where keepers bring out an animal each hour and talk about it; that's considered a unique experience. It must be unique to Houston.

The Buffalo Soldiers National Museum gives the history of the 'Buffalo Soldiers;' the 9^th and 10^th Cavalry, units of Black soldiers who played a major role in the opening of the west following the Civil War, and in the Spanish American War in both Cuba (the 10^th) and the Philippines (the 9^th). It has an introductory film, a lot of old photographs, and two small areas of artifacts, mostly uniforms and weapons from the 20^th century. The roles played by Black soldiers (men and women) during the World Wars is also portrayed.

Too many people are unaware of the contributions of African-Americans in the military from the time of the American Revolution to today. These soldiers deserve a better museum.

The Houston Museum of Natural Science is a compact museum with several good exhibits. The malacology (shell) display is the finest that we've seen. Shells are mounted vertically on glass so that one can see both sides. The African animals dioramas are free-standing so that visitors can see the mounted animals from all sides. A very large collection of gemstones is displayed in lighted cases in darkened interconnected rooms that seem to go on and on.

A temporary exhibit on Egyptian funerary practices is small, but gets the job done. It's been there for several years, so we don't know how temporary it is.

A limited temporary exhibit, soon to go to another city, is “Gold.” About a ton of gold in the form of nuggets, crystals, ingots, bullion, and coins is on display; some jewelry, too. We saw the largest nugget found in North America (150 pounds), Elvis Presley's gold-plated telephone, and coins recovered more than a century later from one of the largest bullion-ship wrecks. BTW, as gold is very dense, a ton of gold would make a cube only 15 inches on a side.

We learned that although gold is found on every continent, 40% of all gold ever mined comes from South Africa and 1/3 of the world's gold is refined by Rand in that country. All of the gold ever mined would make up only 20% of the Washington Monument. We also learned that India is the largest purchaser of gold with 70% being involved with matrimony. It was interesting to learn that gold jewelry sold in India has more gold in it than jewelry sold in the U.S. (22k vs. 14k), but is sold with much less of a mark-up because the labor cost of making it is cheaper.

I often say that Sarah is invaluable. One of the items in the Gold exhibit was a scale which told a person what their worth would be if they were worth their weight in gold. Now that we have a dollar amount of how much Sarah is worth, keep an eye on eBay.

The Holocaust Museum presents the story of Nazi atrocities with photographs, artifacts, and recorded eye-witness testimonies. Not only were acts against Jews and Roma (Gypsies) discussed, but actions against the few Blacks in Germany were also shown. We had seen anti-Black posters on display before, but had not seen in any other museum information about the Nazi sterilization of hundreds of Black children in Germany.

Several museums in the Houston area were displaying works from the Pigozzi Collection. Jean Pigozzi, a Swiss entrepreneur, collected more than 6,000 pieces of sub-Saharan art known as the Contemporary African Arts Collection (CAAC) Both the Contemporary Arts Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts has pieces from the CAAC collection. I enjoyed seeing many of the works. Most were bright and humorous; some were bright and pithy.

The George Ranch was owned by the same family from 1824 (while Texas was still part of Mexico) until 1971 when the last descendant died. The 23,000 acre cattle ranch is now owned and operated by The George Foundation which donates income from cattle, oil, and tours to local charities. Homes of the different generations of the family from the 1830s, 1890s, and 1930s are open for tours by costumed guides. The 1860s prairie home is currently under renovation. The name of the ranch changed with every generation as the daughters were the only survivors and inheritors.

We knew that childhood illnesses killed many children in past centuries. Now, through paintings and photographs, we can put a face on the mortality. In one generation, the mother survived seven of her eight children; most died as infants or toddlers. Their small headstones in the family cemetery are in a row.

The Georges, the last people to own the ranch, had a single child who died at 22 months. Their niece, who was raised in their home and treated as a daughter, would have inherited the property. She was killed in an automobile accident in the 1940s while eight months pregnant. That's when the Georges created the foundation.

After the roping demonstration, we spent about an hour chewing the fat with one of the cowboys about ranching and other stuff. We learned some about the west; he learned some about New York.

San Antonio, Texas
March 22-25, 2005

It's sunny and tee shirt weather, even through the evening.

