We finally took a trip to Waco, Texas,
a trip we had planned several times before but never organized. We left early on Tuesday, May 22 and returned
rather late the next day. It was a good
time as Baylor University had finished their school
year (along with most public schools) and it was midweek before the Memorial
Day weekend started. There were very few
other tourists and traffic was light.
We arrived in Waco
about 10:00 am which was earlier than we anticipated. I guess it is due to the speed limit on the
toll roads around Austin
being raised to 80 mph. I set my cruise
control on 85 and there were no cops to be seen. The main place we wanted to visit was the
Waco Mammoth Site, which may become a National Park in the future, but it
didn’t open until 11:00 am. So we drove
into downtown Waco,
parked the car and walked around. We
visited the McLennan County Courthouse and the Alico
Building which is the tallest building
in Waco and a survivor of the deadly Waco tornado of 1953. Then we hopped back into the car and drove up
and down the major downtown streets of Waco
while getting the layout of the city.
We returned to the Mammoth exhibit which is a few miles
northwest of the city and were on the first guided tour. This mammoth site is the second biggest in
the world with the largest being in Siberia. It was discovered in 1978 when two men saw a
bone sticking out of the banks of a creek near the Bosque River. In all, fossil remains of 22 Columbian
mammoths were found plus a camel and the tooth of a saber-tooth cat. Only one was a bull mammoth and the others
were mothers surrounding their babies as a flash flood or mud slide buried
them.
We finished with the tour and drove into the city for a
quick lunch near Heritage Square. After lunch we drove the short distance to
the Dr. Pepper Museum for another tour. Waco is the home of Dr.
Pepper and the museum documents the beginnings of the beverage with the
original drug store and restored machinery of the first bottling plant. We felt
it was a so-so museum which brought back some old memories of our childhood but
it probably wasn’t worth the cost of admission.
Anyway, been there, done that.
By now it was mid-afternoon so we drove to the Hilton Hotel
where we had reservations and checked into our room. We unpacked and then returned to the car for
one more Waco
museum, the Texas Ranger Museum. This
museum is located on the Brazos River and adjacent to the First
Street Cemetery
where many of Waco’s
prominent citizens are buried. It is
also next to Fort
Fisher Park
which is the location of an early frontier fort which was the origins of the
town. As can be expected, the museum
contains the history of the Texas Rangers and contains a lot of guns, guns, and
more guns. Some weighing nearly five
pounds were situated so people could handle them and be shocked by their
weight. Another interesting exhibit was
the Bonnie and Clyde story where Texas Rangers tracked them to Louisiana and gunned
them down. We watched a movie on the
history of the rangers then left the museum as it was closing its doors.
We walked to the Indian
Spring Park
across from the Hilton Hotel and crossed the Brazos
River on the old suspension bridge
built in 1870 to help cattle drives on the Chisholm Trail. A very nice river walk trail and park
stretches along the Brazos
River for a long
distance. The entrance to the suspension
bridge is marked with several statues of long horn steers and cowboys who
herded them along the Chisholm Trail.
We returned to our room, changed clothes and walked to the
nearby River Square Center
where several restaurants are located in what looks like old warehouses. We chose Gratziano’s Italian restaurant and
had a fairly decent meal although we weren’t all that hungry.
Wednesday morning we had breakfast in our hotel, checked out
and were on our way for more sightseeing.
We drove the short distance to Baylor University
which was deserted. We parked the car by
the Armstrong Browning Library, which we had hopes to see, but it was closed
for the week for maintenance. The
library has the world’s largest collection of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett
Browning’s works and is supposed to have a beautiful interior with several
glass windows. Perhaps some other time.
It was a mild, pleasant morning so we walked along some of
the earliest Baylor buildings such as the Old Main, Neff Hall, Burleson
Quadrangle and a nice flowered walk called the Pleasance. We also found the bear habitat where Baylor’s
two live mascot bears live but they were sleeping and couldn’t be bothered to
make much of an appearance.
Back in the car we drove northwest of Waco to Homestead Heritage village, a 500
acre religious community with classrooms and courses for traditional
crafts. I know nothing about their
beliefs but one young man informed me that while they dress modestly they are
not Mennonites or Amish. They drive cars
and use electricity. I think they are
Anabaptists. He told me they originated
in New York, moved to Colorado,
and then moved to the Waco
area recently. They try to be self
sufficient and, I think, practice home birth, home education, and dying at
home. They may be a weird cult but our
experience is that they make beautiful woodwork, pottery, baskets, quilts,
material, iron work, and they have delicious food in their café. Their village has a blacksmith shop,
gristmill, granary, sorghum mill, woodworking shop, fiber craft shop and a farm
with crops and animals. Everyone treated
us warmly and the waitresses in the café were exceptionally friendly. Their vanilla ice cream is one of the best
I’ve ever had. Do you think they
brainwashed us with that?
After lunch at Homestead Heritage we headed a bit further
north and drove to the town of West, Texas, a Czech village
with at least three bakeries that sell delicious kolaches. Our favorite is in town and is called The
Village Bakery. They bake kolaches,
klobasniki, buchta, vanocka, strudel, pies, breads and more. We were disappointed to find out that the
Nemecek’s butcher shop has closed down so we can no longer get their
sausages. We bought some kolaches and
headed back south.
Instead of driving Interstate 35 we took small back roads east
of I-35 through the towns of Leroy, Mart, Riesel, Marlin, Lott, and Westphalia where we stopped to look inside the old German
Catholic church. We continued on through
Rogers, Holland, Bartlett and Walburg
where we stopped at the German restaurant and had German beers. After a while we drove to Georgetown where we met friends Wayne and
Vicki for dinner at the nice Monument Café.
After a good meal and friendly conversation we finally headed home in a
hurry, once more skirting Austin
on the speedy toll road.
Waco
is a nice town with sufficient sights to see for at least a couple of
days. The areas south of Waco and east of I-35 are
not worth the effort. The countryside is
mostly flat, monotonous farms with little to offer. The towns, like small towns all across the USA, are dying
with crumbling buildings, few jobs, aging populations and little opportunity
for growth. Next time we will probably
zip down the Interstate highway.
