"One Small Step..." to the NASA JSC

We had a nice sleep-in this morning - well, as late as it gets - 7:30 or so - and relaxed with coffee before getting ready to head off to the NASA Johnson Space Center.

What a great tour we had.  A lot of the museum part is OK.  It's interesting in itself.  But the tram tour is the best part.  The tram takes you into the command centre, where they are currently managing the International Space Station, for instance, and from where the various space missions have been controlled, especially Apollo.



This was the Apollo command centre with all their old equipment.  They did everything with big computers which held about 25 MB of data.  Can you imagine?!  That's half an app on a smartphone.



It also shows you where testing is done at the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility.  Astronauts can go through training like low gravity, etc., play around with the Canadarm (yes!), experiment with robots, and all kinds of fun stuff.

This is where they practice docking.



A sewing machine?



And we saw the Rocket Park where a Saturn V rocket is on its side and a good description of the engines and thrust required to launch a spaceship is given.  This is why it's called Saturn V.





Back at the main museum, they have a replica of the space shuttle Enterprise and the actual Boeing 747 they used to transport it.  We went through that setup.  Fun stuff.



And here's the white room where the astronauts had their last touch of Earth before boarding the space ship, including those on the Challenger space shuttle.



So now they're working on the Orion space vehicle for a trip to the moon, an asteroid, and ultimately Mars, by 2037.

All in all, a great visit, and worth the price of admission.

Tomorrow we're off to our final destination in Mercedes, Texas.

"Houston, the Kraemers have landed"

Yep, today we made it to our destination state, and have landed tonight just south of Houston at an RV Park.  We plan to stay here a couple of days, then head on to our final destination.

It was a fairly long driving day again today, coming all the way from New Orleans.  But we arrived just before 4 pm.

We crossed lots of swamp land in Louisiana, and even in eastern Texas.  It must have cost the government billions of dollars to build Interstate-10.  I swear, it's almost all bridges throughout the whole state of Louisiana.

This is the bridge over the Mississippi River.



And the river, of course.



There was one bridge we drove over (I didn't get a photo as I didn't have camera in hand);  the river was called the Old and Lost River.  Doesn't that say it all?!?!?

Fortunately today is Sunday.  Getting through Houston is crazy at the best of times, and today was one of those times, I think.

We drove by Minute Maid Park - home of the Houston Astros.  It's in our sights for some trip down the road.



So we'll check out Houston tomorrow.  Gerard wants to go to the NASA Johnson Space Center (re).  We haven't anything planned, so we'll see.

A Day in the Big Easy

It was nice to sleep in our RV last night.  A little cool - and the temperatures here are a little cooler than normal - but it's warming up.

We purchased round trip shuttle tickets to go to downtown New Orleans from the RV Park.  I think last year I mentioned they have a shuttle going down there 3 times a day, and coming back twice a day.  A great convenience.  It's not far - only a 15-20 minute ride, but there's a lot of traffic to contend with, and we don't have to worry about parking, nor having a drink.  Perfect!

We did a little walking around the French Quarter area.  It's a neat place with restaurants and bars every 2 feet, I think.  And the food is good, or they wouldn't stay in business.

A couple sights around the French Quarter.





We found this building, which is apparently the 2nd oldest in New Orleans, and the oldest working bar in the U.S. (since 1772).  The building is named after a pirate because he apparently did business here.  He didn't own it.


We also booked a city tour, which was a great thing to do.  It gave us a look at New Orleans other than what we see from the interstate or the French Quarter.

Our first stop was at the NO 3rd cemetery.  Interesting how they manage the space at the wall.  If you are cremated, you rent space in the wall (stacked 4 high, and 9 feet deep).  You rent it for 5 years.  If you don't pay the next 5 years (your estate needs to pay), your remains are shoved to the back and the next set of remains are put in front for 5 years...and so on.  Hence why they are 9 feet deep!



We then stopped at City Park.  Beautiful huge park with all kinds of activities and sporting venues, museums, and other events and things you might find in any park.

This was a huge Live Oak tree, estimated to be at least 200 years old.


