Travelin' Road Show: 02/21/13

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Thursday Feb 21^st 2013 – Space Centre – Houston

SPACE SHUTTLE "DISCOVERY"

What a great day. The Space Centre was not as far as we thought and we were there by 10:30am. It opens at 10 am, so it was not too busy at that point. We got our bearings and headed for the tram tour before it got too busy. The first stop was the astronaut training facility. It was huge… several football fields in size and we were able to view it from a walkway gallery. There were modules, moon vehicles, simulators etc etc.. quite fascinating. After that we drove through the compound, past several buildings, housing, development, engineering, research etc, including the original mission control building, and then stopped at the huge structure that houses the complete Saturn space rocket. I don’t know how long it is, but it was truly magnificent to see it. At one juncture, we could climb up and see how intricate the wiring was in the end of the rocket. Beyond the comprehension of us mere mortals.

ASTRONAUT TRAINING FACILITY

GREEN ROUND POD IS RUSSION BUILT DECOMPRESSION UNIT

Outside were other decommissioned space modules and rockets. Back in the Space visitors center we went from theatre to theatre watching various short lectures and films on the development and growth of the space program. The most impressive, being the mission museum and vault, where we saw and touched the actual Appollo 17 capsule and where we could see various samples of rocks gathered from the moon’s surface. We were privileged to actually touch a rock from the moon.

By the time we realized it, we had been at the centre for over 5 hours, before we became totally ‘spaced out’ (pun intended) and decided that we needed to tear ourselves away. While we totally enjoyed the experience, we both shuddered at the thought of coming here during the height of the summer tourist season… the crowds were not too bad for us, but the nature of the place would make it hard going when it is busy. A piece of advice would be to get there before it opens and when you get in, go straight to the tram tour… it is not to be missed and the lines can be VERY long. The rest of the centre is made of up large theatres and displays which are more capable of handling large crowds.

COUPLE OF SPACE EXPLORATION UNITS WITH ROBONAUT ON RIGHT

ROBONAUT DEVELOPMENT (FIRST ONE WITH LEGS)

SATURN V

After the Space Centre we decided to go to a mattress store and look for a new mattress. So we went to ‘The Mattress Firm” South of Houston and found a good mattress. We hope to pick it up tomorrow when they get their shipment. To celebrate our new purchase we decided to eat dinner out as we were hungry having skipped lunch. We checked out “Shrimp and Stuff’ which someone had recommended, but it turned out to be more a deep fried/fast food type of fish restaurant and we didn’t fancy it so we headed to Gaido’s on the Sea Wall…. WOW!!! The food was amazing. It is Oyster and Flounder season in the Gulf and we had Oysters to start. I have never seen such huge oysters and the taste was out of this world. Lightly baked with garlic and parmesan. Derek had a whole flounder stuffed with bay shrimp and Janice had Fresh Snapper, covered with crawfish in a creamy Cajun sauce. All the fish served at this restaurant is fresh from the gulf and never frozen. It is truly fabulous. Treat yourself if you ever come down this way. After dinner we headed back to the RV and watched the final show in season 3 of Downton Abbey. Love that show!!