And then we were in Houston . . . .

As we drove into Houston, I was in awe of the many, many oil refineries - and they were huge! Wow - way bigger than any I had seen before, like for example, Anacortes. We settled into our motel - the nicest Days Inn yet. I chose this one because it was so close to the Space Center, but also because it had great customer reviews. Definitely a good choice, and a big improvement over the not so super, Super 8 from the night before.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the NASA's Johnson Space Center the next morning. We got there just in time to board the Tram Tour, which I think ended up being the last one for the day. The tram wound its way through the complex, past some longhorn steers at the Western Heritage Pavilion, past the warehouse that houses a Saturn V rocket and stopped at the Mission Control Center. We climbed 87 stairs to the Control Center - I only had to stop once, and then realized I was almost there. We sat in a balcony area behind a window looking down into the room where the words "Houston, we've had a problem" (the actual statement) was heard for real - not a movie. There have been many events in that room that are beyond incredible - what teamwork it must take on both the ground and in space. Our next stop was the Space Vehicle Mock-up Facility. This building contained  numerous different vehicles that astronauts need to train in. The third stop was the Saturn V rocket - this was one of 3 rockets built for Apollo 18, 19 and 20, but those missions were cancelled. Our final stop before returning was the grove of trees planted in honor of astronauts who have died. It was very interesting, and would be an absolutely wonderful experience for children.

After the Space Center, we drove down to Galveston. The area is still recovering somewhat from Hurricane Ike in September, 2008. We didn't spend too much time there, but we did drive around a bit. We stopped and took some pictures of big ships in the Gulf, found some shells - one with a little hermit crab in it (we left it alone in its little home), and the beach "parking lots" are really something - it cost $8 just to park on the beach and walk a long way to the water. We arrived in the area too late to visit any museums, since they all close at 4 pm. It's probably just as well as I think we're running out of steam - we're just not as young as we used to be!