Skip to main content

LBJ Ranch

Part of the LBJ National/State Park is in Johnson City where he grew up. Part of it is 15 miles west of Johnson City where he was born and where he had his ranch and  where he had his home while he was a Congressman and VP and President. He and Lady Bird are buried in the family cemetery out on the ranch.
This is the home in Johnson City where he was raised from the time he was six. Nearby is the shed he fell off of as a kid and broke his leg. 
While LBJ was serving in Congress and as VP and President he travelled back and forth from Texas a lot. 20 percent of his time when he was President was spent at his ranch.  He built a runway on the ranch so he could fly there easily.  Air Force 1 was too big to land so he bought a smaller plane to shuttle him from the Austin airport where AF1 could land to his ranch. This is that plane.
This was his house at the ranch. The secret Service had a smaller house out back. He held many high level meetings in the shade of the large tree in the front yard. 
Ruth walking down the path between house and barn in Johnson City. 
 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Highways

 I find it interesting to come across a highway number down here that is the same as a highway number up in our neck of the woods. Yesterday, we spent some time on Highway 281, which is the same U.S. highway that goes through Jamestown and crosses Highway 2 at Churches Ferry.  I-35 splits into I-35 W and I-35 E as it passes through Ft. Worth and Dallas, just as it does in the Twin Cities. Many years ago in North Carolina, I was on U. S. 52, which runs from Portal SE across America, sometimes disappearing for hundreds of miles, swallowed up by highways that get more respect.  On the way down here we crossed U. S. 30, which is known as the Lincoln Highway out east because it passes through Gettysburg and Northern Illinois.  I don’t know who devised the U.S. highway system, but they made it interesting.

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...

Smithsonian

There is so much to see in the museums on both sides of the National Mall I cannot possibly mention everything. I will list that which stands out.      Mueum of Natural History:  a huge stuffed elephant that dominates the rotunda, dozens of dinosaur skeletons, the Hope diamond, gemstones galore, and Egyptian mummies.      Museum of American History:  the section on civil rights from 1863 to 1963, the stories of Medal of Honor winners, the section on America at War, the section on Thomas Edison.     Air and Space Museum:  the Wright brother's plane, all the Apollo space stuff about how we went to the moon, the section on telescopes,  the section on aircraft carriers, the section on taking photographs from the air.  This last sectio n covered everything from the first pictures taken from the air in baloons and from cameras strapped to the bellies of birds to pictures taken from modern satellites.  Of all the museums...