2026-7-10 Texas Czech Heritage and Cultural Center

 Friday our destination after morning coffee was the Texas Czech Heritage and Cultural Center.

Some outside things to see and then inside.

This was the original center but they have long since outgrown it.

The next pictures are pretty self explanatory as they are what you would see in an original Czech settled town.

This was further around the back and set up for shows and productions.

This was a separate  Polka Museum but it was closed.

A church which looked like it was still in use. Plain outside.

Plain inside until you look at the elaborate alter which was beautifully curved.

The organ above the door was a pretty elaborate set up too.

This beautiful stained glass window was just inside the main cultural center.

We watched a short video and then toured the main part of the center.

There were several displays of what different rooms in a house would have looked like.

Read the right column carefully where it talks about being proud of being citizens of the United States. That seems to be lacking in some of the immigrants coming to the U.S. these days.

Dolls representing different customs and areas from the old country.

This character is as famous to Czechs as Mickey Mouse is in this country.

From a distance we originally thought this might be a birdhouse but it turned out to be a beehive.

One of our members has Czech heritage and this place has everything you need to trace your ancestry.

Later that day, Jimmie gave a great demonstration about her jackery solar battery. She even set up the solar panels outside to show how the solar charged the battery. She had all sorts of items to test the battery and how much power each appliance took. 

The demo started out with her saying that she originally bought it to run an electric blanket after that horrible cold spell we had in February a number of years ago but her demonstration showed that it could do so much more than even she originally thought. There were lots of questions about CPAP usage and different ways to power the jackery.