Day 9

Traveled from Midland, TX to Fredericksburg, TX. It's interesting driving along in the boring flat landscape that's around Midland and suddenly making the transition to the hill country. The hill country consists of rolling hill (imagine that). Also trees! Mainly oak treas that grow about 15 to 20 feet high. It's nice looking country and absolutely gorgeous after several hundred miles of west Texas.

Fredericksburg is the hometown of Admiral Nimitz, the man who commanded the naval forces in the Pacific during WWII. He spent a lot of time fighting with MacArthur over the conduct of the campaign. Fortunately he won out on the important parts. There is a large museum here dedicated to the Pacific war. It has some very interesting exhibits, some old WWII armaments (tanks, armored vehicles, and a gun turret). It even has a life sized mock up of a Japanese submarine. One sobering area is a courtyard containing plaques. One each for every naval vessel sunk in the Pacific during WWII.

The rest of the town is dedicated to the tourist trade. There are about 6 long blocks that are solid stores. There are clothes shops, jewelry stores, restaurants, specialty food stores, furniture stores, knick nack shops, and ice cream parlors. There's even a gun shop (my favorite). Of course everything has a Texas theme. Lots of five pointed stars and references to cowboys. Scattered about the outskirts of town are the trappings of a small city (Walmart, grocery stores, schools, and a hospital).

After setting up the trailer we played a round of miniature golf at a course that is adjacent to the RV park. Miniature golf is one of my weaknesses. Then we went into town. They were having their monthly wine and cheese festival. The place was packed. We saw plenty of people with wine and beer glasses - no one with cheese. One of the reasons we are here is to find Christmas presents for people. I scored a good one for my mother. We'll go back again tomorrow for some more shopping when there is less people.

We are now in the part of Texas that we are considering living in. We picked up a couple of real estate brochures and looked at the display windows in a couple of real estate offices. We'll be going back to those offices on Monday to ask about some of the properties that we saw there.

We've got three days here and then on to San Antonio. The alarm clock is off until then.