Houston Space Center

Today we drove to Houston to visit the Space Center.  What a cool place!  We started with the Tram Tour which took us to Building 30 which houses Mission Control, followed by the Astronaut Training Facility and the Rocket Garden which holds a refurbished Saturn V rocket now housed in a new building.

We had to climb 87 steps to see the historic Mission Control which has been preserved with all its original equipment - not a computer in sight!  It ran all Gemini and Apollo missions and Space Shuttle missions from 1981 to 1992. It was a neat feeling to see the place where so much space history happened, from the Apollo 11 Moon Landings to the Apollo 13 near disaster to the early space shuttle mission.

Our next stop was the Astronaut Training Facility which contains mock ups of all International Space Station (ISS) modules to orient future astronauts to their layout and equipment. Here's a picture of most of the U.S modules.  Also present are the Russian modules, a space shuttle mock up, and the new Orion and SpaceX Dragon crafts.  It also contained a robotics lab where various robotic equipment can be run through an obstacle course.

With all that, the Space Center opened a brand new exhibit last Saturday - the Independence Shuttle mounted on one of the two shuttle transport crafts - a modified Boeing 747. Here's a distance shot of both and a close up nose shot of the two craft hooked together.  The nice thing is that, unlike seeing the three shuttles that actually flew into space that are no-touch exhibits, on this craft (which came from the Florida Space Center), you can walk through this shuttle and the carrier aircraft!  That was very special.

So now we are in Houston with only our drive to Dallas and our flight home in front of us tomorrow.  

San Antonio - Day 2

We enjoyed our second day in San Antonio today by sleeping in and having a leisurely breakfast.  After heading out, our main activity was a boat ride through the River Walk.  It was an enjoyable and surprisingly long boat trip. We had a sunny, beautiful day for it as you can see in this picture.

After the boat trip we enjoyed lunch at an Irish Pub before catching some rays in the Alamo Plaza in the 72 degree heat, much better than the 32 it is back home today.  Mary took this picture today with the Texas flag fully extended.
We're planning a quiet evening since we'll need an early start tomorrow for the 3 hour drive to Houston to visit the Space Center.

San Antonio

Today we headed out VERY early on an extended weekend trip to southeastern Texas. A few weeks ago I got a great deal on a 6:00 am flight to Dallas and return flight on Tuesday so the planning began. Once in Dallas we picked up our rental car and drove to San Antonio, a place we both wanted to visit.

We arrived at 1:30, checked into our hotel, then headed across the street to the Alamo.  It was a bright, sunny, 65 degree afternoon and we found the exhibit very interesting.  I especially enjoyed reading the history and context of the battle.
This evening we met Dianne Hooper, a friend of Mary's who lives in this area, for dinner. Mary had not seen her for a few years so it was really nice for them to catch up in person.  We ate at Casa Rio which is on the Riverwalk, and had Mexican meals along with local craft beer, a great evening!

Tomorrow we will spend more time at the Riverwalk -- walking and taking a boat tour -- before heading to Houston on Monday to visit the Space Center.  On Tuesday we  head back to Dallas to fly home. Quite the whirlwind trip and a chance to get warm (It's supposed to be in the 70's the next 2 days) and see a part of the country new to us! 

New York City

Our cruise ended at a dock in Brooklyn, New York. One advantage of this location is that we sailed past the Statue of Liberty! Mary snapped this photo from our balcony well before sunrise as we entered the New York harbor.

After breakfast she took this nice photo of the Manhattan skyline, featuring the new World Trade Center building that reached 1776' at the top of its mast.  Lastly, as we approached Detroit Metro airport we overflew it and she took this photo of the airport.

So now we are home and getting back into our normal routine... until our next adventure. 

Cruise Endings

It starts when you notice the pill bottles starting to get a bit empty.  Next you get a note from the ship about disembarkation instructions (when and where to meet to get off the ship).  But it really hits home that the cruise is over when the protective mat shows up on your bed so you have a place to put your suitcases when packing.  That happened today.  So now we're spending the afternoon making sure all our stuff fits in our luggage.  We always leave some room when packing before the trip but we always come back with more than we left with, in this case a new sweater for me and embroidered sweatshirt for Mary along with a few souvenirs. 

We enjoyed a British Pub Lunch today, fish and chips for both of us, followed by a Princess special dessert buffet when the pastry team shows off their masterpieces. Here are two of them. It was hard to decide what to select.  I had hazelnut cake ands tiramisu while Mary had pavlova.  YUM!

And what more fitting picture can there be to end a cruise than this one:

Halifax and Peggy's Cove

This afternoon we took an interesting bus ride to Peggy's Cove which, unfortunately, was experiencing a lot of fog as you can see in these pictures.  It is a quant fishing village, but has the most photographed lighthouse in Canada as well as this famous fishing village scene.  Our tour guide was excellent and told lots of stories about Halifax and its history, including how it housed 12,000 stranded passengers when US airspace was closed after the event os 9/11/2001. 

It was kind of sad to realize this was our last sail-away, as New York City awaits after one more day at sea.  But all good things need to end and this has been one very good vacation. 

HMCS Sackville

While walking around the Halifax waterfront this morning we came across the Canadian Corvette Sackville.  This class of ship is the same size as PC 462 that my father served on in the Pacific  in WWII.  What a thrill it was to come across this ship!!   It was exciting to board her and take pictures.  I can't wait to show them to my dad next weekend.  

These ships are anti-submarine escorts which the Canadians used to escort convoys from Halifax to Iceland, where the British took over for the run to England.  My dad's ship did convoy escort duty in the Pacific and was involved in the battles of Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.