| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 15 February 2005 |
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There is a short videotape explaining the use of gliders, and a small hangar containing memorabilia, including a restored (though not flightworthy) glider (a Waco CG4A).
There was an interesting anecdote about Jackie Coogan landing in a glider in Asia somewhere and, not wanting to wait for the jeeps to tow his glider to its 'parking place,' hired a local man's elephant. However, after a few steps the elephant panicked and ran amuck, snapping both wings off the glider against the trees.
The glider pilots association has given honorary membership to all the space shuttle pilots as well, since when they land the shuttle, they are landing it as a glider, not as a powered craft.
(Appropriately, my off-time reading now is Janet Berliner and George Gutteridge's Children of the Dusk, a dark fantasy novel set during World War II.)
Continuing the flight theme, we drove to Dallas's Love Field for the Frontiers of Flight Museum ($2). This museum, in the lobby of the airport terminal, covers the history of flight from the first hot air balloons to space. (Actually, it starts even earlier, with the Chinese rockets and various fictional flights.) Did you know that the first flight injury was on September 19, 1783, when a sheep stepped on rooster after they were both set up in a balloon and broke its leg. As the blurb said, there were no civil air regulations or SPCA, or the lawsuits would still be going on.
The first free aerial voyage by a human was on November 21, 1783. (I noted that because it was my birthday, though not as that time.)
One peculiar thing about this museum is that because it's in an airport terminal you have to pay for airport parking-which means the parking can cost more than the museum. (It's $2 for the museum, and $3 for one to two hours parking.)
We then drove to the Biblical Arts Center (http://www.biblicalarts.org/), a starred attraction in the AAA book. This was described as 'non-denominational,' which means of course Christian, but I was hoping to see some art of the level of the 'Old Masters.' Unfortunately, this was not the case. The main attraction (and I'm sure the reason for the star) is the 'Miracle at Pentecost' mural, complete with sound and light show. While the museum itself was free, this part cost $5, and we had the feeling that it would have appeal primarily for believers. The other major work was a recreation of Jesus's tomb; besides these there were a couple dozen so-so religious paintings. This is probably worthwhile for Christians, but not for others.
Since we finished this fairly early, we decided to drive into Dallas itself and see The Sixth Floor (http://www.jfk.org/index.html). This is the museum of the JFK assassination, constructed on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository. The admission for this is $5, or $7 with an audiotaped tour. The tape tour lasts ninety minutes and adds a lot; what with stopping it to see the various videotapes and read all the exhibits, it can easily take two to two and a half hours. I mention this because we figured it would take an hour to an hour and a half and I had to go replenish the parking meter. The lot parking is $2.50; the meters are a dollar an hour, so you might as well go with the lot.
This museum was the most crowded place that we'd seen yet on this trip. Like the National Civil Rights Museum, it's primarily words and pictures, with a bit more audio and video to supplement them. It covers not just the assassination, but the whole Kennedy administration before, and all the investigations after.
There is, of course, much information about the forensic and other evidence used by the various commissions and studies. So far as I can tell, there is really no compelling evidence to believe that there was a conspiracy, or someone else on the grassy knoll, or anything other than Oswald as the lone gunman. Your opinion, of course, may differ.
Even here, the museum shop had the usual assortment of T-shirts and caps, though the museum name and logo (seven horizontal stripes, the bottom five and top one orange, the sixth one up black) is so restrained as to be uninteresting.
Dinner was at Dickey's Barbecue Pit, a local place near the motel with pretty good barbecue.
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Breakfast was again at Grandy's, followed by an exciting morning of laundry.
At 11 AM we started out for Fort Worth. Although people think of Dallas and Fort Worth as twin cities (the idea is no doubt bolstered by the existence of the Dallas-Forth Worth Airport), Fort Worth is actually thirty miles from Dallas, and since we were on the north side of Dallas heading for the south side of Fort Worth, it took almost an hour.
Our first stop was the Kimbell Art Museum (http://www.kimbellart.org/), which usually opens at noon on Sunday. However, because of the Monet exhibit, they opened at 10 AM, so we could have left earlier (in dirty clothes, of course). There were long lines for the Monet exhibit; this now beats The Sixth Floor as the most crowded site so far.
We did not want to stand in that line for the Monets. (In general, when we're traveling, we're more interested in the permanent exhibits. For all we know, the Monets could be on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.)