For our first day, we went to the Institute of Texan Culture; a division of the University of Texas @ San Antonio. Dozens of the cultures of the peoples of Texas are represented by kiosks, displays and artifacts. We saw spurs that had been used to make the holes in matzoh, a sharecroppers cabin, and Mexican leather work. Immigrants from many countries were represented as well as other groups: Jewish, Hispanic, Wendish, and Native American tribes. That's right, we never heard of the Wends either. They're Slavic people who practice a Germanic religion and faced discrimination at home.

A new exhibit showed pottery which presented the Creation of the Universe from the traditional Native American point of view.


In Houston, our motel was a ten minute drive from downtown; here it's a ten minute walk. We did a lot of walking our first two days here. We wandered the Riverwalk. We saw the Alamo, of course. It's just as we remembered it. [After a two week siege in 1836, the Alamo fell in 90 minutes and brought the defenders to immortality.]

SAN ANTONIO RIVERWALK

Constructed as a WPA project in the late 1930s, the Riverwalk has shops and restaurants along a winding walkway bordering on, what else, the river.

We visited some shops and dined on regional food. As it was a balmy evening, after dinner we wandered the riverwalk some more. We've been here before. I'm always amazed that, with a walk no wider than the usual sidewalk, and no railing, people aren't falling into the river on a regular basis. If you look carefully, you can see Sarah standing on the platform to the left.

Not far away is San Fernando Cathedral, the oldest cathedral in the U.S. Since 1937 it has housed the bones of the defenders of the Alamo. In 1936, to commemorate the centennial of the Battle of the Alamo, the bones of the defenders were disinterred from the cemetery and put on display for a year. [Yuck!]

San Antonio Mission Trail

We followed the Mission Trail, the chain of Spanish missions along the San Antonio River. The weather was bright sunshine, low 80s, and low humidity. The presentation of the missions by the National Park Service is generally positive. They do mention that 70% of the Indian living at the missions died prematurely, had a low birthrate, and so many ran away, that soldiers had to be sent to get more 'recruits' for the fields.

Mission Espada. San Antonio Mission Trail. This is the southernmost of a chain of Spanish missions leading to San Antonio, Texas.


Sarah is in front of a stand of Spanish Dagger in bloom at Mission San Jose.


Mission San Jose, Unrestored section.


Mission San Juan Capistrano.


Mission Concepcion.


The last of the missions on the San Antonio Mission Trail is in downtown San Antonio. We've sent a photo of this one before. It's the Alamo. Remember it?

That's us in front.

Purim in San Antonio

On Thursday, we went to hear the reading of the Megilla of Esther at Temple Beth El in San Antonio. The synagogue has a magnificent marble ark about 20 feet tall and a large vaulted ceiling. It was an adults-only service, therefore we got the unexpurgated version of the story that is not told when children are present. The service for children is scheduled for Sunday.

The synagogue in San Antonio has a large, impressive marble ark. That's me on the bemah. Expecting to be on the road duing Purim, I brought my grogger (noise maker) from home. It's a big grogger, a really big grogger, and makes quite a racket. I drew looks from some in the San Antonio congregation. Maybe it was the clatter of my grogger, maybe it was my festive hat, maybe it was 'grogger envy.'

In the photo above, you can see the grogger in my hand and the festive hat on my head.


While at the Witte Museum's special exhibit 'World of Water' in San Antonio, we learned about two species of blind and colorless troglobitic catfish (about 4" in length) that live at depths of 1500 feet in the small crevices in the rock that makes up the local Edwards Aquifer.

I have always been concerned about drinking surface water, such as NYC's, because of what the fish do in the water. I now have to be concerned about well and spring water, too.

Mile Zero Marker

The Spanish Trail goes from St. Augustine, FL to San Antonio, TX and from here to San Diego, CA. Distances were measured east and west from this point. This route is now known as U.S. 90.

Pig Stand is a small chain of restaurants. This building was used by carhops during bad weather. It disappeared in the 1940s. Several decades later it was discovered in a field being used as a home. It has been restored to its original beauty and site.

Bexar County Courthouse, San Antonio, Texas. They don't build them like this any more.

Of course we also visited the botanic garden, science museum, and cultural venues. Our plan is the head north to Dallas.

