Waco Trip – May 2012

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.