Fredericksburg, TX

Fredericksburg, Texas, not far from San Antonio and Austin, is a town settled in the 1800's by German immigrants.  We saw brochures indicating that it is a prominent Texas wine area and has other attractions, and we decided to stop there on our way west.

We found a very charming tourist town.  Lots of pretty buildings, many of them very old and made of light-colored locally quarried stone.  A variety of interesting shops along the main drag, including wine tasting rooms.  And most importantly, one of the finest museums I've ever visited - the National Museum of the Pacific War.

This is a large complex that includes the Admiral Nimitz museum (Chester Nimitz grew up in Fredericksburg and as Commander in Chief of the US Pacific Fleet was the American signee of Japan's terms of surrender) and the George H. W. Bush Gallery (Daddy Bush was the pilot of a bomber shot down in the Pacific in WWII).  It's easy to spend hours in the Bush Gallery, which consists of what seems to be a never ending series of irregular rooms, each telling a story about some aspect of the conflict.  I learned a lot.  For example, I wasn't aware of how militarily aggressive Japan was long before the war.  Submarines, planes, boats, artillery pieces, and tanks from both sides, some of them heavily damaged, were displayed.  If you're a World War II buff, Fredericksburg might be worth a special trip. 

By coincidence, we were there on December 7, the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Some survivors of that attack were honored at a big ceremony on the grounds of the museum, which featured a flyover by vintage prop planes.

There are a number of wine tasting rooms along the main street.  At one of them, D'Vine Wine, all the wines were somewhat sweeter than we're used to, and even though the grapes were from California, the wines were not of high quality.  Our sommelier revealed that he had been taught how to make their wine in the back room, which I don't think is the way they do it in Bordeaux.

We popped into another tasting room down the street - one which featured a variety of the locally grown, locally bottled product.  Unfortunately, what was poured - cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, or merlot - had nothing in common with the corresponding varietals we enjoy back home.  And we're easy graders.

Surprisingly, the weather was bitter cold.  Ice on the windshields.  Well below freezing at night.  We had the fireplace, which is really an electric space heater, running all night at full bore, supplemented by our gas furnace.  Nancy is pleased, in a way, because this means that we won't be able to stay at any more Walmarts until the cold snap breaks, since we need a campground's electric service to stay warm.  In fact, the internet told us that Albuquerque, New Mexico, which we had planned to visit next week, was running nightime temps in the low teens, with heavy snow, and we may have to reconsider our route.

But the local people were great.  At a grocery store the employees were so incredibly friendly that as we were walking out, I whispered to Nancy that we were going to have to re-evaluate our low opinion of Texans.  A lady just ahead of us started laughing.  I was mortified.