Another Nice Visit with Jack and Sharon

When Jack and Sharon got here on Tuesday they were able to get a nice site that shared a “back yard” with ours.

On Wednesday we drove the short distance to Johnson City and the National and State Parks at the Lyndon B. Johnson Ranch. Part of the State Park is the Sauer Beckmann Living History Farm.

There you can see what life was like for the German immigrants who settled this area.

There were sheep and chickens loose in the farmyard.

The farm is still run as it would have been in 1918, when the Beckmann’s bought it from the Sauer’s.

This is the kitchen in the small cabin first built by the Sauer’s.

Later they built a 2 story structure next to the cabin to accommodate their 10 kids. When the Beckmann’s bought the farm they converted the downstairs girls’ bedroom into a kitchen. Having only three kids they didn’t need all that sleeping space. Their old wood fired stove is still used every day on the farm.

Eventually they constructed a Victorian house next to the other two buildings.

Once we’d toured the farm we did a driving tour of the LBJ Ranch, this part of the property is a National Park. This is the schoolhouse that Lyndon Johnson attended as a child. His mother had taught him the alphabet and some reading as a toddler, so at her request he started school at four.

We drove through the ranch past his grandparents’ final house and a couple of guest houses. At the back of the property we stopped at the show barn. The Johnsons raised Hereford cattle, and Herefords are still raised at the ranch.

The tour then went back towards the front of the property where we passed “Air Force 1/2”. This was a small jet fitted out to bring the President from a nearby airport that could accommodate “Air Force One” to the smaller runway at the ranch.

Unfortunately the main house on the ranch, the Western White House, is being renovated and is closed for now, so this was the end of our tour. It was still interesting and informative.

By then it was mid afternoon. We had a great late lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Johnson City and later just had snacks around the campfire. Just after dark a bit of rain passed through, so our very nice day ended abruptly.