Today Ed, my brother, and I took off North and west of Austin to Waco to hit two wonderful tourist attractions, the Texas Rangers Museum and the old Dr. Pepper bottling plant and museum.
Both were interesting, but I would have to side with the TR Museum as the highlight. Lots of guns and uniforms. There were hands on exhibits where dragoon pistols could be hefted and some pistols in parts that one could assemble and reassemble.
The old pistols were heavy, over 4 pounds and difficult to keep loaded. Those were the days when men were men.
They had a lot of pictures of Rangers, old to new. There is at least one rule for being a ranger and getting your picture taken: you must wear your hat.
Allow me to digress back 20 years to a dinner I had at an upscale country club in CA. The club had pictures of all the past presidents. The pics scanned 30 years or so. In the early 70s they had a "hip" president. His hair was over his ears, his glasses were sporty as they were in those days. He might have had on a leisure suit and he was probably wearing flaired pants.
A close inspection of the pictures allows one to understand that the CC figured out that they had made a mistake with this guy. The next year and all years afterwards all of the presidents fit back snuggly into the earlier mode. Which mode, I hear you ask. Imagine a 50s banker with cropped hair, appropriately slicked down. If he wore glasses there was naught fashionable about them.
Why do I bring us this bit of conservative experimentation? We now move back to the Ranger museum and their hats...
Yes, without exception they all had very, very similar Stetson hats. Oh, some were a bit wider and some were cocked at jauntier angles, but the hats were interchangeable back to 1835 or so. Did they have a deal with Stetson? Did they get a discount if they ordered that model? Were only Rangers allowed to own them?
What does it look like? You will not have to consult Google to find out, search your memories back to 1962 and the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby. In that classic photo there is a Texas lawman with the exact hat on. He might have been a Ranger. I don't remember the details of who he was, but the hat shape sticks.
OK, on to the Dr. Pepper museum. The original bottling plant still survives from 1895. This museum consists of two buildings, the bottling plant and some other building that contains the a gift shop, soda fountain and some exhibits.
The plant was interesting to me in that it showed some of the early automation to wash, fill, label, and cap bottles. The rest of it was old bottles and a lot of old advertising stuff.
The museum was worth the trip since we were there. I wouldn't go too far out of my way to see it. Check out the Rangers museum for sure.
We had lunch at Schlotzki's, which is a bit about the bread. I ordered medium pastrami and it was too much, so I'll be having the rest of the sandwich on the road tomorrow.
Yesterday we took in the Snake farm that is south of Austin. My car had been dropped off for wheel/brake issues and we kept on going to see the snakes.
Lots of wonderful colors and patterns on them. I was hoping for hat bands in the gift shop, but nope.
We hit Rudy's barbeque for lunch. Sets of long tables, banana pudding and meat by the pound. I had the brisket and some slaw. "You want white bread or wheat with that?" I was asked. "I'm from California, we are not allowed to eat white bread, which is a felony in CA," I answered.
The meat was good with a nice salty rub (another felony in CA!). The sauce was pretty mild and they had a "Sissy" sauce too.
We then went to Cabela's to look at manly toys while we waited for the car to be completed. The store looked a lot like a Bass Pro Shop. And when I saw "a lot" we are talking very little difference at all, at all.
We spent time gawking at the stuffed animals, shot by various nature lovers. Then ended up at the gun (ha, it almost came out as "fun" counter) counter and looked of the wonderful assortment of hunting and protection tools or heinously dangerous, black, war like and mean, assault weapons, which should be owned by no human on earth -- so take your pick.
We chatted with the sales guy about calibers and the ebb and flow of the gun trade and of course touching on the world's greatest gun salesman, who has moved more guns to the hands of the unwashed than any man in history. I am, of course, talking about our dear Leader, the POTUS.
The car was done. The alignment had a problem, thus the tires were screaming in pain on the drive from Albuquerque. Post alignment they were not real quiet either, as the tires tried to deal with this new configuration. I hope that theory is correct...
I making a run to Tulsa tomorrow and I'll see if they wear back to some quiet state. I fear I'll have to get new tires to get some peace and quiet.
The good news is that the brakes were ok. I had some strange stability and antilock issues coming into town. If the anti lock system goes out it's about $2500 since the VW folks have to do some coding. Did I mention this last bog post? Hard to keep track.
The thunderbolts are banging away as I type and I'm off to St. Louis, trying to get there by Thursday evening. It looked a bit long for a single day, so a night in the tent is called for.
I was trying for Joplin, Missouri, but early morning probability of rain was 90% or so and I didn't want to deal with that. Tulsa, on the other hand, was dry, but warm. If there is rain, I'll see it Thursday morning at the earliest.
That's all I know!
Rich
Happy trails. Be safe and stay dry :)
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