Texas 2023:
Day 17 - Houston

	Monday, February 6, 2023: We were woken by an airboat leaving the dock around 6:00 AM, but managed to fall back asleep until about 7:30 AM. From our spot in the campground, they aren't really that bad, since the sound fades quickly once they start moving.
	We packed all of our gear, loaded the van, and were on the road just before 9:00 AM. The road out of the park has trees with a low canopy and it makes it feel like you are driving through a tree-tunnel in some places.
	Apparently the Dairy Queen sign is referred to as a Texas stop sign. This one had a giant spoon from the ground to the top of the roof and an upside down Blizzard mural in front of the parking spots.
	We'd heard about Buc-ee's gas stations for a while, but we'd never managed to stop at one until now. Our friends who had them in their area raved about the clean bathrooms, ...
	... and we'd have to agree on that. They were very clean and filled with many, many soap and hand sanitizer dispensers.
	We looked over their candy selection and noticed all of the Buc-ee branded stuff, but resisted.
	We did get a very large Diet Dr. Pepper, ...
	... and two huge breakfast burritos, which were delicious.
	We drove through the nearby town of Port Lavaca and saw this beautiful Lavaca Theater building.
	Our tour of the town ended with this hexagonal pavillion outside a beachfront park.
	Check out the really long fishing pier at the aptly-named Fishing Pier Park.
	We headed across Lavaca Bay to the nearby Point Comfort, ...
	... where we saw this huge refinery at the Formosa Plastics Company.
	We were on the Texas Independence Trail. We couldn't tell if the dark spots on the sign were dirt or bullet holes.
	A little ways down the road, we spotted some large birds on the road. Vultures! We tried to approach very slowly so that we didn't spook them, but they were very skittish and flew away before we got very close.
	We drove a little further down the road and pulled off to the side, hoping to catch them after they landed again. Debbie's quick camera reflexes caught this out-of-focus crested caracara in a nearby field just before it flew off. Check out that beak! It is quite distinctive.
	We watched the birds wheel overhead, still not sure enough about us to come back down and land. The bird on the left of this picture may be the crested caracara, since there are traces of white near its wingtips.
	Debbie got this great shot of a turkey vulture as it flew over the field next to the road.
	There was a collection of birds up ahead on the side of the road, feasting on something. We slowly moved the van forward as far as we thought we could, and then pulled off again.
	The bird on the left was a black vulture, and the one on the right is a turkey vulture.
	Any time a car would approach on the road, all of the vultures would take flight except for this black vulture. It stayed with its meal no matter what. We watched a little while longer, and then got back on the road.
	As we drove the Farm to Market roads and county highways south toward the coast, we passed this field of burros. They were happily munching away, except for the one on the right that was keeping an eye on us.
	There are lots and lots of refineries in this part of Texas. This one belonged to Dow.
	This ship-shaped building was home to Hook'ers bait shop.
	A very tall bridge took us over the intercoastal waterway, with refineries on one side, ...
	... and the town of Surfside Beach, Texas, on the other.
	Look! LEGO-colored houses!
	This stretch of road had seahorse markers for the lot numbers.
	A huge flock of birds flew by. There appeared to be two kinds of birds: roseate spoonbill and white ibis. The pink ones at the front of the flock are the roseate spoonbills. Debbie was disappointed that she couldn't get a closeup of the spoonbills, which might be her new favorite bird.
	A few minutes later, we saw another flock, this time just sitting by the bank of this pond.
	And voila! Here's the closeup Debbie wanted. It's cool to see the white ibis and the roseate spoonbills just hanging out together.
	That's the Gulf of Mexico right there.
	We drove over the bridge connecting Surfside Beach to Galveston Island.
	Even these beach houses are getting the white paint job with matte black accents that clearly mark a house being flipped.
	Tom really liked the dome-shaped houses.
	Oooh. This one was different from its neighbors. We liked this one a lot.
	Debbie liked this pink and black dome-y one.
	Check this one out. What do you think the floors and walls are like? At least if you drop something, you know it will be at the center of the lowest floor.
	We drove past the entrance to the Bayside Unit of Galveston Island State Park. This was where we were going to stay until we read an endless number of reviews that all mentioned the hordes of mosquitos at the campground.
	It was nice to drive right along the ocean.
	Debbie wants to build this out of LEGO.
	We drove by the hotel where Debbie stayed when she visited Galveston in 1987.
	There were a few people out on the pier, and some walking along the beach, but not many people were in the water.
	The benches along the road had some very cool tile work on them.
