Union Station in Chicago

The empire Builder arrived in Chicago almost two hours late which turned out to be a good thing because now I have only two hours to wait at Union Station. It’s okay but not as impressive as Grand Central in New York.

One thing though. If you saw the movie “The Untouchables” with Sean Connery and Kevin Costner, you will remember the scene where Eliot Ness played by Costner was in a shootout on the staircase at Union Station.

This is the staircase where that scene was shot.

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Dallas where JFK was assasinated

I am standing on the sidewalk reading the historical marker. Out in the street behind me is a white X painted where the Presidential limo was when Kennedy eat hit with the fatal head shot (the third shot). Farther up the street to my right an X marks the spot where the second shot hit him high on his back. This was the “magic bullet” that went through JFK’s back and then hit Connelly. That billet actually caused seven wounds. Beyond me is the Texas Book Drpository. Oswald shot from the far right window on the sixth floor. That window is behind the tree. Only the seventh floor can be seen from this angle. Ruth is standing next to the stone pedestal in which Zapruder stood and made his famous video of the assassination. Dealy Plaza is across the street behind her. This was taken up in the Sixth Floor Museum. This is the window Oswald shot three shots from. The boxes are arrranged just as they were on 11/22/63. This is the X on the stre...

The Bush Gravesite

We parked on the west side of the Bush library in College Station, TX, the home of Texas A&M. Then we walked around to the east side of the library to this beautiful pond. The grave site is through the trees on the other side of the pond. Ruth looking across the pond toward the gate and path to the grave site. Next to the library stood this statue of these horses jumping over a wall. The wall was an actual section of the Berlin Wall that came down during Bush’s term. Bush’s grave in center. Barbara’s is on the right. Their daughter Robin is buried to the left out of the picture. The grounds are large and beautiful. It was a picturesque half mile walk from the car to the grave site. We pretty much had the place to ourselves except for a kid on an electric skateboard.

Day 4, Monday

We slept in at a small motel in Johnson City. Then we visited the LBJ stuff in Johnson City. That took about an hour. Then we drove west to the LBJ ranch, where we visited the gravesite and the ranch complex. It was quite an extensive thing, hundreds of acres. We followed that up with a visit to a peach stand. Peach pie, cobbler, and ice cream, which we ate at the LBJ roadside rest Then we drove to the Cedar Lodge Resort on Lake Buchanan for the Skar reunion. We were the first ones there. The test of the Rolf Skar branch trickled in and we had a delicious pasta supper. The younger, more handsome Brian Skar’s wife, Tonya, is super organized and did a great job with the meal. 100 degrees temperature. The ranger in Johnson City informed me that the name of the lake is pronounced “Buckanan”. I told him I taught history for 30 years and if the lake was named after the 15th President it was pronounced Byoochanan. He informed me that “Texans like to do...

Pastor Skar

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