Visiting With Friends

Our Houston Home

After Thursday's harrowing day, we spent most of Friday just trying to untie the knots in our necks and shoulders! Rog even spent an hour in the little fitness room they have here working out some of the kinks and stress!  We found a grocery store and got enough fresh produce to last us until we get to Pensacola.  

Late in the afternoon yesterday we drove to our friends' house for a visit and dinner.  Rachel and Steve, formerly of Reno, moved here two years ago for their jobs.  (I really miss Rachel as we had lunch often and she was in my book group!)  They have two female dogs - a collie and a large terrier mix - so Maggie was welcomed into their home. I intended to get photos of "the girls," but kept forgetting to take one.  They were pretty funny to watch.  Maggie is about knee height to them and just trotted along with them checking things out in the back yard.   Rachel made a great dinner and we caught up on each other's lives. 

The drive back to the RV was a bit scary.  Major thunderstorms were moving across the area and there were tornado warnings - which we hadn't heard.   The sky to the south was pitch black, the wind was blowing, lightning was zapping, and it was raining hard!  We hit this storm cell about half way home to the RV and we watched the thermometer in the truck drop from 84 to 65 in less than five minutes.  It got downright cold.  The storms were tracking south east, so by the time we got to our little house on wheels and got settled in the storm had passed.  Still....it was a mite nerve-wracking!!!  

Today we went to the Johnson Space Center - NASA's Mission Control which currently watches over the International Space Station mission.  It was a LONG way across Houston and then south. We asked them to drive!!!  We all enjoyed the day sightseeing while Maggie stayed at their home with her new friends, Lola and Roo. Houston is a booming city with construction everywhere and lots of very upscale neighborhoods.  This place obviously represents a lot of financial wealth.  

 (Again, I forgot to get the doggie photos.  :-/ )

It was cold and windy on the
tram ride through the
Space Center Campus.  

After wanting to go see the Space Center for so long, it was a little disappointing in that we really only got to see one small part of it - Mission Control.  We did get a tram ride around the installation and were told what was going on in the buildings, but we didn't get to peek. 

We were lucky, though, only those visiting on the weekend get to see the Mission Control Room because it is busy during the week.  The museum displays were well done and the moon rocks were displayed nicely.  The International Space Station information was mostly in the form of a film. The whole exhibit area was geared more for kids, I think. There were lots of interactive stuff for them. We expected to get a look at a lot of the actual work of the place, as was the case on the tour we took of Cape Canaveral, but the public displays were all we got. The displays were very well done, but not like seeing the real thing.  It was a bit weird, though, viewing the NASA timelines and the history with our friends who were born the year Neil Armstrong landed on the moon.  Made me feel a bit "dated."  All in all, though, it was a very nice day and we checked one more thing off of our "bucket" list of places to see on our travels!

The Redstone and Gemini Rockets.
The Saturn Rocket was too big to
get in one or even two photos. 

We aren't too sure what we are doing tomorrow except gearing ourselves mentally for the drive through Houston on Monday with the RV!  We thought the San Diego area was bad for traffic but there is no comparison with this place!  Monday we will stop in Baton Rouge, LA for the night.  Then on Tuesday we make our easternmost destination - Oak Grove RV Park, NAS Pensacola, FL!