Texas Military Forces Museum

Welcome to the latest installment in our Summer Vacation Museum Series.

Clearly, I love museums.  Plus, they are air conditioned, so they are usually interesting, cool places to spend some time when not in the swimming pool.



So, this time, I took the boys to the Texas Military Forces Museum at Camp Mabry, which is a very functional military base in Austin.  In order to gain access to the base, we had to prove our identity and reason for visiting to soldiers with very large guns.  Which made the trip that much more awesome, as far as Connor and Lex were concerned.



The Military Forces Museum was definitely all the things that the boys wanted.  There were guns, and tanks, and all the cool war stuff they wanted to see.



There were also tons of huge dioromas that showed what different battles looked like.

The Taking of the Velettri (1944)

This diorama was built by high school students in Arizona in 1989-1991.

This is an F-16 Cockpit Trainer.  

There really isn't a lot of room for a full-grown man in there.  Connor filled pretty much the entire cockpit!



Here, Lex is looking at an actual piece of the Berlin Wall.



This diorama depicts the Battle of Palmetto Ranch, which took place May 12-13, 1865, after General Lee had surrendered to the North.  So, you know, after the Civil War had technically ended.  The Texans continued fighting, though, because they refused to disarm and disband.  So, they went ahead and whipped the Northern army and sent them home, out of Texas.  Because Texas.



This is an army mess truck that was used in the Korean and Vietnam Wars.  It's basically a kitchen on wheels that had to feed all the men, all the time.

Lex gave a little speech.

Then, Connor joined him onstage for a little photo op.



The displays outside of the museum were really impressive.



There were tanks for as far as we could see, parked in what is known as artillery row.



We walked all the way to the end of this row in the blazing heat, and when we reached the end, we found that it turned around the back of some buildings and continued on and on and on.  We didn't keep walking, though, because it was too hot.

And because "Carry me, Mommy."  Lex weighs 50+ pounds, and while I can carry him, I don't like to carry him for miles in 100+ degree heat.