I'm not sure what the size of the permanent collection is, but the museum was designed to display a few pieces well rather than a lot of pieces: quality, not quantity. So what is on display at any one time is about fifty pieces, but very well selected and exhibited in galleries well-proportioned and well-lit. The main floor gallery is lit with a combination of indirect artificial and indirect natural light. It's the first place I can remember where I didn't have to keep dodging around to get rid of the glare on the paintings. And with paintings by Gauguin, Rembrandt, El Greco, Goya, and so on, one can hardly fault the art. I imagine it's a museum that one can visit often, since I suspect they rotate the paintings frequently.
Next was the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, featuring 'Lone Star Dinosaurs.' All the exhibits in this museum had bilingual signs, and indeed one of the striking things about Texas is the extensive use of Spanish, sometimes in a bilingual context, sometimes on its own (particularly in advertisements). This became even more pronounced as we moved south to San Antonio.
The museum also had exhibits of pre-Columbian pottery, 'Animal Super Senses,' and the history of medicine. They also had a 'Hands On Science' section where I found a book of visual illusions and ended up leafing through the entire thing.
Best of all was the gift shop, mercifully free of the copper bracelets and Roswell aliens we've seen in other 'science' museum gift shops. Al in all, I was quite impressed with this museum.
Dinner was at Benavides, and then we went to see Mimic. This was the first time I had been in a theater with stadium seating. I like it.
One aspect of Texas that takes some getting used to is the sprawl of everything. Expressways have big sweeping interchanges, not the tighter ones one sees in the northeast. Parking lots seem to go on forever and are mostly empty. Roads seem to have at least one more lane than they would back east. And so on.
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For a change of pace, we had breakfast at IHOP before setting out for Austin on I-35. This took about four hours, at which time we arrived at the LBJ Library and Museum (http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/). This library was opened in 1971 and covers the years 1908 through 1973 (some material was added later, obviously). According to the woman at the desk, this is one of only nine official Presidential libraries, and the only one not charging admission (at Johnson's express wish). (No, I don't know what the nine are.)
Among other things, we learned that Johnson was one of only four people who held the offices of Representative, Senator, Vice-President, and President. And though he is remembered mostly for the Vietnam War, he was also responsible for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Open Housing Rights Act of 1968, the War on Poverty, the Clean Air Act, the Highway Beautification Act, Medicare, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Job Corps, and Project Head Start. He appointed the first Supreme Court Justice. And for all the Republicans yammering about a balanced budget, the last one was in 1968, under Johnson, a Democrat. The first unbalanced one was under Nixon, a Republican.
Of course, the Highway Beautification Act is pretty much defunct these days. If I remember correctly, it was overturned by two things. One, businesses claimed that the restrictions on billboards and other advertising restricted their freedom of speech. And two, people driving on the highways wanted to know what motels, restaurants, and other businesses were coming up.
We then drove to Johnson City, where we took a bus tour ($3) of the LBJ Ranch. This included taped commentary by Johnson and Lady Bird, which made it more interesting than just a guide's comments would be. (We just missed August 27 celebration of Johnson's birthday. Late for Elvis's death and early for this, but probably for the best.)
On the ranch we saw longhorn cattle, bison, goats, and pronghorn antelope. Later along the road we saw a vulture. We've probably seen others in the sky, but I am not very good at identifying flying birds. They're either big or small. (When we asked our guide on the Amazon what kind of butterfly we were looking at, his answer was, 'Blue butterfly.')
We drove to San Antonio, passing cactus along the roadside. The scenery definitely changes as you drive around, and it's much more interesting to see the gradual change by driving than to fly somewhere and boom! it's completely different.
Dinner was at Las Palmas, a taqueria where pretty much only Spanish was spoken.
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It turned out our motel was right outside Brooks Air Force Base, which has Hangar 9, also known as the Edward H. White II Memorial Museum of Flight Medicine. It is named for White (who died in the January 27, 1967, Apollo I fire) because he was born in San Antonio at Fort Sam Houston (on November 14, 1930). He was the first American to perform a space walk (June 3, 1965).
The exhibits here included a World War I field ambulance, and a Curtis JN-4 'Jenny' (which we read later was probably used in the movie Wings). There was also an exhibit about Ham and Enos (the 'original Shepard and Glenn'-Ham was the first primate into space, and Enos was the first primate to orbit the earth).
Note: although the hangar opens at 8 AM, the annex and gift shop doesn't open until 9 AM.
Our next stop was the San Jose Mission, the best preserved (or more accurately, restored) of the missions around San Antonio. We arrived when it opened at 9 AM. |
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