January 25, 2012: Reconstructed boyhood home at Lyndon Baines Johnson National Historic Park near Johnson City, Texas.
Let’s say you’re an Iowa State fan who is going to the Alamo Bowl, but don’t want to be among the crowd who have vowed to drink San Antonio dry. What else is there to do in an area with an average December high of 64? Do you like history? Then do I have an itinerary for you! The bullet points are pulled from a vacation in 2012.
- If you go up to Austin, there’s the LBJ Museum and Texas State History Museum, both worth your time.
- West of Austin, there is LBJ National Historic Park, including his boyhood home. The “Texas White House” is closed right now but you can see the rest of the ranch and “Air Force One-Half”.
- A short distance west of there is National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg. ALLOW FOUR HOURS. I couldn’t and missed a lot.
- And then the Alamo, of course.
If you’re driving to/from the game, it’s inevitable that the Dallas-Fort Worth area will be involved. That means an opportunity to dedicate a day to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza and the George W. Bush Museum at SMU, which are a few miles apart from each other. Both are kind of pricey on admission, though.
But there is one caveat to this blockbuster plan: Everything, of course, is closed on Christmas and New Year’s Day.