A Day With Pres. Taft

We love being tourists in our own city, and one day a few weeks ago, we decided to make a day of it and visit the Taft sites in the area.

President William Howard Taft was born in this home in Cincinnati.  It had the tiniest parking lot for such a large visitor's center.  We also got a kick out of our park ranger tour guide (complete with official hat and boots), but I don't think we actually got a picture of her.

Inside the visitor's center, the kids found this cutout of Pres. Taft and really wanted to have their picture taken with him.

This house was really unattractive from the outside, but was pretty neat on the inside.

In a few of the rooms, they had several displays with photos from his life.  This one was funny because it was of the workmen who installed Pres. Taft's new bathtub.  Note that there are four men sitting rather comfortably in the tub.  Pres. Taft wasn't a very small man.

I liked these photos because Pres. Taft looks so darn jolly in them.  A photographer happened to be on hand when he received a phone call from Pres. Roosevelt informing him that he had won the Republican presidential nomination.

A rare photo where Renae is actually smiling at the camera!

Brandon in front of the house.

We also went to the Taft Art Museum, which actually is connected with his brother's (?) family, and not Pres. Taft's.  It was a nice museum, and it was really nice to be able to get free admission because of the Blue Star Museums program, but we will not be taking our kids back there anytime soon.  The employees were like hawks following us around to make sure our kids didn't touch anything.  I kept thinking, "isn't that why we (the parents) are with them...to make sure they don't do that?!"  It was awkward.  But the art was beautiful!