January Trip Part 3: College Station
So why did I want to visit an obscure Texan University town? For a Presidential Museum - George Bush Snr’s.
For those who aren’t aware, there are 13 Official Presidential Libraries and Museums in the US, dotted all over the country, roughly based on where the presidents were from.
As part of visiting all 50 states, I’ve visited 9 of them (FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and George W Bush). So, being the terrible completionist that I am, I want to try and visit the remaining ones when I can. On this trip, the intention was to visit two more.
Funnily enough though, I very almost cancelled going to College Station. Foolishly watching the Weather Channel, I saw reports of the winter snowstorm that was on course to hit Texas and the southern coast. They kept mentioning College Station as a place affected, with dire warnings about road conditions…
But the flight never got cancelled and ultimately the snow missed College Station. Not before I’d lost sleep worrying about whether I’d have to rearrange things, though!
Flying via Dallas, I could use the lounge to get lunch before flying for 45 minutes to College Station.
Arriving safely at College Station’s truly tiny airport (only 2 gates!) I was relieved to see no snow but it was extremely cold!
Like most Presidential Museums, there’s an awful lot of interesting displays about the president’s life.
Like JFK, George Bush was missing in action for a while in World War 2, ultimately getting rescued after going down in the pacific.
What I found especially interesting about George Bush is that he was probably the most qualified president in terms of work experience.
He was:
A congressman
Ambassador to the UN
Chair of the Republican Committee
Ambassador to China
Head of the CIA
Vice-President
before becoming President.
All the Presidential Museums have a replica of the Oval Office as it was at the time the president was in power. Like the better ones, you can walk around and sit in this one (some have it behind a screen)
Like a few of the Presidential Museums, George Bush and his family are buried on the site of his museum. I thought this was weird when I first saw it at Truman’s museum but I’d say the majority of presidents are buried near their museum. Nixon’s birthplace is also on the site of his museum!
Another common thing the presidential museums do is have some big exhibits related to the president. George Bush’s has both Marine Force 1 and a Presidential Train. I couldn’t really work out if the train is just named after him or if he ever took it.
(Ronald Reagan has Air Force One at his museum - which is probably the best of the huge exhibits though)
All in all, this is one of the better Presidential Museums.
I only had one full day in College Station but managed to also visit the Museum of the American GI, which had a vast amount of US uniforms and vehicles on display.
Not worth going to College Station to visit on its own but definitely worth visiting if already there.
After College Station, off to my next Presidential Museum of this trip - in Little Rock, Arkansas.