Austin

Kevin picked me up at the airport Saturday afternoon and that evening we went out to one of their favorite pubs and then had wonder dinner and then on to another place for dessert. Sunday night we went to a BBQ place. It was great to see Kevin and Nicky again. The last time I had seen them was in 2001 when Sally and I went to visit them. Kevin and Nicky and wonderful and generous hosts and I plan to wait so long before visiting them again.

Natural Bridge Caverns

Before going to Austin Kevin sent me an e-mail and asked me what I wanted to do when I was there. I did some searching on the Internet and found the Natural Bridge Caverns, a system of caverns near Austin. Kevin told me that they had been their before and enjoyed it. I told me boss, who was also going to Austin, that I was going to go to the caverns and he said that his wife was a bit claustrophobic so it wasn't somewhere he would go. Later when I talked to Ron in Plano I told him he would have no problem taking his wife to the caverns. There wasn't a chamber that was smaller than my living room and several were larger than my house. There was one stalactite or stalagmite (I don't remember which because it went all the way from the floor of the cave to the roof) which was 50 ft. long. The cavens were also very long and it took us about an hour to get through them. Some of the chambers were very impressive and I would highly recommend going here if you are ever in Austin. When Madison gets old enough I want to take her there.

Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch

Adjacent to the Caverns is an Animal Park. It is the type of park where the animals roam free and you drive your car though to see the animals. None of the animals are carnivores so they let you roll down your windows and feed the animals. You do have to be careful. An ostrich stuck its head into my window and tried to take my entire bag of food. It was very aggressive and a little scary. Several Barbary sheep also tried to stick their heads in to the car. They weren't aggressive, but they have horns and they keep banging their horns against Nicky's new car. A Bison tried to stick its head into the car as well. It's horns weren't a problem but its drool was. The Bison had a six inch tongue that it used to slime everything in reach. There was also a petting zoo at the ranch.

I got some video of the Wildlife Ranch. The Bison video is especially amusing.

Sixth Floor Museum

Monday morning Kevin drove me to the airport for my short light to DFW airport. I got a rental car and then drove to my hotel in Plano. I had two free days in Dallas, unfortunately the two things that I wanted to see most, The Kimbell Museum and the Dallas Art Museum were closed on Monday. When I checked into the hotel one of the hotel staff told me that I could take the train from the hotel to downtown Dallas. I decided to see the Sixth Floor museum which is a museum about the Kennedy assassination. I was surprised that Dallas had any public transportation. I caught the train just outside of my hotel and took the fairly long ride to Dallas. I wasn't sure what stop to get off at and was looking at my map when a sort of seedy looking guy got in and sat down on the seat next to me. He asked me if I had seen any transit police. I said no and he said "good because I don't have a ticket". He smelled of beer. He started asking me if I was a tourist (the camera and map were probably a give away). He asked me if I was going to see the Kennedy museum. I told him yes and he said that everyone goes to see it. He told me how friendly everyone was in Dallas etc. After a while he pointed out the window and said "that's where Kennedy was shot". I got off at the next stop and found my way back to the place the guy in the train had pointed out. It was a good thing he pointed it out because there weren't any signs at the train station saying this way to 6th floor museum or anything. I have to say the guy on the train was friendly and helpful. The Sixth floor museum is in the sixth floor of the former schoolbook depository from where Oswald shot Kennedy. It was much more elaborate that I thought it would be. There was a lot of information events leading up to Nov 22, a lot about the assassination and all the conspiracy theories. After visiting the museum I walked around the Grassy Knoll where a number of people claimed was a second gunman. By the time I was finished I was getting tired and went back to the hotel to rest.

Kimbell Art Museum

The Kimbell is known as one of the best small museums in the country. The Kimbell has a famous Monet that Sally and I saw in San Francisco this summer. It took about an hour to drive from Plano to Fort Worth. The museum had an Egyptian exhibition while I was there but in general I don't care that much for Egyptian art and since I had limit time I just saw the museum's permanent collection. The museum is very pretty on the inside. While the collection is small, most of the pieces are of high quality.

Tuesday seemed to be the day that schools brought students to the museum. I was appalled to see a group of junior high students being raced through the museum without giving them any time to look at the art. What was the point. There was a group of high school students that were taking time to look at and discuss the paintings. As I passed by the instructor was discussing a painting by Jacque Louis David that was painted in 1815. The instructor asked what event happened in 1815. Silence from the students. Finally one ventured "World War I?"

Museum of Modern Art

Across the street from the Kimbell is the Museum of Modern Art. Since I was so close I decided to stop in and take a quick look around. The museum had a special exhibition of photographs that was interesting but overall I didn't find a lot that I cared for. There were a few paintings by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, etc.

Carter Museum

After leaving the Modern Art Museum I need to make a decision, go to the arboretum or the Carter Museum. When planning the trip I had initially rejected the museum because it mostly consists of western art such has Remmingtons but at the hotel I saw a brochure for the museum that mentioned that the museum had a Childe Hassam and William Merritt Chase that I thought would be worth seeing. The Arboretum was highly rated except that it was becoming very overcast and not a great day for an outdoor walk so I went to the Carter Museum. The museum was mostly what I expected. A lot of sculptures and paintings by Remmington with a couple of excellent paintings by American Impressionists Hassam, Chase, Winslow Homer, and John Singer Sargent.

Dallas Museum of Art

I really wanted to see the Dallas Museum of Art because they had a special Van Gogh exhibition. I had left this museum until last because it is opened late on Thursday night so I figured that if I didn't have enough time to see it on Tuesday I could see it Thursday night. My the time I got to Dallas I had a little less than two hours to see the museum. I felt that I would probably really like the Van Gogh exhibition and decided that I would go see the exhibition and a few other things and then come back on Thursday to see the rest. The Van Gogh exhibition was very good. It's title was Van Gogh's Sheaves of Wheat and consisted entirely of paintings by Van Gogh and his contemporaries on the subject of wheat. I did have enough time to see the museum's impressionist and postimpressionist collection. I never did make it back to the museum because the conference's Thursday session didn't finish until after 10 pm.

The Hotel

I stayed at the Rennaissance hotel in Plano where the conference was. The hotel lobby was very nice looking. The room was nice, but not better than any other hotel convention center room. I had trouble getting my room the right temperature. The thermostat was very touch, a little one way and it was too hot and little bit the other way and it was too cold. The hotel staff was very nice and helpful.

The Conference

As I was writing this I kept thinking "there is something I'm missing" Oh yes! the conference. Really, the entire point of the trip. This was ALTAs first conference so there were some bugs to work out in the process. They didn't leave enough time between sessions so each session tended to start a little late and then go overtime. They had so many things that they wanted to cover that we wouldn't finish until after 10 pm.each night. On the other hand I did meet a number of very nice people, I made a some very useful connections and I got to find out what other people in Alcatel are working. I suspect that next years conference will be very good.