Waco, TX

That's pronounced WAY-ko, not WACK - o. We're midway between Austin and Dallas.

Not only does Waco have a Brooklyn Park, but they have a single-span suspension bridge [the longest west of the Mississippi when it was built in 1868] over the Brazos River. The cables were supplied by the John Roebeling Co. who built the world famous Brooklyn Bridge. People, wagons, and cattle crossed the Brazos here to follow the Chisholm Trail.

The Mayborn Museum Complex, on the campus of Baylor University (the world's largest Baptist college), is a new building housing a century-old collection of interesting scientific stuff and oddities in cabinets and new exhibits of life in Texas from Indians to pioneers. One of the most interesting exhibits was a recreation of part of a recent local discovery: an entire herd of mammoths which was buried in mud during a heavy rain storm. Outside is a small village which was moved to the site allowing visitors to see small-town Texas life in the 1800s.

Crawford, TX

West of Waco by 17 miles is Crawford, Texas and the Western White House. We drove past the property, but the road to the house has been closed, so we didn't actually see the house. Stopping is not permitted; I wasn't able to drop Sarah off so that she could sneak through the cactus to get a photograph. We had lunch at the corner convenience store, a place where the president sometimes eats. There are photographs of W with the staff.


County Courthouse, Hillsboro, Texas


The Dr. Pepper Bottling Plant. Waco is the birthplace of the oldest soda in America: Dr. Pepper. It was here in 1885 that a Waco pharmacist concocted the drink. We did NOT go into the Dr. Pepper Museum. www.drpeppermuseum.org We felt that since the Dr. Pepper promotions claim that their beverage is 'so misunderstood', the museum would be more to the liking of those with a background in psychology.


Talk about being 'misunderstood....'
The monument at the Branch Davidian Compound near Waco, Texas.

Lockhart, TX



We're currently in Austin, the Texas state capital. On the way here from San Antonio we took a detour to Lockhart, the County Seat of Caldwell County and the southern terminus of the Chisholm Trail. It bills itself as the BBQ Capital of Texas. We've been here before. It is the home of Black's BBQ (Est. 1932), which is Texas' oldest BBQ still operated by the same family. The first time that we ate at Black's was several years ago, I found it to be the best BBQ beef that I've ever eaten. I was again pleased to have eaten there. I was surprised several months ago to see Black's written up in NYC's 'Village Voice'. They liked it, too.

Also in Lockhart is the Caldwell County Courthouse [Photo above]. Built in 1894, it is the most impressive county courthouse that I can remember seeing. That's me near the lamp post.

Austin, TX


In Austin, we toured the Capitol building. It is large and impressive; very stately. On the grounds of the Capitol are various monuments. Of course there is one for the defenders of the Alamo in the Texas War of Independence. The visitors' center is the old Texas General Land Office. Writer O. Henry worked here (There is a display). [O. Henry also worked as a pharmacist at Morey Bros. Drug Store in downtown Austin, now the Tourist Info. Center.] They also have a display of historic flags from the War of Independence.

It was interesting to learn that O. Henry [real name William Porter] sold everything that he had written. He never rewrote an article; if it was rejected, he sent it elsewhere. Someone eventually bought it.

The flag that was used at the Alamo was the green, white, and red Mexican flag with the eagle in the center replaced with the date '1824'. Texicans, it is said, were given certain right in the Mexican constitution of 1824, but successive governments took some of those right away and they wanted their rights restored. What isn't mentioned is that one of the rights taken away was the right to own slaves as Mexico had abolished slavery.


On the Capitol grounds is the monument of the 'Ten Commandments' that is currently being challenged in the federal courts. The monument is cleverly designed with symbols and text to appear to show the ten commandments of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. Most people would be surprised to learn that those groups don't have the same commandments although they all have the total of ten.


Sarah and the Texas Mountain Laurel at the Zilker Park Botanic Garden in Austin.


Sarah and the Mustangs, University of Texas campus.


Pterosaur, Texas Memorial Museum.


The Lyndon Baines Johnson Museum and Library on the University of Texas campus is the first presidential library that we have ever visited and the only one that does not charge an admission. We learned a lot about LBJ and it is too bad that for all of the good things that he did for so many people, he is most remembered for the war in Vietnam. In the museum, one can see the thousands of acid-free storage boxes holding 50 million documents in climate-controlled chambers and many items of historic significance.

