Coast trip

Yesterday morning at about 545am, we were awakened quite abruptly by LOUD thunder and bright flashes of lightening! Of course this was followed by a short intense rainstorm. None of the disturbance lasted more than about 30 minutes and we were able to get more sleep. When we got up the rain had stopped but the skies were quite dark. A check of the weather showed tornado warnings around us and reports of much worse weather north of us. Guess we were lucky to escape the nastier weather.

The skies started to clear and we decided to take drive to the coast. This is the view as we approached downtown Houston. Click on the photo to enlarge it and you can see the clouds surrounding the skyscrapers. By the time we were heading home all the clouds were gone and we were back to sunny,blue skies .

We went to the tiny town of Kemah on the coast. It's about about 30 miles south of downtown and 3o miles north of Galveston. The town's big tourism claim is a nice boardwalk and the 3rd largest private boat marina in the country. With the clearing weather, motorboats, sailboats, jet skis and yachts were streaming out into the bay to enjoy the sunny day.
The boardwalk is really a nice stroll along the bay. It was fun to watch the kids riding the amusement rides. We managed to find a nice seafood restaurant for lunch.

After lunch we headed to a nearby area populated by seafood markets. It was hard to pick one. Since we love seafood, we just had to decide what we wanted to fill our freezer with. There were lots of choices and we enjoyed picking out our fish. Hopefully we got enough to last us till we get to the East Coast and get another fresh seafood fix!

Mission Control Room controlling the International Space Station at the Jonson Space Center-NASA in Houston TX.

Space Vehicle Mockup Facility used for astronaut training. Many of these modules are similar to ones in the International Space Station.

Flight suit belonging to Dr. Judith Resnick, the 2nd American woman to fly on the shuttle. She was a member of the ill-fated Challenger crew.

Command cockpit of the shuttle

This is the interior of the SkyLab . Note the astronaut floating .The astronauts "ran" on the white pads like a track--just like in 2001-A Space Odyssey

This is what the telescope module attached to Skylab looked like.

Control of the Lunar Lander Training Module. There sure are alot of buttons!!

Apollo 17 capsule. This was the last Apollo mission to the moon.

Moon rocks. They are stored in a vacuum and are still being studied.

Lunar soil collected during first moon expedition

This chart shows the composition od the lunar soil

Texas Crawfish Festival

On 4/22 we visited the small town of Old Spring ,Texas. Located about 25 miles north of Houston, Old Town Spring is a quaint turn of the century town composed of shops, restaurants, museums, and art galleries. Located near the original rail yards built in the early 1900's by the Great Northern Railroad, the Victorian-style shops have character which adds to the nostalgic feeling of having "stepped back in time." Some of them shops occupy buildings constructed in the early 1900's for the then booming railroad town. On the day we visited, the 20th annual Texas Crawfish Festival was being held.

It was not that long ago that we realized that those ugly little crawfish are especially tasty when boiled with Cajun spices. We are not alone. The festival is very popular with locals and officials estimate some 30,000 pounds of crawfish are served at the festival each year.
They are sold by the pound. We(mostly Karen) polished off a 3 pound serving ! Before you think we are being little piggies, note that only the tail meat is eaten and each little crawfish yields one small bite. A lot of work for those tasty morsels!
These cute crawfish flags were hung on each of the turn-of -the-century lightposts throughout the town. There was local music playing on stages around the town. We enjoyed strolling the streets, looking through a few of the shops and watching the people. The crawfish made it even more fun.

On the Move

On Wednesday, we got an early start and moved out of Bandera. Destination--Willis, TX--some 30 miles north of Houston. The weather made for a nice drive. Sunny, but much cooler than the 100+ degrees we had last week. A really pleasant change!
We had heard lots of horror stories about Houston traffic so we mapped out what we thought might be an OK route around Houston. Well, the stories were true--the last 75 miles took about 2 1/2 hrs. Of course, there was an accident and also road construction. Interstate 45 is only 2 lanes because of the construction and we had the priveledge of following a double wide trailer that took up both lanes ! Lucky us! We finally made it to our campground--whew!
This part of Texas is much greener. We are suprised to see so many tall pines and lush trees. It's very pretty.
Today we went into town and had new tires put on the motorhome. That sure left a dent in the wallet but it was time to replace them. Now we can put on lots more miles.
We have yet to decide what we want to do in this area so watch the blog to see what we decide.

Saturday Cowboys on Main Street

On Saturdays in April, cowboys from around Bandera come down to Main Street to hang out and expose us tourists to the cowboy culture. So, we went down to Main Street to check it out. There are a number of little shops that we fun to browse. Along the street were strolling cowboy musicians performing. This young man had a very nice voice and attracted a small crowd where ever he stopped.

We visited the Bandera General Store which had a unique assortment of stuff from an old fashioned soda fountain to the usual souvenirs. There was a small photo next to the cash register of the owner with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richey. It seems the girls stayed with the owner's family during the 2nd season of Real World. They "worked" in the store and with the sheriff in Bandera. The owner had some interesting (and not very complimentary) things to say about the girls and their stay.

In addition to the strolling musicians, a number of cowboys on horseback rode up and down the street. Note this cowboy is on the cell phone! Modern technology is everywhere! He was pretty friendly and had his horse do a few tricks. Lots of little kids had their pictures taken standing by the horse as well as sitting on him. The horse was pretty good at standing on the teeter-totter and could even rock it back and forth. That took some training. It was a fun afternoon.

This croc at the San Antonio Zoo certainly has an imprerssive set of choppers!!

