Bastogne, sort of

The Battle of the Bulge reenactment was one of those places where we went to do something, but didn't, but it still turned out pretty cool. 

We went to do the Bastogne walk.  They had 3 different distances that you could walk with stuff along the way to see.  We were just going to do the shortest- 7 km.  We ended up getting there late to the registration, but there were still people in line, so we jumped in and registered.  We watched all kinds of groups leave.  There were boy scouts and groups of American soldiers in uniform and with their unit flags and groups dressed up as World War 2 soldiers

and people just like us.  I was excited to go.  We started and got about 3/4 km before we got to Bastogne barracks that had museums

and old vehicles and a gun that they kept shooting off.

We stopped to see that and ended up staying there almost the entire time.  Eventually we got hungry so we went back to the center of town,

Max wanted me to take a picture of his large bowl of chili, so that Dad could see what I was eating!

which happened to be the end of the walk.  We passed lots of groups coming in.  We got about 1/2 km that way.  So in the end we went just over  a km of the 7 km walk.  We got to the center of town where there was a Patton tank

 and the bust of General McAuliffe who was the General of the 101st who replied "Nuts" to the Surrender ultimatum from the Germans.  They were going to have a parade at 3 pm around that tank, but the kids got grumpy and wanted to leave and since we would have 4 1/2 hours to drive home, I decided we could go.  So, we didn't see the parade either, but we did see vehicles parade around the Bastogne Barracks. 

They kept doing that periodically.  I think they would parade around the barracks and then head out to wherever their spot along the trail was.  So we might not have seen the actual parade, but we saw at least part of it.  My favorite was a motorcycle with a side car and a large gun.  I didn't get a picture of it, though.  I can't believe it didn't tip over!  

All in all, a very cool day!