	Damn dirty apes! No seriously, this statue was placed here in 2000 to mark the hurricane that flattened Galveston in 1900.
	So many colors!
	Giant crab! This restaurant, Gaidos Seafood, was where Debbie first tried frog legs when she was here in 1987. And they have a giant crab on their building, ...
	... and a giant shrimp. What's not to love?
	Each section of the road was marked with one of these signs. We had driven through Fort Crockett already, and this was the Promenade section.
	The entire area was collectively known as the Seawall, for obvious reasons.
	Oooh. It's Pleasure Pier!
	It's has shopping, restaurants, and an amusement park, all on one pier!
	The historic Grand Galvez hotel was built in 1911.
	This sculpture on the hotel property, named Gumdrop Jelly Reef, is part of the Washed Ashore travelling art exhibit. It was installed in December 2022 for an exhibit that officially opens on February 8, 2023, two days from today.
	Hey! It's a cruise ship! Oh, yeah, cruises leave from Galveston too. We forget that sometimes. This one is Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Seas, about to leave on a five-night Western Caribbean cruise.
	As we drove on Broadway Avenue away from the beach, we saw lots of cool buildings, like this one with the big white dome, ...
	... and this one that had round turrets and looked a little like a brown castle, ...
	... and this one with the cool stone work.
	This is the Moody Mansion, which houses the Galveston Children's Museum.
	We left Galveston, ...
	... heading over the bridge that connects the island to the mainland. A marker like this one stands at both ends of the bridge, both with Galveston on them. Hmm. Shouldn't only the one at the Galveston-end of the bridge say that?
	We love Fuddruckers, so when we realized that we had eaten at this one the last time we were in Houston, we decided to stop there for lunch.
	It was probably the most delicious Fuddruckers experience Tom's ever had, but the pico was a little too generous with the jalapeños for Debbie, so she went without her favorite Fuddruckers condiment.
	Our next stop was the LEGO Store at the Baybrook Mall, ...
	... where Debbie got a DOTS Series 8 Glitter and Shine pack and a free LEGO Valentine's Day card pack.
	We took the Captain John Young Flyover to NASA Parkway ...
	... past the McDonald's with a sculpture of an astronaut in a spacesuit holding French fries, ...
	... to Space Center Houston, the publicly-accessible part of NASA Johnson Space Center.
	This display shows the flags of the 15 countries that are participating in the operation of the International Space Station.
	Check out this cool globe sculpture with a Gemini capsule orbiting it!
	We inadvertently passed the entrance to the visitor center and turned into Johnson Space Center itself, ...
	... which gave us a view of the Rocket Park, ...
	... and the Falcon 9 on display at the visitor center, before doing a U-turn and heading back to NASA Parkway.
	Our mistake let us drive by this banner announcing the February 2023 arrival of Moon Trees. These are trees planted from seeds harvested from the original Moon Trees which were dfplanted in 1971 from seeds taken to space by astronaut Stu Roosa during the Apollo 14 mission.
	This capsule was in a sitting area right at the entrance to the visitor center.
	Oooh, two T-38 Talons. What Tom wouldn't give to fly one just once.
	Check out the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft with the replica space shuttle Independence on its back. The shuttle was a replica but the 747 was the real deal. More on that later.
	It was just after 2:30 PM and there was no line at the entrance. We bought our tickets and went right inside.
	There was a volunteer at the ticket turnstiles who told us that there were still tram tours available, so we headed right to the information desk and signed up for the White Tour. It left at 3:10 PM and would take a tour of the recently restored Apollo Mission Control Room.
	We had about 25 minutes before our tour, so we walked around looking at the various exhibits, ...
	... including a display showing the typical crew sleeping quarters on the International Space Station, ...
	... and the space toilet. The mission patch at the top of the cubicle shows an astronaut holding a roll of toilet paper with the words "Orbital Outhouse Team" around the outside.
	Space food displays are always fascinating, and this one showed some different food preparations for the different nationalities aboard the station.
	Here's a close up of something marked "Canasnack," which has either maple, blueberry, or cranberry filling. Check out the red maple leaf on the bottom center one.
	There was a fascinating display that discussed trash aboard the station and how it is disposed of. The flat disk is trash that has been heated and compressed in an attempt to reduce its size. This will be important for journeys beyond Earth orbit, where astronauts won't be able to dispose of trash until they reach their destination.
	We need this in our house.
	The scene: astronauts have just landed on the moon and are preparing to exit their SpaceX Starship that has brought them to the surface. Tom is there to greet them, but unfortunately forgot his spacesuit. And ... action!
