Jan 31 Houston

On the road again, this time heading to Houston, TX.  We got settled at Southlake RV, which just opened 2 weeks ago.  Needed to get lots of laundry done, and kids worked on school.  The RV park is good, everything is brand new and very clean.  We are here for 5 nights, so we plan to have some down time to get things organized and get some projects done.

Jan 30 Alamo, Riverwalk, San Jose Mission

We decided to go to the Alamo IMAX, before going and seeing the Alamo.  Glad we did, as it gave us a good understanding of what went on and then it was great to go and see the place where it all happened.  Beautiful grounds for such a bloody battle!  The term “Remember the Alamo” is a point of pride for Texans, remember the few who fought to protect the Alamo, knowing that they would not win that battle but set the stage for battles to come with their heroic efforts. We never knew before that Davey Crockett (king of the wild frontier) and John Bowie (the Bowie knife is named after him) were both killed at the Alamo.

Outside the Alamo, no pics allowed inside

Following the Alamo we went to downtown San Antonio to Riverwalk. A Venice type of canal through San Antonio with many shops and restaurants on either side.

Later in the day we went to the San Jose Mission just up the road from our RV park.  It was a huge brick walled in village.  We saw where the people would have lived and the church within the walls.  We learned that there are many missions around the city of San Antonio.

San Jose Mission

In front of a boat at Riverwalk

The "walls" of the mission were actually rooms surrounding the entire yard

Jan 29 San Antonio, TX

It’s a travel day, heading to San Antonio, TX.  We have got settled into Travelers World RV Resort.  Kids all worked on school, Zane and Genesis played at the park when we arrived.  Zane went swimming with a few boys who are traveling for 7 months in an RV. The mom is a teacher, dad is a counsellor.  It is always cool when we meet other families travelling across the country like we are. 

Jan 28 Fredericksburg, TX Pacific War Museum

Who would have thought that you would find the National Museum of the Pacific War in the middle of Texas, over 1200 miles from the Pacific Ocean. We discovered that Fredericksburg was the hometown of Admiral Nimitz, the Commander in Chief of Pacific Ocean Areas. Admiral Nimitz represented the US during Japan’s signing of the instrument of surrender.

An armoured, tracked, people mover. It floats and has paddles on the track

We spent hours at the museum walking thru the exhibits, reading the info, watching videos and looking at static displays.

Genesis with "Fat Man" a model of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima

As you walked thru the museum it was in chronological order with huge tables with video screens in them that would show logistics of air attacks and water born attacks. It really helped our understanding of the events as they unfolded. Something that Peter mentioned that he learned was that U boats are made of wood. Because they are painted grey like all of the steel ships, he just assumed that the U boat was too. They could make 3 wooden ships for the price of one steel one and they were more easily repaired than steel boats.

Captured Japanese Zero on Floats

We slipped out of the museum for lunch and because Fredricksburg has a strong influence from German immigrants we ate at one of the German restaurants having chicken schnitzel, cheese pork schnitzel, a variety of bratwursts and spatzle (egg noodles)

Jan 27 Caverns of Sonora

We were up early to get our tickets for the first tour of the Caverns of Sonora.  It was a fantastic 2 hour guided tour, which took us down in to what is recognized as the most beautiful caves in Texas.  The cave is a temperature of 78 degrees with  95% humidity, which makes it feel about 85 degrees.  The tour included 360 stair steps in just under 2 miles of trail.  There were stalactites and stalagmites unlike any we have seen before, made of calcite.  The size of the cavern was, in places, cavernous!

When we were done on the  tour we packed up and headed for Fredricksburg, TX

Digging for fossils inside the cavern

Inside the "belly of the whale"