October 20, 2008

Monday 20~~~ We drove to Johnson City to the State Park where we watched a neat video of the life of Lady Bird in the most comfortable theatre of any national park we have gone to. She was a very hard working first Lady and did a lot for the Nation during her years in the White House. Next we drove to the"Western White House" where LBJ spent one fourth of his presidency there. Anyway that is what the tour guide told us, it is so beautiful, I can see why they would want to spend so much time there.The President used to do a lot of busisness if the yard under the shade of the live oak trees that are so huge. They have chairs sitting thee as they used to when he was President. The Johnson's donated a portion of the ranch to the National Parks and it is still a working ranch with the fattest Herefords running the range. (Picture) The ranch house is a very comfortable looking home that they have left furnished with all of the Johnson furniture and personal touches. (picture)It looks like they might just be out riding around the pasture. They had three trailers that were for communications to the White House and any thing else the president needed to be in touch with. (picture) There was a smaller home there also that was the home of the secret service. (Picture) They have all their old cars on display. The President and Mrs. Johnson had visions of their property going to two Parks. Their hope was these historical properties on both side of the Pendernales River would be preserved for local communities and the visiting public. Texas Parks and Wildlife operates the state park on the Pendernales River opposite the ranch. The National Parks administers two areas; the LBJ ranch and sites between Johnson City, 14 miles east. Together the two parks working together have accomplished their wishes and it is still a working cattle ranch. We stayed in Junction, Texas that night, it was a long day with a lot of driving and touring. Have I said before how big Texas is???? ha No wonder the Texans have everything BIG!!!!