Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park

What trip of mine would be complete without visiting a national park site? My target this time was the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park. The park is in two units so our first stop was in Johnson City, TX at the visitor center to get oriented. I never really knew much about Johnson, other than the fact that he was a president. Boy did I ever get an education!

Flags over Texas

The man himself

Lyndon Johnson was president of the United States for five years and two months. In that time, he pushed no fewer than 135 acts through Congress; a feat no one had accomplished before or since. Here is just a sampling:  the Clean Air Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Food Stamp Act, the Higher Education Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the Public Broadcasting Act, Medicare, and Medicaid. And my personal favorite, he created 35 national parks and established more than 1,000 recreation, scenic and historic trails. His wife, Lady Bird Johnson, also contributed greatly to his conservation efforts and it was her mission in life to beautify the nation.  

Lady Bird Johnson

I wondered why the heck I hadn’t heard more about this President who seemed to have done so much and apparently it comes down to Vietnam which is what most people associate with him, which is a shame.

Boyhood home

Right across from the visitor center is his boyhood home where we got a tour. His family moved to this house two weeks after his fifth birthday, in September 1913 and he spent the next 11 years of his life there. The home is furnished in the early to mid-1920s period and I loved how there were so many porches. There was even a sleeping porch which, to a New Yorker, seems absurd.

Kitchen of boyhood home

We then embarked on a walking tour of the Johnson Settlement. His grandfather and great-uncle established a cattle droving headquarters in the 1860s on this land and their log cabin and subsequent barns, cooler house, and windmill still stand. 

Dogtrot cabin

Windmill through the barn

There was a great exhibit on the cattle business, early Johnson family and settlement history, and Hill Country survival which was quite fascinating to imagine life back then.

What a sight that must have been!

There were also longhorn cattle which I was very excited to see.

Longhorns!

 To see the other portion of the LBJ National Historical Park we had to head 14 miles west to the birthplace, home, ranch, and cemetery for the Johnson family. It is on approximately 1,500 acres. It was one of my favorite parts of the entire trip.

Road to the ranch

To get to the homestead you have to drive along the Pedernales River and then through pastures of sheep, goats and Hereford cattle (descendants of LBJs own herd). 

When we saw the airplane hangar, we knew we were close to the Texas White House-so called because the President spent approximately twenty percent of his time in office there, hence the need for a plane to come and go. We made it in time for the last tour of the day. Alas, there are no pictures allowed in the house. 

Tour entrance to White House

Texas White House

Meris and I

That allowed me to focus more on the guide who told us more about LBJ both as a person and as a President. The Johnson's left the house pretty much intact with their clothes still hanging in the closets so it was a fascinating portrait of a family (also of 70's fashion and decor). 

As we exited the house, the sun was setting and it was really such a peaceful and beautiful place, I can imagine why he chose to work from here.  It is still a working ranch to this day which I think is a great legacy to leave and a real testament to who he was.

We made a stop at the Johnson family cemetery on the way out. I really appreciated the cemetery because most presidents are buried in tombs or these elaborate settings but here was LBJ just laid out under an oak tree on his ranch. We couldn't linger though because a ranger pulled up in his truck who told us that the park was closing and we needed to leave.  

Johnson Family Cemetery

To appease the hovering ranger we headed outside the gates and stopped at the one-room school house that Lyndon attended. 

LBJ School

The ranger caught up with us again and I thought we were really in trouble this time but his demeanor completely changed and we ended up chatting for 20 minutes which was a pleasant surprise. Plus we got to savor the sunset while chatting. Thanks Ranger Brian!

On the way back through Johnson City we saw a glow about the town and following our eyes we stumbled upon this beautiful sight:

LBJ brought electricity to the Hill Country and boy do they put it to work with this display! It is on the grounds of the electric company, which is conveniently next to his boyhood home. 

 

Every tree was wrapped roots to tip in lights and it was spectacular. Everything really is bigger and brighter in Texas!

Deep in the Heart of Texas

Decorating for Christmas

The 3 Amigos

 As Thanksgiving Day came around again I followed tradition of the past few years and left my family behind to travel. This was not a solo trip however as I was welcomed to Austin, TX with open arms by the incomparable Melissa Filkins. She and I became friends back in my ranch days and I hadn’t seen her since I swung through Texas on the Great American Trek in 2009. We were joined the next evening by Meris Esterly, another friend from the ranch, who had driven over from New Mexico. When I went out to visit Meris earlier this summer she had mentioned to me that she usually visits Melissa over Thanksgiving so I decided to join up for this year since it had been waaaaaay too long since I had seen Melissa. Melissa kindly put up with us descending on her home for a week and we set out to make the most of our time together. I was so thankful to be able to spend such quality time with two people I had sorely missed.

