Swamp Tour

We got up and left east Texas, headed for New Orleans. Beverly and Jerry had been there 16 years ago for a NEA convention. We were there for a week, which was too long. We didn't plan on returning but thought that since it is one of America's great cities we should take the girls there. Above Baton Rouge we stopped to take a swamp tour. We went out on a pontoon boat with several other people and saw the wildlife of Louisiana. We saw some white egrets and other water birds, but the big excitement was in seeing some alligators. We saw two, one which dived under the water and one which stuck around to have some snacks from the boat. The boat captain brought some bread, and a few pieces were tossed at the alligator. It came close enough to the boat so that we could all have a good look.

The landscape was also interesting. Most of the Cypress trees had been cut down over a hundred years ago because the wood was great for building; it was really strong and didn't rot. But these trees take hundreds of years to grow back, so in many places you could see nothing but stumps. Where the trees were going, they were very pretty. The Spanish Moss hanging from the trees was also neat. The 60-year-old man giving us our swamp tour said that his family used the moss to stuff pillows and such when he was a child.

Afterwards we ate a Cajun meal. We had an appetizer that included a few crawfish, catfish, shrimp, and alligator. The gator was quite spicy. We also ate poorboys. In New

Orleans they are called Po Boys, but we would call them sandwiches on sub rolls. From there we drove about two and a half hours into the French Quarter, where Beverly got us a great room at a Holiday Inn. Prices are good because tourism is down.

A few notes on the state of Texas. They love to fly the Lone Star flag. We saw more of those than the American flag. They also seriously use the phrase, "Don't mess with Texas." I thought it was originally a joke from the television show Saturday Night Live, but it was on signs that involved not throwing trash, etc.

LBJ

We spent the morning resting and relaxing at the hotel. The girls had stayed up late the last few nights trying to watch A Very Potter Sequel (a fan fiction Harry Potter musical) on the Internet, so we needed to sleep-in. The hotel provided a great breakfast. They even had a man who fixed omelets to order. After breakfast Brooke and Jerry went to the pool while Blair and Molly looked at the computer and Beverly did some laundry.

We checked out of the hotel and drove up to the University of Texas campus to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum. The LBJ library is the only free presidential library because LBJ wanted anyone to be a

ble to visit. Inside they had some of the same presidential exhibits the other presidential libraries had - a history of what the president did w

hile in office, a biographical movie, a re-creation of the oval office as it was,

pictures of white house events, gifts given to the president and first family. They also had a nice exhibit on the American First Ladies and a big temporary exhibit on Walter Cronkite.

What I (Jerry) was amazed at was the museum store. It had the usual trinkets but it also had a huge collection of original political buttons and posters, not only from LBJ but from other presidential candidates dating back to Wendell Wilkie (

1940 Republican who ran against Franklin Roosevelt). The staff was helpful, the prices were great, and I have lots of material to decorate my classroom this fall.

After leaving the museum store we went over to Amy's Ice Cream and had some tasty treats. Then we drove

two hundred miles to wind up

east of Houston where we spent the night.

The Alamo

We drove into the San Antonio Riverwalk area and parked at the Hyatt. The big thing going on there was that the Dallas Cowboys were arriving to open their summer training camp. We saw some large people who could have been football players and some large people giving autographs who certainly were football players, but nobody we recognized.

We saw an Imax movie about the Alamo, then walked over to see it. It has a long history, dating back into the 1700s. They have

done a nice job with it. It is a small compound of buildings that has a huge history/mythology for Texans. Apparently it is the only place in the USA where the state flag can be flown at equal height with the American flag. We had a nice meal at Saltgrass, a Texas steakhouse, then drove up to Austin.

In Austin we stayed at a hotel beside the famous South Congress Bat Bridge. About 25 years ago they fixed up a bridge on South Congress Avenue and about a million bats decided to live under it. They fly out at night and hundreds of people show up to watch them. We went over to watch the bats and saw... not much. They few out a few at a time but it wasn't much to see. After everyone else left and it was past 10:00 p.m. a guy from the bat

conservation group let us use his night vision equipment to see a few of the remaining bats fly out.

Pecos to San Antonio

We left Carlsbad, New Mexico fairly early and headed south and east toward San Antonio. We tried to find some food in the first town we came to in Texas, Pecos, but could only find food at a truck stop. Remember the Paul Newman movie in the 1970s about Judge Roy Bean? Well, that takes pace in Pecos.

The speed limit from Pecos to outside of San Antonio is 80 mph

. We didn't know the USA had speed limits that high. You can really cover some ground if you do 80 and don't make many pit stops (we made one). As we drove the landscape began to change from a fairly green desert (they have had a lot of rain in west Texas this year) into an area with scrub brush, then trees. We drove through mesas for a bit then got to the Hill Coun

try outside of San Antonio.