	This display showed all of the near-equitoral landing sites during the Apollo program and marked the intended south pole landing zone for the Artemis program. There were models showing the difference in terrain at both sites, and Tom decided that he needed to 3D print some of them to have around the house.
	There was a big display showing the challenges expected on a journey to Mars, and some of the steps that have already been taken to explore that planet. It projected that NASA would be sending its first human missions to Mars in the 2030s. Hopefully that timeframe will hold true.
	We went to the tram boarding area right at 3:10 PM, and we were all aboard ten minutes later.
	As the tram pulled away, we crossed a small canal where there were turtles on the bank. There were about a dozen turtles, include one that was so small it must have been a baby.
	We drove past the Rocket Park we had seen when we entered and noticed that the back of the building has a Saturn V painted on it.
	There was a fenced area which contained longhorn cattle which you don't expect to see at a space center. This was part of the Longhorn Project, a collaboration between NASA and the local school district in which selected FFA students care for the herd as part of their agricultural studies program. The project was started by a former NASA administrator after he saw a photo showing longhorn cattle grazing on the land where Johnson Space Center is now located, once part of the historic West Ranch.
	Not only do the students care for the herd, they also display the longhorns at exhibits throughout the year.
	The Rocket Park has a Mercury Redstone rocket (left) and Little Joe (right) on display. Little Joe was a rocket used to test the Apollo capsule during its development phase.
	Building 17 contains the Orion Program Office, which is the team responsible for the capsule that NASA hopes will one day take humans back to the moon.
	Just before 3:30 PM, we arrived at our destination: the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center building.
	We left the tram and walked to the tour entrance at the back of the building.
	Check out the cool façade covering the windows.
	We filed inside, and our tour guide explained the rules of visiting the renovated control room. No flash photography, no food or drinks, no touching stuff. Got it?
	We headed to the stairwell to climb the three flights of stairs to the control room.
	We took seats in the VIP visitor area, where family member and distinguished visitors would have been able to watch the mission in progress.
	Another tour guide told us about the renovation process and then started a recorded presentation featuring Gene Kranz, a former flight director who was responsible for many of the Apollo missions. He explained that we were about to be taken back in time to the Apollo 11 moon landing.
	The lights in the control room changed, ...
	... and the consoles and displays came alive, ...
	... and we heard the audio from Mission Control as the landing took place.
	The console directly in front of our seats had small TV monitors in it and showed the news coverage of the mission from the various stations.
	As the re-enactment got to the EVA portion, the displays changed and one of the big displays at the front of the room showed a drawing of the lunar lander on the surface of the moon. A man's hand would appear on the screen and move cutouts of the astronauts around the drawing, reflecting their current position on the moon's surface.
	Here's a wider shot of the control room. From left to right, the screens at the front of the room show: the almighty hand moving the cutouts, a lunar topographical map showing the position of the command module as it orbited above the moon, another topographical map showing the landing area in the Sea of Tranquility, and the live TV being broadcast from the moon during the EVA.
	After splashdown, the screens showed the helicopters bringing the astronauts to the USS Hornet and their transition to their quarantine quarters aboard ship.
	After the presentation was over, we were allowed to take photos. Each row of seats in the viewing area being brought down to the front row, one row at a time, until we'd all taken as many photos as we wanted. We had been on this same tour in 2005 and the room looked a little different then.
	The consoles had been restored to represent how they were during the mission, down to the used ashtrays and open flight manuals and maps. The consoles in the second row have pneumatic tubes in holders on the left side of the desk. You can see the light gray circles marking their ends. One is upright on the desk on the far right. That was how they would get information from their backroom support teams.
	There was a large family in our row that was trying to take a selfie of their group with the room in the background, so Debbie offered to take the picture for them. She's so nice.
	There were four phone booths in the viewing area: two on each side at the back of the room.
	A sign on the door listed every mission that had been directed from this room: all of the Gemini missions, all but one of the Apollo missions, and 22 Shuttle missions. It had been in use from 1965 until 1992.
	When we arrived at the building, our tour guide had explained that the stairwell had been added on to the outside of the existing building so that we could get to the tourist attraction without having to enter the building itself.
	The reason for that is that the second floor of the building contains the mission control room for the International Space Station, which is just on the other side of this door.
	Tom very much wanted to take this Saturn V model home with us.
	The Apollo Mission Control Center had been designated as a National Historic Landmark even before the restoration was completed in 2019.
