Dr Pepper Museum, Waco Texas

Thanks for joining us on our journey of North America
 in our Holiday Rambler, since August 2006

Where are we today ?

Whitney Texas

        A good nights sleep last night even thou its still pretty warm over night, windows open , no blankets, yep sure like this. Early morning we had some rain dampening things a bit but stopped pretty early. We were supposed to have thundershowers all day today. Just windy and overcast and quite warm. So we thought a nice 30 mile drive south to Waco Texas and check out the Dr. Pepper Museum, (Thanks to the suggestion from fellow blogger, Just Wandern' ).

        Into Whitney, stop at a bank machine for a bit of cash and the Chamber of Commerce for a map. Oh and we passed this "Justice of the Peace", hmm, have not seen one of those for many years.

Justice of the Peace

        Now heading south along 933 into Waco Texas and we located the Dr. Pepper Museum, Waco Texas. Parked in the lot and made our way into the museum.      

Dr Pepper Museum

        Apparently the worlds oldest  major soft drink, Dr Pepper is Americas unique flavor and was created, manufactured and sold beginning in 1885 in this central Texas town of Waco.  Sounds interesting so lets take a tour.        

talking stories thru out the museum

original soda fountain

various bottle styles

1930's bottling machine

they hard their own artesian well for a while

older bottling machine

         Of course I had to pose for a photo op,  like my outfit?

         Many videos to watch, this was old Dr Pepper commercials from many generations, (I do remember quite a few of them) right up to present day. Some so old and corny good for some laughs for sure.

        The another talking video with more history of marketing and displays.

         The marketing genius behind Dr Pepper was Woodrow Wilson (Foots) Clements, for many many years. You can read about him if you like here very interesting.

"Foots" Office 

he was know as Mr. Dr Pepper

         Now having enjoyed this tour we had to check out the Soda fountain and I just had to have a Dr Pepper float, yeah is was awesome!

very tasty float

old tables and chairs

        In 1953 there was a tornado that went thru Waco doing major damaage to this building, you can see the new brick work on the front repairing the damage .

         Now after we left the museum a drive about town for a while past the court house in the square.

courthouse

        Then over to check out the suspension bridge built in 1866, with a few impressive statues of a cowboy and some Texas longhorn cattle.

nice bridge with some history

        By this time it was after noon and we were getting a bit hungry for a small bite. So we spotted a fast food place we have never been to and have heard it was pretty good. So lets grab a bite.

look at the pipes on this truck! a bit much I think

         It was Whataburger established in 1950 in Corpus Christie Texas. Hey in Texas let's do some Texas stuff. And of course a burger, fries and Dr Pepper had to be sampled.

table tops with Dr Pepper logos

         Well it was pretty good, we each had a Whataburger jr, split a large fry and small Dr Pepper for  a pretty filling lunch only eight bucks.

       We did not do a lot of walking about outside even throu it was warm, the winds had gusts up to 40 mph, not a lot of fun walking about. So we hopped back on 933 heading north. Par tway back thru Gholson Tx we spotted Bubba's Country Store.(not sure if you can read the sign) Got it all here Beer, bait and more all in the order of importance too, I see!

Bubba's Country store

        Now back home our slide is still in, the winds are brutal  so we just relaxed, computed and read for a while. Time for supper and we were not that hungry, so I changed our chicken pasta casserole into a light fast meal. Something we don't have much but one I enjoy. Loaded hot dogs, cheese whiz, peanut butter, relish, tomatoes, mustard and onions, a few chips on the side just hit the spot.

gourmet? not.... but tasty

        Now the day is pretty well done, read a bit more, a tiny bit of tv and call it another great day in Texas.

Map of our trip this winter

View Winter 2011,12 in a larger map