A lively exhibit that runs through August is “Signs of the Times: Life in the Swingin' Sixties.” Music, sports, T.V., and comedy were featured subjects. Sarah and I took seats at a 'nightclub' table and watched the stand-up acts of Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, and Bill Cosby. Sarah was surprised that she found the museum so interesting; she had expected it to be dry and boring.

Also on the UT campus is the Texas Memorial Museum. [Photo above] Here are displayed rare scientific specimens that have been discovered in Texas. “Before 1935,” their folder explains, these specimens “were shipped to New York and elsewhere....” Since Texas is a very big state, they have a good-size collection for a museum that only shows locally found items. The most impressive of the fossils is the Texas Pterosaur, the largest flying creature ever found. It has a wingspan of 40 feet. I was pleased to see that the description for the pterosaur said that is wasn't closely related to birds or bats. Usually plaques say that certain animals are NOT related, but this is inaccurate; all animals are related, some more closely than others.


Umlauf Sculpture Garden

The Austin Museum of Art - Downtown has three small rooms and a gift shop. It has close to the highest admission cost per piece that we have seen. A few of the works in the current exhibit [Modern Art] were from well known artists such as Picasso and Warhol, and it's always surprising to see a painting by Alexander Calder. Laguna Gloria is AMOA's other center. It's a former home on the Brazos River that was donated to the museum. There was a special exhibit of 24 works and the permanent collection of three works plus about half a dozen sculptures. At least this part of AMOA is free.

I don't want you to think that there is a paucity of art in Austin. The Harry Ransom Center at UT has more than 100,000 works of art. Unfortunately, only two pieces are on display: the first photograph ever taken and one of only five complete copies of the Gutenberg Bible (both volumes).

While we were at Laguna Gloria, we were invited to be guests for lunch with the Austin Ethical Culture Society at their weekly meeting. (They meet at Laguna Gloria every Sunday.) We had a nice discussion with several people.

Also on the artsy side, we spent some time at the Umlauf Sculpture Garden [photo above]. Close to two hundred works by the former UT art professor and displayed in a garden donated to the city by the Umlauf family.


Austin boasts that largest urban bat colony in the world. It is under a bridge. We looked at the crevices where the bats roost and watched out for falling guano.

Dallas, TX


The weather was great: low 80s, low humidity, and a cloudless sky. Of course. we went to the Dallas Arboretum for its annual bulb show. As usual, it was a colorfest of blossoms and blooms. The topiary peacocks behind Sarah are used each year; the designs of the tails are changed. This year we were there on a weekday, so the crowds were down, but there were still plenty of people. Dallas has the best of the bulb shows that we have seen in our travels,but flowers is what this arboretum is about. There are no greenhouses or conservatories, so flowers is pretty much all you get. Come here at the end of March for the biggest blooms.


The floral peacocks greet visitors entering the gardens at the Dallas Arboretum. There are 160,000 bulbs and 75,000 annuals here to brighten your day.


Sarah amid the flowers.


Allen in a field of flowers.


FAIR PARK

There are several museums in Fair Park (built for the 1936 Texas Centennial Fair) which includes the Cotton Bowl. Although the Dallas Museum of Natural History is small, it has the largest fossil sea turtle that we have seen [one of the largest in the world] and the most mammoth mammoth that we have ever seen. Mammoths grew larger in Texas because the climate here was warmer than the rest of the U.S. during the last ice age. From the looks of their 'Texas Animals' rooms (which make up most of the museum), during the last ice age is also when the museum installed most of its exhibits.


A model of the mammoth mammoth. The fossil bones are inside. Inside of the museum, not the model.

There is an aquarium in Fair Park that is a division of the Dallas Zoo. Its cost is modest, especially when compared to the expensive downtown aquarium, a private facility. The tanks are old, but updated. We spent a goodly amount of time watching irridescent comb jellys (something that we had not seen before) and a diver feeding the fish by hand in the Amazon River tank.


THE SCIENCE PLACE is a hands-on museum. The facility is mostly for kids and child-like adults. We had fun pushing buttons, pulling levers, and blowing bubbles. In the photo, Sarah is making 'bubble pictures.'

