Road trip to Houston

We spent the day at home on Sunday, and left about 3:30 pm. We drove through a terrible rain storm south of Madisonville and it finally slowed down south of Huntsville. We found a hotel room about 20 minutes from NASA. Our goal is to be there when the doors open at 10:00 am as we have a big day planned. Jacob is watching Jeopardy as I blog. I don’t know a lot of things but one thing I do know is he will not be up watching tv until 1:00 am, but since it is near midnight, it is time to hit the sack

Monday. We both slept pretty well. I got up early and went out for breakfast. I got back and got Jacob up for breakfast. Then we were off to the Johnson Space Center. We get there about 20 minutes before the doors open but by the time we get our tickets bought the place is open. We spent most of the day here, doing just about everything there is to do and see. It was not only fun and interesting, but was also educational. After that we go to the San Jacinto Monument. It was not crowded at all. We finished up there pretty quick and headed over to the Battle Ship Texas. Likewise this was very informative. I did not remember this ship being this old. It was built and commissioned in 1913 so it was over 30 years old when she was de-commissioned. It was the fist battleship to have an airplane take off from in 1919. We had a lot of fun and took lots of silly pictures. We leave about 5:15 pm and headed to downtown to the Houston Aquarium. It was a pretty nice place. The thing that I least expected was the tigers they had there. Now who thinks about have some white tigers at an aquarium? But it was fun and interesting. We had supper there and headed out looking for some gas and a motel. We found both. I expected gas to be at least a little cheaper than what it was considering all the refineries. I found out today that the refineries in Houston refine 25% of all the gas refined in the United States.

This morning I got up first had a cup of coffee and some breakfast. I got Jacob up later and read a little while he ate. We left for the Holocaust Museum in downtown. It was quite a bit smaller than the museum in Washington, but it was a very good museum. When we got in, we were greeted by this old gal (about 4 foot nothing) that could barely get around and her English was not very good either. We visited about the content of the museum and as we were about to start the tour, she promptly told us that she was a survivor of the Holocaust. Now I am feeling bad that I have been wondering why this old gal is not at home, doing what old ladies like her should be doing. But that was precisely what she should have been doing. I was very impressed and gave her a little hug. There was a lot more audio-video information here than the Washington museum which more than made up for the smaller sized facility. Again, I am astounded to the hatred and suffering that is represented by this whole event, as well as how charismatic Hitler had to have been to swing Germany around from post World War I to the state it was n in such a few short years. He had such a power, I wonder how he would have succeeded in the world today or even twenty five years later than when he rose to power. I would like to think that the world would be less tolerant of a tyrant like him now, but who knows. Anyway, after we left the museum we headed to Ellington Field where I had reserved a helicopter ride over Johnson Space Center, and the area we were in the day before. I really like helicopter rides and now Jacob does too. Our pilot was a very interesting guy. He had served in the Special Forces and told us of an experience or two while he was on a real ‘Halo’ mission. We got to see several Apache war ships as we took off, and as we were walking to the helicopter we were within a few hundred feet of four A-10 Warthogs (tank killers). They are both very awesome and powerful pieces of equipment. The flight was short, only about 16 minutes and I am not sure it was worth the cost for the flight, but I am sure it was worth the experience to Jacob. We also bought a video of our flight that was made as we were flying our route with a camera mounted outside the helicopter. Our pilot says he flies for the Houston police department doing air chases. I asked him how often that happens and he replies “everyday there is a nut doing something”. We hang around the air field for a little while and watch a fighter jet take off, then the A-10 planes leave. As the last A-10 leaves, we can see there are some folks standing outside the hanger and office area waving to the last plant (we figure it is family of the pilot due to the ages and the number of people) and as he is airborne and is up in the air a little he does a wing tip roll back and forth as he is waving goodbye to them. We leave, grab some lunch and head to San Antonio for the 225 mile trip. When we arrive at 5:20 pm it is too late to tour the Alamo, so we do the Tower of Americas, walk around down town and the river walk area. Then after it gets dark we go up the tower again to see how it looks with the city all lit up. It was fun, but now we are both tired. Our goal was to be in bed before 11:30 and we make it at 11:20.

Wednesday morning we get up and have breakfast then check out of the hotel and head down town to the Alamo. We are there for a little while then we head out to Gruene to raft the Guadalupe River. We select the three and a half hour trip and head out up stream. The water was pretty cool, especially at first. The river was running pretty good. I took the camera with us but thankfully I had it in a zip lock baggie. I never had the opportunity to take any pictures and I was thoroughly drenched on more than once. Jacob almost finds himself out of the raft and in the river over one set of rapids. It was a lot of fun. Instead of the three and a half hours as we expected we were through in an hour and 15 minutes. So we head home and we are ready to get there. We make good time on the trip back and we are both glad to be home, although we did have a great time together.