CORPS OF ENGINEERS MIDWAY PARK - WACO, TX

October 13 – 16, 2010

We found the COE Midway Park online and since we had only briefly passed through Waco last year we wanted to explore the city in more detail. Little did we know of all the interesting places there are to visit in Waco. When we arrived at the COE Midway Park Campground we were somewhat concerned that there were too many trees to get a TV satellite signal, but not to worry, our MotoSat found the satellite through the trees and the Verizon cell phone worked well so we had TV and Internet as well.

Fran at the Texas Ranger Museum

On Wednesday, when we arrived, we first headed to the Visitors Center and found it next to the Texas Ranger Museum. The museum has to be one of the most interesting places to visit of all we have visited; it is huge and can take most of a day to do it justice. A 45 minute film gives an excellent overview of the Rangers history.

The Rangers started in 1823 with 10 men hired by Steven Austin to help maintain law and order in Texas and to help protect the settlers from attacks by the Indians in the area. They were soon augmented by another 10 men and eventually numbered many hundreds.



Roll 'yer own!



Surprisingly, many of the early Rangers were also surveyors who were sent out to settle boundary disputes. Today, there are about 144 Rangers doing investigative work; most famously, they were instrumental in the shootouts that resulted in the deaths of Bonnie and Clyde and Baby-Face Nelson in the 1930’s. One of the legends involves Capt. Bill McDonald, when the Mayor of a border town asked for help to combat the violence from across the border during the Mexican revolution in 1910. When he saw only Capt. McDonald step off the train he exclaimed “We’re done for, I asked for a whole company and they send me one Ranger”. Well drawled McDonald, “There’s only one riot isn’t there”. That is the origin of the Ranger legend “One riot – one Ranger!”

 On Friday we started our day at the Dr. Pepper Museum, a three story structure in what was the original bottling factory. We were amazed to learn that Dr. Pepper preceded rival Coca-Cola by one year in 1892. It is fascinating to see the changes that took place in the bottling and distribution of their sodas. The original sodas were all made up by pharmacists in drug stores with fountains; they would keep trying different formulations until one became the most popular.


The original manufacturing plant at 100 years old

 Unlike Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper has never used any cocaine which was an original ingredient in Coca-Cola for .about 12 years. At a soda fountain in the museum we were introduced to “Dr. Pepper with pure cane sugar”. This is only available in Texas and does have a sweeter flavor. Needless to say we bought a 12-pack at Wally World.

Then it was off to the Baylor University campus which we did not expect to find in Waco. Since the school mascot is a bear, there is a Bears Lair to house two live bears in a zoo type facility.

The two Baylor Bears

This is a very nice campus open to visitors and right in the heart of the city. We then found the Robert Browning Museum building, a really beautiful building housing the memorabilia and writings of the famous poet and his wife. He is noted for numerous poems but probably the most famous is the “Pied Piper of Hamlin”.

The Browning Treasury Room

The museum is also noted for the 63 large stained glass windows throughout the building. While the building is over 100 years old it has been upgraded a number of times and looks new.



The Pied Piper of Hamlin Window







While we are not enthusiasts of poetry, the museum and library are too beautiful to miss.

Of course Waco does offer many excellent restaurants and theaters but with so little time we had to get ready for our next destination at the Lacy’s house on Lake LBJ. We certainly enjoyed our short stay in Waco and look forward to returning sometime.

See y’all ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bye!