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 20th 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 9th and 10th 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 10th) and the Philippines (the 9th). It has an introductory film, a lot of old photographs, and two small areas of artifacts, mostly uniforms and weapons from the 20th 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.
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 
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.
posted by Allen and Sarah at 6:56 PM
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