Most of the more significant incidents in U.S. history are immortalized with some sort of memorial and/or museum but the Branch Davidian tragedy in Waco might be the one exception. Eighty two Branch Davidian followers and 4 ATF agents were killed in the siege which ended when the compound burned down. Apparently there is a plaque that sits near the residual of the burned buildings but it is on private property now and the reception has been reported as a little hostile so we gave it a pass (it also seemed a touch ghoulish for us to visit). I suspect that the tragedy is still a little raw and given the controversy around who was at fault for the ending, it may be some time before there is any formal recognition of the event. Unfortunately one of the wing nuts who saw Waco as government oppression was Timothy McVay who carried out the Oklahoma City bombing on the 1 year anniversary of Waco.
 
We did take advantage of Waco in order to visit the Texas Ranger Museum. These iconic cops have a history that is almost as long and colourful as that of Texas itself (DH always saw herself as a Toronto Ranger). When DH wasn't head banging to the tunes of Grand Funk Railroad in the 70's, you could catch her watching 'Walker, Texas Ranger' (or CHIPs, Starsky and Hutch, or just about any other cop drama).

Next up was Austin, the capital of Texas and despite a very prim and proper appearance, the city fathers seem eager to carve out a Keep Austin Weird reputation. There were a couple of odd ball stops particularly along 5th Ave which is the night time home of the University types, but pushing the 'weird' theme did seem a little like sticking a clown nose on a button down Southern gentleman. But the big reason for stopping at Austin was to do a quick catch-up with some wonderful folks we had met on a river boat cruise in Russia. For long time readers of the blog, these were the former CIA operatives (allegedly retired), so out of respect we had to let them edit this section of the blog before we could post it.  

We had big plans for ############## ######################## #######. ########## ########################### and ############################ ##############. gate code was ######### #######. John and Elaine G ###############
 ##############################. ########## ########################### ############### secret agents ############# ##############.  They took us to one of the best Texas BBQ's located near ############## ###############################. ########## ########################### ############################ ##############. ################ fabulous time #############################. ########## ########################### ########### ######. ########### ##############. ################# good food ############################. ########## ########################### ############################ ##############. If you’re ever in Austin you must ############################ #################. ########## ########################### ######################### ### ##############.  I would caution that #############################################. ########## ############## ############# ############################ ##############, and DH’s favourite experience was #############################################. ########## ########################### ############################ ##############. Thanks to Elaine and John for being wonderful hosts. 

Next up was our search for the most well known symbol of Texas- the Alamo.