Morning rain (as usual) but minor the rest of the day. We still feel like we are bringing Noah's floods along with us everywhere we go. In Maine, a three digit road number would be a logging road in rough shape. In Texas the three and four digit roads are farm and ranch roads, well paved, two lane and a joy to drive though most of them are 65mph and we feel comfortable doing 50. We used these roads to get near Fredericksburg, Texas and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Ranch site.
You know how things just happen sometimes? That extra minute a clerk took to check you out, that return to the gas pump to get your receipt, that very slow driver you finally were able to get around? Life and all those little minutes gained or lost sometimes put you in amazing moments. A few moments later and we would not have had the tour guide we did today to go through the "Western Whitehouse".
The Lyndon Baines Johnson Ranch is a working ranch given to the US Citizens by the Johnson family. It was used as a second Whitehouse when LBJ became president but also served as a family home and retreat. We started our tour at the Sauer Beckman Living History Farm, again a working farm from the early 1800s. This area of Texas was settled by German immigrants, many of them stonemasons and wood artisans. The buildings are original and showed how families lived in that time.
After a drive through the interior ranch roads with views of the cattle and innumerable wild deer, we came to the aviation hanger behind the ranch buildings. Later we learned that LBJ called this plane "Air Force One Half" as it was smaller and at the time he was vice president. There was a runway able to handle this plane right behind the ranch house.
We went to get a ticket for a house tour and the ranger told us to join in a tour just exiting the building. There were only six people so we were pleased to get in a small group. Total absolute shock when we gathered up and there was our tour guide - Luci Baines Johnson, the president's daughter. She had two visiting friends from Germany and was giving them a tour.
The normal half hour tour stretched to an hour and a half as she told funny, sad and personal stories of LBJ, her mom and growing up on the ranch and in DC. We truly felt like we had touched history. The ranch is well worth the visit and we are lucky as a nation to be able to see where history was made. She did remind the ranger accompanying the tour that some items were "on loan" not a gift - like her 1963 Corvette. Once Luci had a son, LBJ took this car back and gave her a Lincoln Continental the size of a boat to drive as it was safer. Her son wants to Corvette.
After our first Mexican cantina meal in Fredericksburg, we drove on to Garner State Park for the night. Tomorrow we push for Big Bend - hopefully not going into storms.
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