	There were three benches outside honoring the mission operations teams from the Apollo-Soyuz and Skylab era, Gemini and Apollo era, and Space Shuttle era. The Mercury missions were all supported from Kennedy Space Center in Florida before the Johnson Space Center was built.
	As we pulled away, our tour guide drew our attention to the flag flying over the building. He said that the tradition is that the flag flies whenever the team inside is supporting an American crew in orbit. A flag has been flying continuously over this building since November 2000, when the first crews took up residence on the International Space Station.
	There was an adorable girl in the tram car ahead of us who would wave at us and say "Hi." We'd wave back. Her parents explained that she'd just learned the words "Hi" and "Bye" and was excited to try them out. We couldn't resist her gorgeous smile and waved at her every time she waved at us.
	This building looks different than most of the other buildings that we passed, and our tour guide explained that it was the newest and "greenest" building on campus.
	He also drew our attention to the black stone on the side of this building, saying that the difference in reflectivity of the stones was intentional and was designed to represent DNA. That's appropriate considering that this building houses the medical staff that support the astronauts on the station. Maybe this is where Debbie's medical laboratory software was used (and possibly still is used).
	Even the crosswalk leading to the building has DNA on it!
	There were inspirational banners hanging from the lampposts along the street, ...
	... and others celebrating the 60th anniversary of Johnson Space Center.
	Deer! There were deer on campus!
	As we went by the longhorn pen, our guide explained that the bull on the left was named El Diablo. He had been bought by a rancher, but then the rancher donated him to the Longhorn Project when El Diablo showed a persistent habit of smashing things with his impressive horns. Now older and calmer, he was the only permanent resident of the herd.
	We returned to the visitor center just before 4:30 PM, and hurried outside to see the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft display.
	We climbed the three flights of stairs to get to the flight deck of the replica space shuttle Independence, ...
	... checking out the replica heat shield tiles, complete with serial numbers.
	Tom: "I could fly it." Debbie: "I've seen you crash Space Shuttle simulators a lot of times." Tom: "Okay, maybe I couldn't land it, but I could fly it."
	We went down one level to the shuttle's mid-deck, ...
	... where they had a copy of the shuttle's version of a space toilet.
	The supply drawers in the compartment with the toilet were amusing, with one for gloves, three for trash bags, and two each for dry wipes, tissues, and wet wash. Eww.
	There was a platform to look out over the cargo bay, which was complete with a holding platform for a satellite as if this shuttle were supporting a repair mission.
	We went down one more level and entered the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.
	This was one of the actual 747s used to transport shuttles across country when they landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California. There was a seating area with six seats and a large table.
	Unfortunately, the stairwell to the flight deck and upper level were closed. Bummer.
	NASA had removed most of the 747s furnishings and non-essential materials to reduce the aircraft's weight as much as possible, including leaving exposed insulation in many areas.
	All of the ceiling panels had been removed, ...
	... and additional support structures were added to be able to support the weight of the shuttle mounted on its back.
	The big pillow-like structure at the tail of the aircraft was the aft pressure dome. It maintained pressure in the cargo area by sealing off the tail from the rest of the cabin.
	It was so cool to be able to see this display. The shuttle mounted on the back of its 747 carrier is such an iconic image, and it really is remarkable that they could carry a shuttle across the country on the back of another airplane.
	With time running out before the center closed, we hurried over to see the Falcon 9 that was on display. This is Booster B1035, a Block 3 model, also known as the Full Thrust version.
	This booster was used twice; both times were for Space Station resupply missions. The landing legs are folded up against the side of the rocket, on either side of the word SpaceX running the length of the booster.
	The arms extending from the booster are the grid fins. They are control surfaces made from titanium used to steer the rocket as it returns to the landing platform.
	Gorgeous, isn't it?
	We bolted back inside to try to make it to the gift shop before they closed, but we were too late. We headed out to the van and noticed this display showing a scale model of Saturn. It showed the location of the other scale model planets. We'd seen displays like this before, and we're always amazed at the cleverness of it.
	We saw two white ibis on the grounds as we were leaving.
	We headed back down NASA Parkway to the Super 8 by Wyndham, and were very pleased with our room. It was one of the nicest hotel rooms we've ever stayed in for the very cheap price. The mini-fridge with a truly separate freezer was a great touch and allowed us to refreeze all of our water jugs for our cooler.
	After a quick run to Whataburger for Dr. Pepper shakes, we relaxed after the long day and watched the sun set underneath a long line of clouds on the horizon.  Day 18 >