HOUSTON

Day 1

On Monday we visited NASA’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston. The place covers a huge amount of ground and has a great variety of displays accessible to the public. As you drive in the latest display is the 747 that used to carry the space shuttles and from which they were launched. It was only delivered a couple of weeks ago and is still being assembled.

We visited the original Mission Control from the Apollo Missions era. The room had been cleared out years ago but has been restored with the original equipment so that it is as it was when Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon in 1969. Awesome says Phil! We also saw – and touched – old rockets like the Redstone used for space research in the 1950s. Inside a big pavilion we saw all four stages of a Saturn V rocket used for one of the Apollo launches. The rocket and its engines are gigantic – we were completely dwarfed standing next to them (see photo 1). The power of those rockets must have been unbelievable.

The Centre has a great emphasis on education. There are lots of videos, original equipment and space capsules and interactive displays. They apparently get lots of school groups through for a fabulous experience.

Day 2

We drove northwest to Brenham on the outskirts of Houston. Brenham reminded us of Braidwood with its heritage buildings and general feel. The highlight for us was a visit to the Bluebell Ice Cream Company. They take the milk of 60,000 cows per day (!) and make a large variety of ice cream flavours which are marketed all over the US. The production process is complex and brilliantly automated, but still provides quite a few jobs (thank goodness). Of course the best part was the ice cream samples. Heavenly! The best sea salted caramel Phil has ever tasted. Oh dear, are those shorts getting a little tighter J. But we are both doing a fair bit of walking…think walking around factory outlets count as walking!!!

Day 3

Tonight Jamie and Gary had friends over for Texas BBQ so we could meet them. Gary did the BBQ cooking in a smoker, a real Texas thing. We didn’t realise until know that Texas BBQ is not just the ingredients and style of preparation but also the use of a smoker to do the cooking (see photo 2). Gary’s pulled pork has about 15 spices in the marinade including several different flavoured salts, pepper, garlic powder, chilli powder, sauce and lots more. Delicious!! His marinated smoked chicken is also to die for!

We met so many lovely people tonight, all good friends of Jamie and Gary and so much fun. We will look forward to seeing them again on our next trip here. One of the funnier ladies was a non drinker – she asked for a Pina Colada, skulled that and asked me to make her another.  Her caffeine free diet coke is still sitting in the fridge!!!  As she left she took a Pina Colada to go…..in a HUGE plastic cup – would have been at least 3 glasses in the one cup!!!  Bet she slept well last night!!!