On the agenda for the last day in Austin was the Bullock Texas State History Museum and Violet Crown Cinema.
First, however, was breakfast at Capital City Bakery for a breakfast sandwich. They were out of breakfast sandwiches, but said the ham and cheese kolaches were better. They were not wrong.
Cutting across the grounds of the capitol building on the way to the museum.
The Bullock Texas State History Museum.
This is the original goddess of liberty that stood on top of the capitol building. Her features are exaggerated so that she will look normal to people on the ground 300 feet below her.
Spurs!
They had a section on Hollywood westerns. There were several groups of school kids there that day, and the kids knew all the film stars on sight: “John Wayne! Randolph Scott!” (I had to look up Randolph Scott.)
“It wasn’t like Hollywood didn’t know they were getting the details wrong.” A film talking about cowboy movies and how Hollywood used Arizona to film scenes in “Texas.” The film went on to talk about how Hollywood often fails to represent the true diversity of Texas. I found the statement ironic since much of the museum glosses over the fact that the success we’ve had in Texas comes at the cost of people who were here before us.
Texas pride goes way back. Here a small group of Texans from the early 1800s dare the Mexican army to come take their cannon. The Mexicans failed to get the cannon.
In 1684 the ship La Belle left France, eventually sinking in Matagorda Bay in Texas. It was found and the hull and artifacts were excavated in 1995. The ship is 54 feet long and had 35 people on board when it left France. It contained an unusual amount of artifacts because it was filled with its own supplies plus supplies from another ship that had sunk.
This was one of my favorite exhibits. Photographer Jay B Sauceda spent 36 hours in the air taking 44,000 photos.
Originally started in 1910 to empower girls, the Camp Fire Girls is now a gender-inclusive organization that celebrates differences.
The WWI America room was very effective.
It dawned on me while I was in Austin that Whole Foods was founded here. This is the flagship store.
Violet Crown Cinema. I saw Amazing Grace, which is the film version of Aretha Franklin’s 1972 concert at the Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. The audio recording became known as the greatest gospel album of all time. Warner Bros. sent Sydney Pollack to film the event, but since the crew failed to use clapper boards it would have been difficult to edit the footage with accurately synced audio–which is why we aren’t getting the film until now. Anyway, the film was mesmerizing.
Violet Crown Cinema also has vegan food and is open on Monday! (A lot of places on my vegan food list were closed on Monday.) This is their vegan chili dog, which was quite tasty.