Miss D. and I arrived safely in Fredericksburg, TX late yesterday afternoon, after a trip down the back roads of Texas, avoiding interstate highways. It was enjoyable to catch scenery one often bypasses on the main arteries, and also to see historically important sites of the German settlements in Texas and the wars with the Comanche and other Indians during the days of the Republic of Texas prior to its joining the USA. It’s sobering to think that early settlers in those regions faced a better-than-even prospect of Indian attack as they struggled to build their new homes. Many did not survive.
Fredericksburg is home to the National Museum of the Pacific War, which is one of the best war museums in the USA. I’ve been there before, but Miss D. hasn’t, so she’s in for a treat. I’ll be doing some research while I’m there, and we’ll both enjoy the sights, sounds and tastes of the Texas Hill Country while we’re here.
We’ll be moving along the Texas Forts Trail to San Angelo from here, then back home. Lots to see and do.
Peter
Have fun, and wish I was there. I highly recommend the Nimitz museum (need at least two day to see most of the exhibits, also next door is the Linden Tree Restaurant (Very good German food, but take cash or check as they don't accept credit cards)
For great Italian food, I recommend Pasta Bella just off main street on Llano Street. (I am kind of biased as my Dad's nephew owns this one!)
Enjoy!
MSG Grumpy
Guy,
All you really need to know is that the Indians were only attacking the settlers because the settlers were trying to impose a white supremacist patriarchy on an advanced and peaceful civilization. Oh and the settlers had a secret plan runs by the Jews to destroy the climate and enslave everyone who wasn't a settler. Also, the settlers didn't actually work, they just imported slaves who did all the work for them while the settlers themselves sat on the porch and drank mint juleps. Peter's novels reflect a distorted view of history and are an attempt to whitewash (a racist term invented by the settlers) the real racist history of the US.
PS Turns out my "end sarcasm" tag didn't show up cause I put it in angle brackets, which html hides.
So I wasn't serious. In case anyone was confused.
I love the Texas forts. Pretty rough way to make a living, soldiering out there. One of my all time favourites was Fort McKavett. Haven't seen it in more than 20 years… I really like the country out there…. From Mason on up through Christoval, I like that kind of landscape a lot.
Oh, Fredericksburg – I love the place. When it was founded, it was away out beyond the settled frontier, and for almost seventy or eighty years afterwards, it was entirely German-speaking. Those first settlers actually negotiated a peace agreement with the southern, or Penateka Comanche, which held for about twenty years. Alas, the treaty held good mostly with the Penateka, not the other dozen Comanche tribal divisions.
I started out to write a single novel about the Germans foundation of Fredericksburg, and it turned into a trilogy, plus.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005JUPTHA/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i7
I would have loved to settled in the hill country. By the time I retired from the navy and then California corrections the cost of land seemed too much for my pensions. East TX is cheaper for a reason. Should have made it work. Too late now
I hope your experience with avoiding the Interstates turns out better than mine did. When I lived in Illinois I had a neighbor who once drove back from Oregon without touching an Interstate highway and he wouldn't shut up about how great it was. Later, when I lived in Florida, I decided to take the 60-mile trip from work to home on the two-lane state highway instead of the Interstate I usually used. I hadn't gone 20 miles before I was forced off the road by an idiot who decided to pass me in the face of oncoming traffic. There were no injuries, but the repairs to my car cost me $1100. That cured me of two-lane nostalgia. Now I stay on Interstates, where passing is safer and no stoplights impede my progress.
The wife and I are going be in that area next week. Great area, many other towns within a day's drive. Going hit San Marcos, New Braunfels, etc. over the course of a week RV camping. Don't forget Rustlin Rob's in Fredericksburg! Lots of great stuff in there.
Cool photos are always appreciated. Just saying.
I always smile thinking how a museum about the WW2 pacific theater is in deep in Texas country.
Well worth the trip and a visit to the museum.
If you do not have children tagging along, you could spend a long time just at the park with all the plaques … sobering … even when having read about the battles and the tonnage sunk with the attendant loss of life.
Enjoyed seeing the final resting place for the PT-309 boat. It was restored near where I live and remember the legal kerfuffle.
Old 1811.
Between my friends we joke about how Floridian drivers, well, at least cars with Florida plates, love to drive on the leftmost lane, not passing and not relinquishing, causing others to pass on the right – primarily talking about I-10 with speed limits of 75 MPH. One of my friends even lived in Florida for a little while and when he returned to Texas he said it was the norm there.
Johnson City is increasingly like Fredericksburg too. Lots of wineries and such in between. Regardless, make sure you check out some live music (most is singer-songwriter but some cover bands too) and maybe swing by luckenbach too as they usually have a couple free shows or picker circles a day. Weekends are busy there, but weekdays are generally serene. You can picnic along the creek there too whether bringing your own or from their concession stand… Point being, Dripping Springs to Fredericksburg is now increasingly what South Austin used to be as far as creatives and live music — atx is now too expensive for that lifestyle and out of staters don't support the classic singer-songwriters/venues on the regular… And while i'm not a fan of LBJ, a tour of his ranch and home there is worthwhile too — there's a history center and historical village there you'd prob enjoy. From a resident, welcome to the Texas Hill Country!
Jaime in Texas:
I lived and worked in sort of a rural part of Florida, and the drivers there were world class. My daughter, who did her senior year in high school there after moving from Illinois, was a minor celebrity in her school because she was the only student who had never been in a car accident. (She was also the only one who had taken driver's education. She did it in Illinois.) I used to marvel at the lousy drivers in giant pickups with with their favorite NASCAR driver's number on their doors and giant decals in the back windows "In Memory Of" one of their fumduck buddies who was an even worse driver than they were. (They weren't combat deaths; the DOBs and DODs showed that, and the few I saw that were combat deaths had the decedent's rank on them.)
I enjoyed a lot of things about living in Florida, but the quality of the drivers wasn't one of them.