Lady Bird Johnson Municipal Park, Fredericksburg

Fredericksburg TX has its charms, especially if you are partial to strolling main street and shopping for anything from T-shirts to high end artwork (Well out of my price range!!), or standing in long lines waiting for a table in order to eat good solid German cuisine. (The area was settled by Germans in the 1800's and still leans heavily on that culture.) If that doesn't tickle your fancy there's always the Admiral Nimitz Museum complex, which includes the National Museum of the Pacific War. Fredericksburg is the Admiral's home town and the museum is, in my opinion anyway, worth a stop.

But if none of that is getting your juices flowing there's also the Lady Bird Johnson Municipal Park.

Just be forewarned, Lady Bird is a beloved icon in these parts, in fact if this country embraced queens (The royal kind, though feel free to embrace as many of the other kind as you wish too.) she would have been crowned long ago, and there's a lot of places around here with her name on them, so make sure you have the right one.

I know; 'Municipal Park' doesn't exactly conjure up the most gentile and pastoral of images, but it's only a couple miles south of the frenetically busy town center and the nature trail gets some good reviews, so I wandered on down to see what it was all about. (In fact, other than stopping for some groceries, that was the sole purpose of my trip this day.)

Turns out the nature trail earns those good reviews.

It's not a long trail, and it's not one of those 'Holly Crap!' places but for a municipal park it's certainly an 'Oh wow!' experience.

The park also includes several sports fields 

 and as I wandered the trail I caught the occasional roar of a good hit or a bad strikeout,

but the way things are laid out the trail has a pretty secluded feel to it.

This beautifully built cedar slab bench was tucked all by itself into a far corner

and the inscription conjured up images of a dog, familiar with the trail, happily leading his man around the loop once or twice a week at a slower and slower pace as time inexorably marched on.

At its farthest reach there was a visual reminder that the trail shares this space with other recreational opportunities.

In fact, back near the entrance to the park is an RV park for those wishing to make more than just a day-trip of it. If you are an aircraft enthusiast this would be a prime spot to park for a few days since it is adjacent to the county airport. In fact I just missed getting a shot of a departing aircraft hanging there over the RV's. Being a little slow on the draw, by the time I un-zoned-out and got the camera up the plane was out of the frame.

All in all, a worthwhile stop if you happen to be in the area and need a break.