tbutler | Off to the Library...

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...the Truman Presidential Library, that is. Visited over the weekend, for the first time I can remember since I was in grade school; better than I remembered. Some things are hard to appreciate when you're 10 or 11 years old.

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From:

yhlee

Neat! I've never been.

My grandparents came to visit the USA and we all went to visit D.C., including the Smithsonian, when I was...somewhere in the vicinity of six, I want to say. I was mainly impressed by the Hope Diamond because big shiny rock was about my speed back then. Everything else went over my head. My younger sister doesn't remember any of it at all. I wouldn't mind going back and actually being able to appreciate things!

From:

tbutler

Oh, yeah, I know what you mean too. We used to travel around the west-midwestern states in the years we lived in Denver, and I have a lot of good memories of that time, but there are things I wish I'd remembered better. Like Yellowstone, and Dinosaur National Monument, and Mount Rushmore; I remember it raining, and looking out from the Visitor's Center at night to see the four heads lit up by floodlamps... and of all the weird things, a frozen treat that Burger King was selling at the time and we were eating in our hotel room.

Road trips around age 8-11 are some of my fonder memories; I'm getting old enough now that I can't spend 9 hours in the car the way I used to, so I'm glad I did when I could. Did you ever get to road trip much?

From:

yhlee

We did a couple road trips when I was growing up. One of them was to St. Louis, of which I remember nothing about the trip part, but I was young enough that when we visited the famous arch, the slanted floor terrified me because I was convinced I was going to fall off the edge of the Earth. The other was from Houston to San Antonio, to visit the Alamo. I found the Alamo incredibly disappointing as a site. :p (I also find it hilarious how non-Texans never remember Goliad, although that was also part of the battle-cry!)

Joe and I did a quasi-road-trip to Gencon for our honeymoon, although we shared a car with our friend Greg. =)

From:

tbutler

Huh. Guess I didn't miss all that much in the Alamo, then. I was in San Antonio for a developer's conference a couple of years ago; but after talking up the Alamo and all the entertainments at the downtown riverwalk, it turned out the conference hotel was a resort so far out that the only way to get there was to pay $60 for a taxi, or rent a car. No shuttle buses. :( If there wasn't that much to see, that helps a little. ^^;;

Wish there were some way that'd be reasonable for you guys to make a road trip. Vicksburg is only about three hours away; I'd love to visit for the Civil War sites and the USS Cairo Museum.

From:

yhlee

Aww, sorry to hear. I'm surprised there wasn't a shuttle bus! Even if the Alamo is, er, sort of a dingy-looking small fort, you'd think the historical significance (well, to Texans anyway) would mean they'd cater more to tourists...

I don't think I've ever been to a Civil War site! Would love to someday. Joe isn't particularly into that kind of thing, but when I read up on battles, it's hard to "see" what's going on when I have no idea what the terrain is like. (Of course, the landscape will have changed, but...) In 7th grade I do think we visited the site of the Battle of San Jacinto, but it was long enough ago that I don't remember any specifics. *sigh*

From:

tbutler

Oh, I just realized something - you have to take a road trip to St. Louis now.

The Dragon needs to learn how to perch. ^_-

From:

tbutler

I'll try and post some more pics from there later, by the by. They've got some strange and interesting things there - an original Norman Rockwell painting from the historic 1948 election, the original of the order firing General MacArthur, a video clip of Truman at age 75 hosting Jack Benny at the library, the safety pin for the Nagasaki atomic bomb...