We spent another wonderful day in Fredericksburg visiting the Lyndon B. Johnson Texas White House and Ranch and Johnson City named after the Johnsons. The site of the house and ranch is actually the birthplace of Lyndon complete with family cemetery where both he and Lady Bird are buried.
Entrance to Lyndon Johnson’s Ranch
This is a working Cattle Ranch
Texas White House when Johnson was president
President Johnson was born into a modest farming family living in this ar
ea and, according to the tour guide, was very bright and skipped a grade in school because he already knew how to read some at the age of four. He must have had something going for him because he was able to grow this modest beginning into a 2800 acre working ranch with a 9 bedroom home and several multi-million dollar other businesses, not to mention being the President of the United States. We were told that the estate recently sold his communication business for over 181 million dollars and that he had more money than the Kennedys which was part of the source for their dislike of him. He seemed to be quite obsessed with his role as President and had the Presidential Seal put on many things in his home and personal clothing.
This was the Secret Service headquarters on the ranch and was occupied by Secret Service personnel till Lady Bird died in 2007
The jet plane Johnson used to fly into the ranch. It was referred to as Air Force 1/2 since it was a much smaller plane than Air Force One
Johnson City looks like another symbol of need for recognition. The town is just 1,500 population with not much going for it but it has pictures of Lady Bird on every street lamp in the downtown area.
When we went back to Fredericksburg we spent more time in the downtown area, this time actually going into the many shops.
There was a shop called Kurchen Laden, which means Kitchen Shop and had every kitchen gadget conceivable. It was amazing. There was a 5 and 10 cent store that looked exactly like the ones we remembered when we were kinds. Being in retail most of his career, Jim first noticed the merchandising and shelving was just like years ago. It even smelled like it did waaaay back then. Then it was time for some coffee and we found a bakery established in 1918 and had a sweet German pretzel with our coffee. Now that is something I’m glad is not readily available or I would weigh 300 pounds.
We left Fredericksburg Thursday morning reluctantly but consoled by our plans to stop here longer on the way back to Florida in January. We had an almost 400 mile drive to our next stop which means sitting for hours. All of the drive was on I-10 so it would not be stressful. In fact, west Texas is the most desolate we have seen since our trip began. It was so desolate, I decided this was where I would do my first driving.
I have to say, I was surprised how easy it was on this straight road. I never felt the RV behind us and only when I had to switch lanes did it seem like we were over sixty feet long. Even pulling into and out of the rest areas was not too bad. I am not confident enough to even begin to try the city driving that Jim does, making all those turns on narrow streets or backing into tight RV sites, but I think I can help with some of the highway driving now. The worse part was the death grip on the steering wheel hurt my hands.
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