Bryan TX

Well after a frustrating drive we found a place for the night in Bryan Texas.   Not our objective for the day but a combination of things guided us here: first high winds made the driving uncomfortable, second the state parks have filled up due to the hot weather and the fact that today is Saturday and third our GPS led us to our preferred park but road building had closed the only exits the GPS knew and we couldn't find another way in.  So we turned to a recommendation from the GPS and ended up in a truly awful RV park which we didn't even bother to stop at and then finally found this one.   Fortunately beautiful drives (with the exception of the speedway through Austin) with great hill country views: peach orchards, horse ranches and low rolling hills and forests.

We had a great time in Fredericksburg.   There was an air show at the airport just behind the municipal park where we were staying and we saw a B-24 Liberator, a B-17Flying Fortress and a P-41 Mustang taking off, circling and landing.  There were other aircraft and helicopters too.   All from the comfort of our campsite and without paying an entry fee. I spend some time visiting the Pacific Combat Zone of the National Museum of the Pacific War - its a series of scenes that they've recreated around salvaged tanks, planes, boats showing parts of the war.   They had an Avenger torpedo bomber set up in a recreation of a air craft carrier hanger, a PT boat being readied for a night time raid, Japanese equipment set up facing an American LCT (landing craft Tracked), and a Quonset hut set up as a field hospital.   Very well done.  

We also did the park nature walk and visited their bird blind and saw a good range of birds.

Our neighbors at the park were from Newfoundland and had until April 24th to cross back into Canada.  They calculate the six months to the day.    They spend their winters in a trailer park home in a little town called Donna which is on the Mexican border about as far south in Texas as you can go (west of Brownsville).  They obviously love it there and are not looking forward to getting home (yesterday was 28 F at home).  For their trips back and forth they have one of the little light trailers in the shape of a half of an ellipse.  They have a tent add a room which they really like (they have an 8 month old lab who takes up about a quarter of the trailer so the add a room is necessary).  We also met a couple with an identical Chalet to ours (bought second hand from a rental company).  This couple actually lives in Mexico and uses the camper to tour in the US.  

Tomorrow we head east into Louisianan - not sure of our actual destination but both Rod and Ann and Pat and Rick are supposed to be in New Orleans tomorrow night and all three of us are heading to Georgia or Florida before going home so we will be criss-crossing or leap frogging each other for the next two weeks or so.