Bath, Nimitz Museum, National Museum of the Pacific War -Part 1

 Grace did not get a cake for her birthday but she did get a bath.  We tried to tell her it was a spa day but I don't think she bought it.  We went in to Fredericksburg on St. Paddy's and prattled around in the shops.  It was very crowded with the winding down of spring break and St. Paddy's revelers.

 Sunday was a blustery overcast day so we opted to take in the Nimitz Museum and the National Museum of the Pacific War.  The Nimitz museum is located in the old Nimitz hotel building.  It was built by Admiral Nimitz's grandfather.  Admiral Nimitz lived here until he was five years old.  He was close to his  Grandfather Nimitz.  This is a picture of midshipman Nimitz and his grandfather shortly after his graduation from the Navel Academy. The Nimitz Museum focuses on his early life in Texas and his Naval Career.

 The Pacific War portion of the museum has several parts.  Under threat of afternoon rain, we chose to do the outdoor bits first. We started with the combat zone.  In the first building there is a restored PT boat- PT309.  I learned today that PT boats were build entirely of wood. This is the only restored PT that saw WWII action on display in the US.  We left the PT boat and moved on to the Island of Tarawa....

 This recreation of Japanese island defenses is used for living history re-enactments.  It is apparently quite a show.  The web-site has pictures and a short video.  

We had lunch and then walked to the Memorial Garden.  Admiral Nimitz agreed to the museum, on the condition that it be dedicated to those servicemen who fought under his command. The memorial garden has many plaques for individual service members and also for the different ships in the pacific fleet.

It is very nice.  We started the Bush (41) gallery which tells the story of the pacific war.  Since our tickets are good for 48 hours, we decided to finish today.  I will cover it in the next post.  We are slow moving this morning, as we had wind and a little rain all night. It is really the only time I miss the S and B. I am partial to a house that does not move in the wind :).
See you down the road....