As I am entering this entry several days after the fact, I had to go back to my journal to remind myself of what we did the day we toured the Texas Capitol Building. I am amazed at how important keeping a journal is! Ann and I make journal entries daily, as the days all tend to blur together, referring back to a journal keeps our head focused as to where we've been and when. It is tempting at times when I am behind several days to just paste the journal entry in here, but the journal being much more detailed than we care to get on the blog entries, I resist.
Never the less, after spending the night in a Home Depot parking lot, buying a replacement light fixture for over the dining table and then installing it, we left Georgetown and headed towards Austin, Texas to tour what most Texas refer to as the building that should be the USA Capitol, seeing as how it was designed by the same architect that designed the USA capitol that is 3 feet shorter than the Texas one.
Austin is a huge city!
After artfully manuvering our large truck and trailer through the city streets, thanks to our handy little GPS unit and then skillfully squeezing into a street parking place between two school buses, we walked the several blocks to this beautiful building. Here, we did have to go through security scanners and be looked at by the Texas Rangers on duty, but we were able to take our camera in along with hundreds of other school kids, high school performers and a convention of pink clothed abortion supporters that were attempting to stage a rally. In spite of all that, we felt quite uncrowded. Ann and I decided that this will be the house we will rent for our next family gathering!
The hinges on all the doors, kept reminding us where we were. They were beautiful!!
But, we were well aware, at all times, that we were not being left alone. Many Rangers were on patrol at all times and they made themselves really obvious.
Above the ranger, we peered up into the rotunda! It was huge!!
Below the Ranger, we observed what he was intently eyeballing. We stood and watched as three high school performing groups got their turn to perform in the capitol building. Here is a group of bell ringers. before them was a choral group and after them was an awesomely amazing Jamaican group with trash cans, drums and utilizing converted 50 gallon oil steel drum pans as the main instruments. They played 2 Santana pieces and brought the house down. They were an amazing group of high school kids!! You can see some of the drum group forming off to the left of this picture.
We sat in the Senate Gallery and watched a senate subcommittee discuss a nursing issue. Stan, it was very reminiscent of our times we spent with our 4th grade students at the Oregon Capitol. It made me miss those years.
The House of Representatives was empty.
As we were able to wander around the building at will, we explored every nook and cranny we could and found many beautiful places that were not full of people! See Ann up top?
Stan, this would have been easier for you and me and we probably would not got in trouble if the Oregon Capitol was set up like Texas. The Supreme Court was actually in the same building and the access was not guarded as well!
As we cruised the portraits of former governors of Texas, we found this familiar face.
Then we found this unfamiliar face, but as we read below it, found him addressed as president. Through more research, we were reminded that Texas was once an independent country prior to becoming a state on the U.S.. They had several presidents before they had governors!!
This guy was once a U.S. Congressman for the state of Tennessee, but became more famous by dying in Texas at the Alamo. David Crockett. This larger than life size portrait hangs in the capitol building in tribute to his brief service at the Alamo.
And these guys are state congressmen here in Texas being interviewed by some reporters! It was quite a boisterous discussion. Texans tend to get a little carried away in their discussions!! We found it amazing how prevalent Stetsons were in the Capitol building!
Throughout the building there were many tile mosaics. It was difficult to find the same ones. There were many different ones like this and.....
....this one!!
We spent many hours here, both inside and outside this magnificent building. Outside, the statuary made it quite evident that Texans are proud of their service men that served in the fight for independence from Mexico and their men that fought in the Civil War. Texas was a confederate state and in some ways, we felt they still not only think of themselves that was, but also still as an independent country. Even so, they, so far, are the friendliest people we have visited in this last year!!
It was a great day, after which we also toured the Capitol Visitors Center and then drove west to Johnson City, the ancestral home, birth place and life long home of President Lyndon Baines Johnson. After walking through his grandparents homestead, we fueled up and then parked in a nearby Ace hardware parking lot for the night.
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