Thought we were getting a 265HP V6 but this puppy is a mere 2.4L four cylinder. Still, easier on the gas, so less greenbacks over the course of the month it'll take to get to Detroit.
The hire car pickup place in itself was spectacular - a HUGE building, dedicated to hire cars! Loads of cool 'Prestige' hires, like Dodge Challengers and Ford Mustings. As cool as they are, they are pretty common place on the roads here in Texas.
First stop this morning was San Jacinto Battleground site - an otherwise peaceful field where the battle that resulted in Texas's independence from Mexico in 1836 took place. A tall (570ft) memorial stands here to mark the spot. Here it is:
And here's Nige at the base of the San Jac memorial to give you a feel for the size of the thing...
From the top, you get a pretty good view of the place, like this:
Can you see the large battleship top right? That's the 'Texas'. Built over 100 years ago, and served in WWI and WWII. When it was launched in 1912, she was the most powerful weapon in the world. 573 feet long with 1820 crew, she served at Dunkirk and Iwo Jima. Here is the Texas a little closer:
There are a ridiculous number of guns on this ship. Here I am with some of the larger ones:
Loads of smaller AA guns - here's the view looking through the sights of one. These are interactive - with two people sitting on the gun, one works the bearing gears; the other does the elevation. So of course, Nige and I had to have a go.
We then had a look around three lower levels. Really interesting too. Man, it must have been hard yakka living on this ship during active duty. Here's a shot from down below:
From here, we travelled south and drove past another large oil refinery. Really large. Well, it's Texas, after all. This was the second refinery we passed this morning. Oil's clearly a big thing here - black gold, Texas-T. Here's a shot of a flare at the OxyVinyls plant:
Onwards to the Johnson Space Center. There are two Talon T-38 jets at the front gate - they used these to accompany the Space Shuttle in. Here they are...
There was a cool yellow bus parked outside the complex - just like those on American TV shows.
One of the highlights was a tram tour of the NASA complex. It normally stops off at Mission Control but for some reason today it didn't. Rats, I was looking forward to that. It did, however, stop off at the Saturn V rocket. Huge! Really something else. Here it is, in a building all to itself...
And here's the back end:
The tram tour took us all over the show, including the Space Station training area. This is where they build mock-ups of the Space Station for training purposes. They've also got anti-gravity floors for weightlessness training and other space-type activities. Here it is:
They were working on a cool Lunar Rover and Mars Spider in the same area, so we paused to have a quick squizz.
Mars is the next big thing for these guys and the golden Mars Spider is being tested for its potential usefulness.
The Space Center was aimed at interaction with kids and ours would have loved it. We both missed having them there. We checked out the largest collection of moon rocks on Planet Earth and a host of other displays and exhibitions including this cool display of the Faith 7 Mercury Spacecraft, that was flown back in 1963.
I really must have a strong Kiwi accent. I stopped a guy in the NASA shop to ask a question. He responded "What???!". I re-asked the same question, to which he said .. "I'm sorry, I don't understand a word you said". He was OK after I slowed down to five words per minute.
We stopped in a place called Kemah Boardwalk - kind of a faux-Western theme park that was a bit cheap in my mind. But it did have an old-school wooden roller coaster that Nige couldn't keep off. $5 for a circuit - here he is...
From here, it was only twenty miles or so to Galveston. We pulled in as the sun was setting. Not a bad spot - but it is hit hard by hurricanes every few years, as it's right on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Here's a nice old house that caught my eye, here at Galveston:
We're over nighting tonight in Galveston and heading to Corpus Christi tomorrow. Past midnight (again) so catch you tomorrow.
PF
Nigel no friends - enjoying the ride?
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