I'd like a parachute, too.

That's Eleni on the phone (notebook) with her friends. "Hi! You come and play with me today?"

True freedom in a very Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance sort of way

Oil refineries

An estuary off of NASA Route 1
When you walk into the Space Center, this is what you see first! You can imagine how psyched we were!
The actual moon buggy used during the 1969 landing

CDC monkeys at the Space Center!

Mission Control did not quite thrill Eleni...

The Houston skyline

Schulenburg, TX

Raph, this is a corn dog! It's a hot dog wrapped in corn bread, and Alex ate it willingly.

Crazy 1/2 hour! Prepare yourself for the next photo, though. Here is Alex at his best...

Check out the tooth I lost today!

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Lafayette, LS to Schulenburg, TX

Back on Interstate 10 West again. We’re back to trying out the local radio stations.

Music – “I don’t need to rest, I can sleep when I’m dead” and “I’m still just a guy.”

Talk show host and callers in discussing what a red neck is –“You know you’re a redneck if you stop at a yard sale on the way to your daddy’s funeral” and “You know you’re a redneck if you listen to this station” (99.5 for those interested!).

Confessions of County Music singers – “taking bubble baths while watching NASCAR racing”

Advertisements – “My husband is a charcoal man….” (buy this brand of charcoal)

We’ve passed oil refineries, armadillo road kills, and towns named Industry and Sulpher. When we arrived in Texas the sign said, “Drive friendly – the Texas Way. Proud Home of President George W. Bush”

Then we saw a sign “857 miles to El Paso.” Sigh. It’s going to be a long stretch in Texas.

Alex, “This is the best road trip ever. I just wish we could do this and be home at the same time.”

Outside of Houston we got on Route 45 South to NASA Route 1 – it’s a much slower road where we passed estuaries, town homes, and then we stopped at a great coffee shop called Coffee Oasis.

We stopped at Houston Space Center for 3 hours. It’s actually called Johnson Space Center after the former President. We played in that glorious play area for 15 minutes or so, and then went into the movie theatre where we watched a 15-minute movie that sets the scene for you. Inspirational music helped showcase the Gemini and Apollo missions to the Moon. The 7 year old next to me was bouncing out of his seat with excitement about becoming an astronaut. Then, sudden silence and Neil and I relived the Challenger explosion of the 80s. So much for becoming an Astronaut (although he’s been going back and forth all day now. I’m not going to wax philosophical for you here, but we had a lot of those “there is a risk involved in everything” sort of talks. I don’t think this helped at all really. “But what if I had a parachute? Wouldn’t I be safe then?”).

When you finish the movie you go directly into an exhibit of artifacts and information about the different missions. We saw the lectern that JFK gave his speech about getting a man on the moon, moon rocks (we all touched one, even!), and a life size version of the Gemini capsule (Neil and I looked at this and thought the exact same thing: At least our Honda is bigger than that, and at least we don’t have to live so close together for 8 full days!)

We took a tram tour that took us to the Mission Control building. Eleni fell asleep and so Alex and Neil checked out the Star Wars exhibit.

Houston. It’s the 4th largest city in the USA. What are the others?

Things got a bit crazed. If you want to truly understand our insanity, just go to Itunes and download (free) the podcasts called Pinky Dinky Doo. There are three options, and we’ve listened to all three a few times each day. We all almost know the whole thing by heart (I sound like I am bragging, don’t I? Well, it is something to be proud of, in fact. When and if you listen to it, you’ll know what I mean!). We like the middle one best – Mr. Guinea Pig, Superstar! True insanity.

We could see the rain in the distance, and the kids were amazed at the concept that it could be raining over there and not here at the same time. Anytime rain comes into the conversation (or weather), Eleni immediately says, “Yeah! Rain makes the flowers grow!”

It’s pretty cool to be taking exits that say you are heading towards San Antonio.

Thankfully, we were leaving Houston. On the other side of the road, we watched 50 miles of traffic heading back after the July 4th weekend.

Billboard – “Eat Jerky. Don’t drive like one.”

So, we kept driving on Route 10. The idea was to get as far as we could before people started falling apart. We got as far as Schulenburg. We were all falling apart. In our complete punch happiness, we drove around the town and took some photos of random sights. There is a model airplane museum here, but it was closed. We ate dinner at a local BBQ spot. There wasn’t much for two vegetarians, but Alex was eager to eat everything in sight. He finally settled on trying his first corn dog, and Neil and I ate fried jalapeño peppers filled with cream cheese. Excellent.

Found a hotel with a pool. Our first hotel! Up until this point we’ve been in motels that allow us to park our car right outside our room.