Having fun

Since Melissa had to work on and off, Meris and I spent the first few days taking in all the shopping opportunities that neither of us is normally privy to like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. I got my delicious Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s that Alicia had introduced me to last year in Spartanburg and got everyone else hooked on them too.

Texas sizes Round Rock Donut

Dining at Justine's

Much delicious food was consumed throughout the week as well: Round Rock Donuts, homemade mac and cheese, pizza (with potatoes as a topping!), and some delicious international cuisine (Mexican, Italian and French).
We were able to take in a couple movies as well (Frozen once and Catching Fire twice; both highly recommended). We spent a gorgeous evening taking in the sunset at Mt Bonnel which gives a birds eye view of Austin, Lake Austin, and the surrounding hills.

View from Mt. Bonnel

View from Mt. Bonnel

Of course we went cowboy boot shopping in Texas as well. I fell in love with this pair of boots and my love could not be diminished by the $500 price tag but my buying power sure could. Maybe someday…

The beautiful boots

Melissa also kindly took us shopping to Anthropologie and gifted us with these beautiful mugs.

So cute!

On the days that Melissa was working, Meris and I spent time jaunting off to various sites in the area which will be documented in subsequent posts so stick around!

Farmhouse Table

After moving into my house with basically no furniture besides a bed I was on the lookout for several essentials. However, I couldn't bring myself to spend so much on a manufactured kitchen table. So Kyle suggested that we build a table. Looking around at a few blogs I saw the results of those weekend projects and signed up. Well 2 months later, I finally have my table. Here's the story of how it came to be.

The intial plan was from Ana White because it was fairly simple for beginners like us. Well it turned out nothing like that because we're Burns' and think we always have a better idea how to do things. We got the bright idea to use barnwood for a real farmhouse look so we headed over to neighbor Hector who had a fallen down barn just chock full of wood.

 Devin and Kyle dove in like it was the motherlode but I was quite hesitant because how the heck was I supposed to get a table out of this crap? As we brought it back to the shop we cleaned up a section and threw some water on it and a glimmer of hope emerged as the wood revealed itself to us.

The first day was spent pulling out rusted nails, cleaning off the dirt and bugs and trimming the pieces down to see what we had to work with.

Getting rid of nails

Trimming it up

 Due to the wood we had picked, some were full length pieces while other short pieces so Devin played jigsaw puzzle until we came upon a pattern that worked.

Jigsaw table

Now that we had some semblance of a table we had to take of the edges to make sure they would fit together flush.

Next up came planing. I was hesitant if we should do that because I didn't want to lose the gray barnwood patina but we tried it out on a test piece and it actually brought out more of the wood so we moved forward.

Devin running it through planer

Me running through planer

Now it was time to glue. Working quickly we liberally applied wood glue and placed the pieces next to each other. Then we got some of Dad's big clamps and tightened it all up.

X Marks the spot--and the eventual size

While the top was on its way we now had to figure out the bottom. There was some debate over continuing to use barnwood as legs or going with manufactured legs. After seeing the top I was hesitant to add more barnwood because I didnt want to it be too imposing. At Home Depot we found some nice country legs that added a feminine quality to the table. We also picked up some shims, screws and 2x4s for the rest of the frame. Building the frame took a whole day of gluing and screwing.

Framing it up

Making sure it fits

Trying out the legs

Checking the height

For ease, we decided to paint before putting the top on so the legs were sanded down and I applied a flat white paint.

After applying some wood hardener to the top it was time to attach it to the bottom.

The bottom was not at all level so we used shims to nail the supports in place and attach to the frame. 

Finally it came time to see the top! We were very nervous to flip it over but all the gluing and screwing held and we had ourselves a sturdy table. However, the top was still in pretty rough shape because it wasn't very level.

Next came several hours of sanding and hand planing to get the top down to a level surface.

After all this, the table was finally moved to my house for the final step of polyurethane. That process alone took about a month because so many coats were needed. Due to the character of the wood, there was also some holes so it took a while to fill those up.

Finally it got moved inside and was ready for its place in my home. I'd lived with tape on the floor for weeks in anticipation.

I ended up getting chairs at WalMart to match the farmhouse table. I can't believe I ended up with such a gorgeous table from a heap of barnwood. And it's complimented nicely by a table runner from Grandma Doyle.

For the inaugural meal I had the boys over for Sunday dinner. As Kyle said " The table stayed up and dinner stayed down." so I call it a success!

Overall the table and chairs came to about $250 (the chairs were about half that). To buy a table like this would be more than a thousand dollars and now I understand why. This table would not have been possible without Kyle and Devin. I could not imagine how a dilapidated pile of barnwood would transform but Devin was confident in her vision the entire way. They devoted many hours of their life to this thing and I am eternally grateful to them for that. They aren't scared of hard work and are now embarking on making their own barnwood table! I love that barnwood has a story and a history to it and I can hopefully find some more places for it to fit into my cabin in the woods.