National Museum of the Pacific War, Fredericksburg, with Admiral Nimitz sculpture outside and exhibits inside including an original atomic bomb casing.
Texas State Capitol, Austin.
says Gen. Michael Hagee with the Admiral Nimitz Foundation. “I cannot think of any other small town like Fredericksburg that has a museum of this quality.” The main gallery features some monumental artifacts, including a captured Japanese midget submarine, a B-25 Bomber and an original atomic bomb casing. Admiral Nimitz’s birthplace home with original limestone walls is now a wine bar on Main Street. And Fredericksburg’s military and WWII presence is also seen at the airport, where a Douglas C-47 transport plane stands opposite the Hangar Hotel, built to look like an airplane hangar with an aircraft observation deck and actual 1940s décor inside—old luggage, an original phone switchboard and wartime radio. A short drive from Fredericksburg along Highway 290 East passes peach orchards, grassy pastures, and roadside produce stands on the way to a string of wineries. With more than 100 vineyards in the Hill Country, the local industry touts this area as second only to Napa Valley. Tasting rooms, often adjacent to orderly rows of grapevines, offer samples of dry and fruity reds, whites, and rosés. “Visitors are surprised how many wineries are here and about the quality of the wines,” says Becker Vineyards tasting room coordinator Nichole Bendele. “And they’re surprised Texas has competed on an international level.”
Further along 290 East, I visit the birthplace and final resting place of the 36th U.S. president. In fact, the ranch making up one location of the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park includes what was Johnson’s “Texas White House,” a typical ranch home with a pool. It’s at the center of a more than 1,500-acre working ranch that also includes a schoolhouse LBJ once attended, and his reconstructed birthplace home just across from the Johnson Family Cemetery where LBJ and wife Lady Bird are buried. In a hangar on the ranch is one of five Lockheed JetStar aircraft, which he often called “Air Force One-Half” because of its small size. Another building houses his two white 1966 and 1967 Lincoln Continental convertibles he loved to drive on the ranch, as well as the West German-built lagoon-blue “Amphicar.” Johnson often surprised and even scared passengers when plunging the amphibious vehicle into nearby Lake LBJ. The second location of the National Historical Park is the president’s boyhood home, farther east in Johnson City. Other LBJ Hill Country points of interest include the nearby LBJ State Park and Historic Site and the LBJ Museum of San Marcos, highlighting his college years at what’s now Texas State University. The LBJ Presidential Library and Museum, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center are both in Austin.
ROAMING THE HILL COUNTRY
COAST TO COAST SUMMER MAGAZINE 2020
29
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online