Flower farm

Yesterday we picked up our friends and drove north to Wildseed Farms. Wildseed Farms is the nation's largest working wildflower seed farm. It's fields are open to the public for viewing and spring is one of the prime time to see lots of flowers.
The Corn Poppies and Texas Bluebonnets were in full bloom. It will not be too long before the giant seed vacuum goes through these fields to harvest the seeds for packaging and sale.
Some of the other types of flowers were just starting to bloom but all were well labled so it was fun to learn the names of some of the flowers we had seen before but not known their names.


In addition to the large fields of flowers, the company operates a an enclosed butterfly exhibit which was fun to see. Inside many varieties of butterflies were fliting from plant to plant. All were close so it we were able to see them easily.
These butterflies were kind enough to sit still for their photos !

Jim enjoyed trying to capture them in photos and we all had a good time watching them.

If you like to order seeds directly from the grower or would like to look at Wildseed Farms web site to see lots of pretty flower pictures go to : www.wildseedfarms.com

Bandera -Cowboy Capital of Texas

We moved from our last "home" on the 6th. As planned, we made a stop at the Cummins Diesel place to have a modification to the engine fan installed. We were told by the factory that it is a 2 hour job but that these guys would take 4 hours 'cause they had not done it before. We were there over 7 hours ! Arrrrgh! It was then about 1 1/2 hour drive to our new "home" near Bandera. What a long day--but all went well. Jim noticed the increase in horsepower right away. It will take a while to see the expected increase in gas mileage.

We are now outside the town of Bandera. The road we drive to the campground is bordered by large ranches that raise unusual stock. The ranch that borders our home raises zebras. What an unusual site to see them standing along the road. We also saw a large group of these guys along the road. We are not sure exactly what they are but their horns are so long that they can tilt their heads back and scratch their own backs--what a convenient ability to have !

Yesterday we went into the nearby town of Kerrville. Our friends from North Dakota arrived there the day before. They are on their way home from an Arizona winter and stopping near us for a few days. The town and county are celebrating their 150th anniversary and they had a hometown parade which we attended. There were the requisite floats, cowboys, etc. Not being from the South, it was the first time we saw the Daughters of the Confederacy group !
The Budweiser Clydesdales were there and they are always entertaining to see. Along with the wagon, a recording of the Budweiser song was playing and a couple of the horses were shaking and rocking their heads in time with the music. It was pretty funny to watch. Those horses looked like they were really enjoying giving their performance. The crowd certainly enjoyed them.

There is not much else new to report today. Check in later to see what we are up to.

Market Day

Since we have been in this part of Texas (the Hill Country), we keep seeing ads for Market Day in many of the small towns. They always seem to be on alternate days- first Saturday of the month in one town, 2nd Saturday in another and so on. We thought we would check it out today. We went to Wimberly, a tiny town on the Blanco River, north of where we are staying.

We took our time getting there--small town, not a big deal---NOT . Market Day is a big deal. Traffic through the town was bumper-to-bumper and parking proved to be a bit of a challenge. It turns out there were 465+vendor booths over 16 wooded acres. They were selling everything from antiques to hand crafted items. Karen especially liked these old window frames filled with dried Texas wildflowers-alas, she could not figure out how that would fit in the motorhome! It is always fun to look at these things.
There were a number of food booths selling Texas stuff-salsas, BBQ sauces and dips. Let me tell you-candied jalepenos do NOT taste like candy ! The sign said sweet and hot--it should have said sweet and HOT !!
The handi -craft people put that 5 point Texas star on everything from baby toys to toilet seats (we really saw one!) How 'bout this multi-story birdhouse? It could accomodate a pretty large group of birds.
That was a pretty popular booth-they were selling the birdhouses at a brisk pace. We did not see anyone buy the toilet seat but they were looking! It turned out to be a sunny, hot (90 degrees) day so we were pretty hot and tired by the time we saw everything (or almost everything) at the Market. It was fun to see though. Remember I said they sold antiques? Well, when we were getting into our car, we saw a couple carrying an old, antique tin cowboy bath tub (like you see in the movies)-wonder what they were going to do with that???

Capitol Visit

Yesterday we visited the Texas State Capitol Complex in Austin. Built in 1888, it is constructed from Texas Sunset Red granite. Those Texans, always wanting to have the biggest and best, built the dome to be 14 feet higher than the US Capitol in Washington,DC . They can't claim the tallest capitol building in the US because the Louisiana Capitol is slightly taller but they do claim the tallest DOMED capitol building. Talk about trying to out do each other !

The dome is 218 feet above the first floor. This view is looking straight up. The star in the center was installed in 1958 and measures eight feet from point to point. It is quite a view from the floor! Texas is quite proud of it's history and surrounding the first floor are seals of the six countries whose flags have flown over Texas. Your history quiz for the day---Can you name them?? ( answers below)

The tour of the building went through many of the areas. The architecturalal details were unique and impressive. Note the engraved hinge- these are found on most of the doors. The five point star is incorporated into almost everything from windows to lighting The tour is very popular. Of course, many school children tour on field trips. The day we were there was no exception. We counted no less than 8 full size tour buses during the time we were there. Of course, we picked the day to visit when there was a also a large, very vocal demonstration by students ( they appeared to be high school age) . The were protesting the anti-immigration law up before the US Senate. Apparently these demonstrations are going on all over the country. It sure did snarl traffic in the area for a while. That's what free speech is all about.

(The 6 countries whose flags flew over Texas are: Spain, France, Mexico, The Republic of Texas, The Confederacy and The United States)