Fredericksburg with the family

Planning an outing this summer has been a challenge, primarly due to the unrelenting heat! We finally decided to just knuckle under and do it! 

Our grandsons are both fascinated with WWII history, primarily the weapons, ships, vehicles, etc. They're not quite into the biographies yet. We proposed a trip up to The National Museum of the Pacific War, in Fredericksburg. It's a little less than a 2 hour drive away, so even the boys don't mind driving for that long. We departed  mid-day on Tuesday, August 16 for the 4 day trip. 

Fredericksburg city has created a wonderful city park complex that includes a campground, and much more. It seemed like a perfect place for us, and we arranged a hotel room 6 minutes away for Kendra and the boys - knowing the pool would be a big hit. 

Steve drove the rig while I picked up the family in the van. When we're staying fairly close to home this arrangement works well. It gives us much more flexibility when traveling in close quarters like city attractions. It also gives us the option of going two seperate ways in smaller groups. By 4:00 we were all settled in. Kendra and boys were swimming and I was exploring the city park with the dogs while Steve took a much deserved break.  

The city planners did a great job, in my opinion, of arranging the design of the entire park area. It includes not only multiple types of athletic facilities, including a golf course, baseball fields, etc. but also a nature center with several very interesting hiking trails and group facilites all over the park. 

A short hike down one of the closest trails was the perfect way to get the blood moving after the drive. The dogs loved it of course, but were annoyed that I kept stopping to take photos. 

The "nature center" aspect of the park includes an emphasis on butterfly attracting plants, so I learned about some new natives I hadn't encountered before. There is no physical "center" as such,  but several plantings that feature special plants and landscaping features are scattered around the park.  There are several "twig" structures, ornate garden ornaments, and areas of carefully tended native blooming shrubs to attract both animals and humans. This twig enhanced ramada covers a comfortable bench with a view of the garden.  

After a swim the family came to the campsite for dinner and a bit of relaxing. The camping area is adjacent to the Gillespie County Airport, which is just busy enough to be interesting. With a few private planes and some fire fighting planes taking off the boys had airplane spotting as evening entertainment. Texas A&M Forest Service has a Fredericksburg office at the airport and houses several of their planes there, so during the high fire season, as we're experiencing now, they are quite active. Activity seems to stop in the late evening so noise isn't a problem.They have several of the Air Tractor AT-802F model, shown here at takeoff.

On Wednesday we went straight to the main feature, the Museum of the Pacific War.

 Fredericksburg was the birthplace of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, who commanded Allied air, land, and sea forces during World War II. Justly proud of the connection, there is a lot of support in the community for the museum. The museum is a complex that includes several seperately housed collections featuring not only the war but the man Nimitz himself. 

Part of the the museum is contained within the hotel that was owned by Nimitz's grandfather, and in which he lived for several years. The museum displays are interactive, appealing to young visitors, with several short videos and many examples of vehicles, weapons and equipment. Informational posters include historic details, for those who want to move slowly and absorb more of the history.

Some of the many displays are just too large to capture in a photo! further impressing the boys.  Jaxen especially has studied many aspects of WWII, so was really excited to see displays of specific battles he knew something about. Raylan was more impressed with the tanks, guns, planes, and the various Q&A interactive displays that he knew (almost) all of the answers to. 

We finished the day with dinner at the Auslander.  The restaurant is a fixture in Fredericksburg, established 20 years ago. The name means "foreigner" reflecting he fact that the community was settled by German immigrants. This restaurant serves a menu reflecting the area of Germany known as Bavaria. And excellent food it is! We really enjoyed our meal. 

The next day we headed over to the Pacific Combat Zone museum, which is part of the overall museum, but housed in a seperate building a block away. 

Displays here include a TBM torpedo bomber 

displayed as though waiting to be armed while on the hanger deck, a model of the USS Enterprise, the PT-309 named "Oh, Frankie" after the skipper of the boat met Frank Sinatra prior to shipping overseas.

There is also a large amphitheater for presentation of reinactments and other programs. 

We had seen all the displays in time for lunch, so headed back to camp. We had been looking at the Airport Diner across the tarmac from our site and decided to give it a try. 

It's a 1940's style diner, very comfortable and they've really set the mood with model planes suspended from every light fixture, and some wonderful watercolors of planes done by a local artist Lance Von Prum. You can see some of his amazing work here.

Unfortunately the light reflection makes a big hole in the one that was near our table, and Jax isn't really sad, he's just hungry!

On our final day we made a quick return to the Pacific Combat Zone in order to watched a presentation of a M2-2 flame thrower. 

The setting is very realisitic and gives the reinactors plenty of room to simulate actual battle. You can see the palm trees suffered greatly from our freeze last winter. 

A group of reinactors introduced themselves and their roles on the "combat assult team", descriping the actions they would take in actual battle. They then gave us a demonstration of the weapon's (literal!) fire power. The heat could be felt all the way back into the audience and the boys were quite impressed! I can only imagine what the operator feels while using that weapon.

Following the demonstration everyone scurried to the fire extinguishers. The two tanks of fuel carried on the operator's back were totally consumed during the short burts. In the time it would take him to load new tanks he would be very vulnerable to attack, one of the many aspects of team work that presentation covered.

Normally the reinactors actually do a simulated battle, 

but the weather was so hot and humid that they begged off, and I don't blame them. One last quick tour through the gift shop and it was time to depart. 

The trip home was uneventful, and I think we all had a successfful trip. The kids very much enjoyed the pool and time to swim, and as it turns out, a highlight was the snack machine at the hotel. They'd never used a vending machine before! Time to unpack the RV now!

more pics in the photo album here