We saw the SuperDome (Saints) and the Smoothie King Arena (Pelicans, etc.).

And the largest painted clarinet on the Holiday Inn.  Sorry half of it is behind a sign.



We saw beautiful old homes and the beginning of Mardi Gras parades along with "Bead Trees".



After we were done we had a Po'Boy at Johnny's, a famous restaurant for this sandwich on St. Louis Street.

And then we saw a couple of more statues:  to the founder of New Orleans (Bienville), and to all immigrants to the U.S.



All in all, a great day in The Big Easy.

Made it to N'awlins

We left Birmingham around 8:20 (CST) this morning, so completed Alabama, then drove through a corner of Mississippi and on into Louisiana.




So it was a fair long day of driving.  The weather was very nice though - clear blue skies and sunshine.  We stopped here and there, for gas, and breaks.  Our last stop was at the Louisiana Welcome Center (grrr, should be centre).  We ate some lunch there which we had left over from the night before.  I got out of the truck to head to the washroom, and turned around to report to the boss, "Houston, we have a problem."



Yep, flatter than a pancake.  It was the front right tire of the RV.  Didn't even notice it, so hard to say how long it had been like that.  It wasn't shredded, or anything, so couldn't have been too long.  Fortunately, we have the RV service with CAA, so we had someone there within 40 minutes of talking to them.  He changed our tire over to the spare, and we were off again.  The guy thought we ran over something to cause the flat.

We only had another half an hour to go to our destination at Lake Pontchartrain RV Park just north of New Orleans.  We stayed here last year and liked the place.

This is driving over the bridge across Lake Pontchartrain.   You can see New Orleans in the distance.



Once we were unhitched, and had the trailer set up, we headed down the road for some stock-up groceries.  Didn't feel like cooking though.  There's a little restaurant and bar here at the RV park, so we partook of that instead.

The Photos are Lame

At least I got some.  It's hard to take photos when you're travelling all day.

Yes, it was an all-day drive from Florence, Kentucky, to Birmingham, Alabama.  But we made it here just before 4 pm (CST).  We're behind those in the east by 1 hour and we'll stay that way the rest of our time away.





We drove through Kentucky (sort of sideways), I never get tired of seeing this water tower:


then through Tennessee (straight down),






now we're in Alabama.  

It will be a sort of sideways exit too as we continue to head west.

Still no Photos

Sorry, it seems like I'm not ready, or something.  I'm still unsettled about this whole thing.  Perhaps too soon after our trip to the Dominican Republic, or perhaps just because we left in sort of a hurry.  I don't know...I'm not engaged in the trip yet, although it's been fine.

We got away from Toledo in the rain and it rained pretty much all the way to Florence, Kentucky, where we are for the night.  It let up around Dayton, then poured just before Cincinnati.  But not for long.  We think it was the right decision to get away yesterday.  Yes, we drove in the rain, but it could have been worse coming down the 401 this morning.  The rain wasn't that bad, and we didn't have to drive as long today either because we were booked in at Florence already.  We decided it would be just easier to stay here and get back on track with our timing.

Another good thing, we probably won't have to visit a truck wash this year to clean the truck and RV. The rain has cleaned them up pretty good, I would say.  Just some touch-up when we get to our destination.

We went to the Mexican restaurant we visited last year.  We both had burritos - meh.  Too much of one thing.  Whatever we had last year was much better.  Oh well, we didn't overeat as a result.

Off to Birmingham, Alabama, tomorrow.

Here we go!

We've headed off on our RV trip to Texas, and the start of our trip came a tad earlier than expected.  We got up today with the idea we would leave Wednesday morning, but we checked the weather forecast and decided it might be better to get a head start.  So by about noon we decided we would leave this afternoon!  What the heck...we can do this.  I guess we'll find out what we've forgotten as we go along.  We have Florence, Kentucky, booked for tomorrow night so we just went as far as Toledo, Ohio, tonight.  That gives us a good 4-1/2 hour head start.

We have passports, and some cash and credit cards.  I guess that's all that really matters if we have forgotten stuff.

No photos tonight as I wasn't really prepared.  Sorry about that.