Trevor Scott hit the road to check out these awesome Texas museums!
This Road Trippin’ adventure takes us to Hill Country and the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, where they have unveiled an incredible state-of-the-art exhibit.
Our next stop takes us to Georgetown and the beautiful Georgetown square, where history is everywhere you look around here, with points of interest and historical plaques on nearly every corner.
Next, Trevor Scott stopped by Moody Theater in downtown Austin to check out the ACL Live Tour experience, which is celebrating Austin City Limits, the longest running music series in television history.
We continue our road trippin’ adventures in Waco at the Mayborn Museum Complex, where massive Waco mammoths greet you outside, and tons of natural science fun awaits inside!
Trevor Scott traveled to wonderful Waco, where the national beverage of Texas, the one and only Dr Pepper, was invented!
This Road Trippin’ adventure takes us to Hill Country and the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, where they have unveiled an incredible state-of-the-art exhibit. Visiting a museum is about as close as most of us are going to get to a military submarine, but that was not the case for about 40 civilians in World War II, where in May of 1944, they were part of a daring rescue in the Philippines.
Now that incredible true story is coming to life in this exhibit called “The Rescue: A Submersive Experience.” This is a dynamic, multisensory, family-friendly exhibit that truly makes you feel like you’re a part of that daring mission. Trevor Scott stopped by the museum to check out this “submersive” experience for himself.
The journey starts in a jungle in the Philippines when you join refugees awaiting rescue from a military submarine. Aboard the crowded submarine women, children and crew had to get creative. “There weren’t enough beds so a lot of them were sleeping in torpedo tubes,” explained Kyna Stys, Education and Programs Director for the National Museum of the Pacific War.
But the journey is just getting started when the submarine captain sees a Japanese convoy and decides to attack.
Our next stop takes us to Georgetown and the beautiful Georgetown square, where history is everywhere you look around here, with points of interest and historical plaques on nearly every corner. Tucked inside the Farmers State Bank Building you’ll find the Williamson Museum whose mission is to tell stories and help keep history alive. Trevor Scott stopped by to learn how they’re making sure the citizens of Williamson County stay connected to the area’s rich history.
“We are trying to preserve Williamson County history through education, acquisition, exhibition and perseveration,” said Dannielle Houck, Executive Director of the Williamson Museum.
Inside you’ll find more than 16,000 artifacts including the first bottle of wine bottled in Williamson County and Swedish Bibles that came to the area with early settlers in Round Rock.
“We are not your typical history museum. Our little tag line is ‘discover the stories,’ because there’s always something new to discover. We’re trying to make history fun and engaging,” Houck said.
The Williamson Museum also prides itself on educational outreach to community schools. They have 19 traveling trunks packed with hands-on learning experiences for students in area classrooms.
Don’t miss some of their great upcoming events including the Texas Photography Festival and cultural events. Click here for more information.
This next stop isn’t exactly a museum, but it is full of history, music history. Trevor Scott stopped by Moody Theater in downtown Austin to check out the ACL Live Tour experience, which is celebrating Austin City Limits, the longest running music series in television history. This multimedia experience takes you decades of television and music history and gives a peek backstage at how these iconic episodes are made.
“This is the house that Willie built,” says Ed Bailey, VP Brand Development at Austin City Limits, which just celebrated their 50th anniversary. “Austin City Limits is the longest-running music television series in history– anywhere on the planet– and it’s right here in Austin, Texas,” he added.
The ACL Live Tour experience starts at Club 3TEN where visitors watch a 10-minute overview of ACL Live starting in 1974. Then, visit behind-the-scenes gems like the green room, backstage and television control room to see how ACL Live producers work. Plus, you can see stunning images of everybody who’s ever played on the show.
“Diversity is a hallmark of this show. We are genre-agnostic. Anything goes here, and we’re waiting for the next big thing,” Bailey said.
The ACL Live Tour experience is a place where locals and visitors alike can celebrate Austin City Limits while also giving fans and artists the best place to have a live music experience.
“People come to Austin because we’re the Live Music Capital of the World. I think what we mean by that is– if you love music, we have enough clubs and musicians going on at any time on any night in this town. We believe Austin City Limits’s contribution has been to share that with the rest of the country,” Bailey said. “We want to send them home talking about how cool Austin is and we feel privileged to be a part of the story,” he added.
We are continuing our road trippin’ adventures in Waco at the Mayborn Museum Complex, where massive Waco mammoths greet you outside, and tons of natural science fun awaits inside! Trevor Scott stopped by to explore the museum and their brand new temporary exhibit featuring a beloved Mo Willems literary character.
“We’re all about sparking curiosity here. We hope that once you step though the doors you’re non-stop learning and having a great time,” said Marketing Coordinator Molly Noah.
At the museum complex you’ll find two floors where children can experience everything from bubbles and light to sound and dinosaurs. A backyard ecology exhibit also teaches kids about the creatures they might find in their very own backyards
“We think families can come up here and spend the entire day here. Normally kids have to be pulled out of here,” Noah said with a laugh.
Trevor Scott traveled to wonderful Waco, where the national beverage of Texas, the one and only Dr Pepper, was invented! The Dr Pepper Museum tells that entire soda story and they have a fascinating new exhibit to check out.
The Dr Pepper Museum is affectionately known as the “Home of Dr Pepper” and is housed in the 1906 Artisan Manufacturing and Bottling Company in downtown Waco. The museum stands as a monument to the “Native Texan” and favorite Lone Star soft drink, Dr Pepper. You may or may not know that Dr Pepper was invented in Waco, Texas, way back in 1885, but what we do know is that we love it, and Texans especially love going back in time to learn more about the beverage through the museum’s collections, exhibits, and educational experiences.
In fact, since the museum’s opening in 1991, nearly 3 million visitors have passed through to soak up fun facts about the nation’s oldest major soft drink.
Rachel Nadeau Johnson, Collections Manager for the Dr Pepper Museum
“We try to change out our temporary exhibits about every year as well. So there’s always going to be something new. Right now we have the “Wilton’s Landing” exhibit, which is named after one of our co-founders, Wilton Laning. So it’s a little play on his name.”
“Wilton loved Dr Pepper, one of his favorite things ever, and he was a Waco native. He grew up here. He saw the importance of Dr Pepper in the community, and he saw that this building was vacant and had become derelict. He really wanted to tell that Dr Pepper story about why it was important in Waco and why it was important nationally, and so he wanted to create this museum
“This exhibit tells the story of how the convenience store came to be in the early 1900s, when people started being able to travel more with the automobile. And we all know on road trips we need easy places to stop, and we also need easy places to shop as we’re going to work or coming home to our daily activities. And so the convenience store really developed out of that idea of making those quick, easy stops for people to pick up whatever they needed along the way.”