The African American Museum has works of art by contemporary and historical Black artists. There is also an historical exhibit about Freedman's Town a section of Dallas from 1865 to the early 20th century. We found many of the pieces thought-provoking.


The Dallas Zoo is divided into two parts separated by a passageway which goes beneath the interstate. One part is the regular zoo, the other part is 'Wild Africa' which requires a monorail [extra charge] to see all of the animals. The passageway to get from the zoo proper to 'Wild Africa' is called 'Bush Country,' but the exhibits that we saw there were about animals and their environment, not the president or his father.

An interesting feature in 'Wild Africa' was a section constructed to resemble a savanna outcrop into which one climbs rock steps to see animals from other angles. It was definitely NOT for the infirm.

Sarah hadn't been on a carousel for several years and enjoyed her ride here. Although there were many people in the zoo, almost all were 3rd and 4th graders on class trips. Therefore, Sarah was alone on the carousel and didn't have to push any children out of her way to get a choice mount.


Texas School Book Depository

From a sixth floor window (the square one above Allen's left shoulder), assassin Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots that changed America. The building now houses the 'Sixth Floor Museum.' The museum has many signs and some artifacts pertaining to the life, times, and death of John Kennedy. I knew the story and had been in Washington at the time of JFK's funeral, so there was little new for me here. I mainly wanted to see the building from the inside. The infamous window (the corner window from the sixth floor) is still there, but in a display case.



The Conspiracy Museum is a few blocks away from the TSBD. They have signage about the JFK assassination, UFOs, and other conspiracy stuff. They were literally and figuratively out to lunch; we didn't wait and didn't go back. I can buy a lot of nuts for $18.00.

We also didn't go into the Dallas Aquarium, althought is was recommended by a friend who was here for the National Science Teachers Association conference. [Our timing to be here this week was no accident.] We can buy several fish dinners for the $32.00 cost of our admission, and we've already seen a fish.


Things that we haven't seen before were on display at the Dallas Museum of Art. The special exhibit 'Splendors of China's Forbidden City' had objects from the Palace Museum of Beijing that have never before been on display, even in Beijing. The items were from the 60 year reign of Emperor Qianlong under whose rule in the 1700s China reached its imperial zenith.

The museum is in a relatively new building which makes dramatic use of open space. This masks the paucity of their collection, although there are enough pieces to get a feel for each genre. How many Grecian urns, for example, does one have to see in a single room to get the idea? (In some museums, there are dozens.) [The phrase '12 drachma' begs to be included somewhere here, but I haven't the heart.]


The former Dallas County Courthouse, built in the late 1800s of red sandstone, is now the tourist information center.


Most of one afternoon we spent at the Region IV (northeast) reception at the National Science Teachers' Association convention catching up on events with other science teachers from the northeast. The event was at the Reunion Tower, a high point in Dallas, and we got some good views.

Ft. Worth, TX


Sarah, at the Ft. Worth Stock Exchange, watches the longhorns

Ft. Worth is just west of Dallas and shares an airport. At the old stockyards, Texas longhorn cattle are driven down the street twice daily as a tourist attraction. It worked: we stayed to see the small herd amble down Exchange St. from one pen to another urged on by 'cowboys.' With horns spanning six feet, keeping out of their way is a good idea as is watching where one steps after they have passed.


Sarah contemplates the Rock Garden at the Ft. Worth Botanic Garden

The Ft. Worth Botanic Garden was built as a depression-era project and the workers did a fine job. Although the Rose Garden is good, the Japanese Garden is spectacular. It is the finest Japanese Garden that we've seen. As elaborate as it was with falls, streams, and koi-filled ponds separating manicured shrubs and flowerbeds with hills and valleys, we were surprising to learn that it is a former gravel quarry. The botanic garden is free, but there is a modest charge for the Japanese Garden.


Sarah feeds the koi.


Allen at the Old Mill, Log Cabin Village

Ft. Worth brought historic log cabins to this site to form the 'Log Cabin Village.' Different style furnished log homes, as well as a school, smithy, and mill, are open with costumed docents in each to describe the lives of the cabin's former residents. As there were few visitors, we were able to have long conversations with the docents.

To see the next part of this trip, "Back to home," click here.