Fredericksburg and Austin

     It poured overnight! Glad we were in our nice cozy RV! We headed off for the Dodge dealer in Austin some 90 miles away, and they quickly diagnosed the problem and said they could get the part in a few hours and have us on our way. Long story short, we were back at the RV park at 4pm. Enjoyed the ride coming back, seeing the sights from Austin to the Hill Country. Lea stayed with the kids, and they enjoyed going to a historical area where they learned how a blacksmith works his shop.

     We rejoined Lea and the kids and headed downtown again, and found a delightful park in the middle of the city with a great playground for the kids to burn off energy on. They did! There is a museum in the middle of the park, a recreation of the first church in Fredericksburg originally erected in 1846 by the original German settlers, the VerEins Church. Interestingly to us, it's shaped much like the "Silent Night" Chapel that we had visited on Christmas Eve in Austria on one of our river cruises about 4 years ago. We enjoyed walking around more of the town, and stopped in a t-shirt souvenir shop where Becky got these cute pajama bottoms featuring moose figures texting to each other. Katahdin will be glad to see her in them!

     The picture at the left is the  "Gelb  Haus" (Yellow House) where Lea and the kids are staying.   The picture below is the impressive Chester Nimitz Museum building that was designed to evoke a river boat.

     As it was Jim's Birthday, Lea picked out a great little German restaurant that she and Jeff had been to a few times before called "Altdorf's", and the Opa sausage in particular was great. The kids had picked out some cute birthday cards for Jim, and they all got a few chuckles. After walking around some more, we headed back to the RV where Jim found lots of birthday wishes from friends on both Facebook and his emails. Nice ending for the day!