Nov 17th - Sightseeing

When I got up this morning I dumped the waste tanks on the motor home and then started a load of laundry. After washing a couple of days worth of dishes I left for College Station and the Bush (41) presidential library.

When I got there I was amazed at all the cars and RV's in the parking lot. Only a few of them show in the photo.

 When I bought my ticket for the library a lady asked me if I was going to the game. She was helping me decide what, if anything, I needed to pass up in order to get the the Texas A&M football game on time. RV'ers are allowed to start parking in the library's RV parking area at 6 PM on Friday, and stay the weekend. When leaving the library parking lot I drove by the entry into the RV area. I could see a lot of preparation work had been done to get ready for "tailgating" parties after the game.

The library is located on the campus of Texas A&M, in College Station, Texas. This was the first time I've been to a presidential library. I was impressed! Only a relatively small area of the complex is open to the public. Only serious scholars are allowed access to all the presidential papers, videos, etc in the actual library. There is also a conference center and another building (I forgot the use of the other building.) The Bush's have an apartment in one of the buildings and they use it when the come to A&M football games. One of the docents said that it was not unusual to see George or Barbara walking around the library grounds. She didn't know if they were in town for today's game.

I spent about 4 hours in the library and enjoyed every minute of it. I began to realize how little I knew about them. There were a lot photos of both George and Barbara's families while they were growing up. I had forgotten that George H.W. Bush had been a Navy pilot during WWII and that he had been shot down. Neither of his two crew members survived. George managed to swim to a life raft and was rescued by the Navy.

I also either forgot, or I never knew, that they had a daughter who died when she was just a child, she had leukemia.

Barbara Bush had a humorous note in the archives about her gaining 60 pounds when she was pregnant with George Jr. She said she was somewhat disappointed when she found out that he didn't weigh nearly that much when he was born. Another interesting thing was a photo of their first house when they moved to Texas. It looked like one of the Louisiana shotgun houses. It was certainly not much.

After the library I picked up some groceries and a pizza from Little Caesars and headed north. I decided to drive on up to Hearne, TX on my way home, just to check it out. Hearne is about 12 miles for the camp. I had driven through it on my way here, but was focused on my driving, not sight seeing. At one time Hearne was probably a nice little town. Now the majority of the downtown sits empty.

Once back at the camp I put my groceries away and took a LOAD of laundry over to the camp washer and dryer. I'm sure I overloaded it even though it is supposed to be a large capacity model. I would have had to divide the laundry up into 3 or maybe even 4 loads if I had washed it in the washer/dryer in the RV.

It was a nice day.

Good night to all. May God bless you and yours.