Wine and A Battle

Saturday,  we decided to try out  Grape Creek Vineyards.  They advertised " Wood Fired Pizza" that day.  It is just up the road a couple of miles so we thought it would make for a nice afternoon jaunt. The Pizza was being catered by "oh my pizza pie".  A mobile wood fired pizza oven-pretty cool. The pizza was good especially paired with a nice bottle of Merlot :)

Before the battle

Sunday, we woke up to very cool temps-mid 40's.  Of course, this is the day we had tickets to view the battle reenactment at the museum of the pacific war.  We arrived about 10:00 as the temps had risen all the way up to about 48. 
The presentation started with information about the uniforms, weapons and equipment used by both Japanese and American troops.

 There was a demonstration of most of the weapons.

Many of the participants were quite young and they really did a good job speaking and detailing all the information about the weapons and equipment.

After the weapons demonstrations, they set the scene for the battle of Tarawa.  The real battle lasted 4 days and was one of the bloodiest of the war - costing the lives of nearly 6000 American and Japanese soldiers. Here is a video with the beginning and end of the battle reenactment.

The battle ended with the stars and strips being raised over the battle field.

Even though our butts were frozen by the time we got off those metal bleachers, we both thought it was worth it. The presentations were very well done. Afterwards, we had a nice lunch in Fredericksburg and headed back home.  
The temps are supposed to climb back in to the 70's today-much better.