Things to See in Austin

I've heard several people who don't live in Texas say that Austin is the least Texas of anywhere in the state. They say that its a great place to visit if you have to go to Texas. Well, I have been amazed at the treasures I have found there.
On Tuesday, after a day of recovery from our drive, I took Sarah to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum. Lucas opted to stay and play video games with his cousin, Jake, because he has been to the museum on a previous visit. The museum is very well done. It follows the life of LBJ from his birth and integrates that with the events of the time in America. There is special attention given to the civil rights movement and the space program but most of the highlights of the 20th century are well represented.
The museum had a special exhibit about Walter Cronkite. Even though Sarah, who is 18 and a recent high school graduate, hadn't ever heard of him, the exhibit did a great job of piquing both our interests in him and the view of world events through his eyes.

Next, we went across the campus of the University of Texas to the Harry Ransom Center. This little gem exhibits one of only forty-eight known copies of the Gutenberg Bible. There are only five copies in the United States! I had never thought that would be something I would get to see, just something I read about in the history books. It was amazing. The Bible was printed in two volumes and the Ransom Center has both on display! They also have the first photo EVER TAKEN on display.
We were there to see the Bible and found that they were also having an exhibit on the various aspects of motion picture making. The wardrobe display caught our attention right away. There was a dress worn by Vivian Leigh in Gone With the Wind and the jacket worn by Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver. In the music display, we saw the actual sheet music for Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious from Mary Poppins with hand written notes by the composer. Every turn revealed another artifact from Hollywood that make collectors of memorabilia really giddy.

The really amazing thing is that these two awesome facilities, the LBJ museum/library and the Ransom Center, are both open to the public at no charge. Neither location was crowded and we were free to move through the exhibits at our own pace. It was fun, too, to share them with Sarah. She is a math and science nerd so the exhibits were all new to her. She enjoyed getting to know a president outside of a classroom. The information helped her put things in context and express an interest in other aspects of American history.
We both have added visiting all the presidential libraries to our bucket lists!