San Antonio seems to be a vibrant city. The University of Texas is located here. After finding a hotel outside the city (by the way, finding a room to accommodate a family of five is much tougher this year) we drove into the downtown area to the Riverwalk.

The Riverwalk was started by the federal government as a New Deal flood control project in the 1930s. They are still expanding it. Frederick's Carroll Creek Project is based on the same idea, but in size Carroll Creek is to the Riverwalk as Frederick is to San Antonio. We took a boat ride around the area then ate at a Mexican restaurant (lots of those to choose from). We felt that we had done a lot in a day that included about 430 miles of driving.

Carlsbad Caverns

We stayed a place that promised internet access - it had none. We searched for some in the town of Carlsbad - no luck. McDonald's said they had it but they were long on promise and short on internet. So we gave up on that and headed for Carlsbad Caverns.

On the drive to the caverns we passed many oil wells. They give off a really bad odor, something we had not noticed in California last year. They smell either like sulfur, gas or burning tires, take your pick.

The caverns are in the foothills of the Guadalupe Mountains. When we got to the caverns we all thought that the view to the east, back towards Texas, looked like the view of the ocean - except that there was no water. Later, in the caverns, we found out that it was an ancient sea.

Carlsbad Caverns are different than most caverns because they are only a few million years old. They were made from a stronger

acid than the acid that carves most caves. We first took a tour guided by a park ranger. It was quite cold 750 feet underground and after almost two hours down there we were ready to come up for lunch.

After lunch we bought sweatshirts and headed back down for the self guided part of the cavern.

In the 1890s Jim White, a 16 year-old cowboy, discovered the caverns because he saw hundreds of thousands of bats flying out of a hole in the ground one evening. He saw it was a cave, went home, made a home made ladder, created a kerosene lamp out of a coffee pot, and decided to go back and explore the caves. In the afternoon we walked down into the caverns through the route that Jim White had found. The smell of bat dung (guano) was nearly overwhelming. But once past the bat area of the cave it was quite an interesting and rigorous walk. We saw some huge areas with ceilings over 200 feet high. Pictures could not capture the beauty (although Beverly tried her best). We lingered in the caverns looking at all of the interesting things. We stayed for another three hours in what was suppose to be a ninety minute self-guided tour.

We took the girls to a waterpark at the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns Park for a little over an hour, then came back into the park to see the bats fly out of the cave at dusk.

Ranger Rick gave a talk about bats then we began to see them fly out of the cave.

It lasted about half an hour. The rangers kicked everyone out of the park by 9:00 PM. We drove back to the town of Carlsbad, gave the internet another try at McDonald's (failed again), then went to bed.

Fort Worth and west Texas

On Tuesday morning we drove around Fort Worth. They have an interesting urban man made waterfall and park. At the bottom we were surrounded by falling water, an unusual experience in a city. Afterward we drove to the stockyard area in the "historic red light district" (really - it's called that). They did a cattle drive up the street, about a dozen longhorn cattle and five cowboys. They do it twice a day. All the girls took turns riding a mechanical bull.

We ate lunch at Kincaids, a locally famous hamburger restaurant. From there we drove over 400 miles across Texas into New Mexico. As we drove the trees began to disappear, replaced by scrubby bushes as the climate became more desert like.

Bubba

We visited the Bill Clinton Presidential Library today. Lots more security there than at the Carter museum. I asked why and they said any federal building built after 9/11 has higher standards of security. The outside of the building was designed to look like a bridge (remember "a bridge to the 21st century"?). Beverly thought it was ugly. Clinton narrated his own biographical movie.

We saw the replica of the oval office and the cabinet room (the president's chair is slightly taler than the others). There was a year-

by-year list of events and artifacts. At one point we could look up the presidential agenda for any day of his presidency (he met the Japanese prime minister the day Blair was born). They had the usual exhibit of gifts given to the president and first lady. One interesting exhibit was a table laid out for a full state dinner. It had four different glasses at each place setting.

In the Presidential libraries, we have been amazed at the gifts that the presidential family has received from the people of other countries. The family is not allowed to keep any gifts worth more than $50 as the gift may be

thought of as a bribe. So they receive the gifts on behalf of the American people, and then the gifts get displayed in their libraries. Some of the gifts are really nice.

This library and

the Carter library had replicas of each president's

Oval Office. We liked the Clin

ton dark blues to the Carter pastels.

We drove from the Clinton Library to Little Rock High. It is a still functioning high school and

museum. The building, built in the 1920s, is beautiful. Across the street is a museum run by the

park service that has a great exhibit on the integration of the school in 1957. It is small but very informative.

Nine benches around the pond in front of the school are engraved the names of the first nine black students who went to school here.

If you are ever in Little Rock at lunch time (I know, the chances of this are small) try eating at Larry's. It is a pizza buffet full of creatively made and unique pizzas. If I had to pick one place to eat pizza Larry's would be it.

From Larry's it was just a quick 375 mile drive to Fort Worth.