Thursday we were excited to tour NASA and Johnson Space Center. We had read mixed reviews, some saying how good it was and others saying it had been commercialized and was really only for kids anymore. Well...we're just big kids here so we thought why not give it a whirl?! It was definitely worth it to us. Very interesting and informative.
The first section of the Space Center has definitely been designed for kids and no doubt is a blast for them. The first thing we did, though, was head for the tram and the tour of Johnson Space Center. We were rewarded with quite an experience. We got to tour parts of the actual mission control center. Very cool!
The actual room looked much smaller than it does in the movies. Why is that not a surprise? :)
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| The red phone is used to contact the Department of Defense in case of emergency. |
These suckers are B.I.G.!
It's amazing that out of all of this....
only part of this piece comes home. The brown part you see here is the capsule we would always see at SPLASHDOWN.
One wall was dedicated to outlining the history of the Apollo missions. Apparently the movie quote was not exactly correct.
To top off the tour, the tram drives by the Western Heritage Pavilion, known as the Longhorn Project.
We did not expect to see longhorn cattle at Johnson Space Center. Dedicated in May 2000, the Longhorn Project, developed jointly by the Johnson Space Center, the Clear Creek Independent School District, the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo and the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America, provides local high school students with a one-of-a-kind learning environment that combines Western heritage with state of the art technology. Who knew!
All in all, a great day!
Friday we drove down to Galveston to look around.
I asked Max to drive me by the Shriner's Children Hospital of Galveston. When I was a year old, my mother and grandmother took me down there for eye surgery; Daddy stayed behind to work to pay for the surgery. It's a huge complex, with John Sealy hospitals next door. I was in awe to imagine my mother and grandmother, in 1962, driving all the way down to Galveston from Brownwood--by themselves with a baby--so I could undergo major eye surgery. Galveston I'm sure was a big city to them, and this hospital is right in the middle of downtown. I can only imagine what that surgery cost my parents, too, as I'm sure they had no insurance. (Daddy was a self-employed farmer.) To imagine what my life would have been like if they had not made such a sacrifice for me. It was a humbling moment.
We then drove over to the waterfront and walked the docks.
And stopped to see a little movie called "The Great Storm"--the story of the 1900 hurricane that almost wiped Galveston off the map. So interesting! Imagine in that day and time they had no television, no weather radar, no warning. It's a fascinating story. A tough and determined people.
We ate a late lunch of absolutely delicious pizza at Nonna Tony's at Pier 21, drove over to check out the seawall they built after the 1900 hurricane...
and then headed home. Another great day of making memories.
'Til next time...take care!
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