USA 2015 - Back on the road again!!

16 April – Kate dropped us off at the airport for the start of our 3^rd year exploring the USA and Canada. Nicola and Celyn had arrived home from Cambodia the night before, and with Riley, they met us at the airport where they told us of their adventures. Eventually it was time for us to board our flight to Auckland. We had an upgrade for the Auckland to LA leg of our trip but unfortunately we were in an older Air NZ plane with uncomfortable seats. I had to grovel around on the floor to fix the foot rest on Val’s seat. The TV screens in our row were also faulty so our viewing was a bit haphazard. The food was great however! We had a short layover in LAX before the last 2 ½ hour Virgin America flight to Dallas. A taxi took us to the storage place where we found “Ernie” in great nick ready for our next six months adventure. We asked the taxi driver to wait while we started the engine but we were on the road to our RV Park in no time at all. On the way we picked up a pizza and bread for dinner and breakfast. We had booked into the same RV Park as we were in last year but it seemed like only yesterday. We went straight to bed and slept until 8:30am.

17 April – There is a list of things to do so we will not leave Dallas until tomorrow. We set out at 11.00am to get our cellphone up and going. Unfortunately the AT&T shop we first went to could not supply the package we required, so we had to drive 10 miles to a main shop where the helpful staff sorted us out. On the way back we passed a Tyre Discount place so we hooked a “u” turn and called in for tyres, the next thing on our list. “Ernie” needed 3 tyres (around US$100 each) and while they were being fitted we walked to a “Taco Bells” for lunch. This was our first experience of this fast food and it almost felt healthy. It certainly tasted good. Back on the road with new rubber, and back to the place we had given “Ernie” a wash before storing it last year. $7 later and with all the dust of the six months washed away we went to Wal-mart for a huge grocery shop. It was 5:30pm when we arrived back at camp exhausted, packed away the groceries, and at last sat outside for a beer. The weather is warm and overcast. Our route to Houston, Memphis and New Orleans took some planning as it’s not that straight forward without some back tracking. We eventually came up with a route that will allow us to see lots of this southern area. We were driven inside by torrential rain and an electrical storm which lasted till bed time.

18 April - The sky has cleared and we are off on a major ring road around Dallas/Fort Worth. This is a huge urban area and we drove about 60 miles around it before heading south towards Houston, our first major city this trip. We will take 3 days for the drive and have stopped for the night at a great Texan State Park, Purtis Creek. Lucky as usual, we got the last site available. It is the weekend and there is also a Scout camp here. After lunch we rode the bikes along two short tracks stopping at the lake to watch the locals fish in muddy waters for Bass. Nothing caught!! After dinner outside we walked around the camp and as we returned there was some lightning. Back inside and the skies opened. If we thought last nights rain was heavy, this storm made it look like a light shower! The hail on the roof was deafening. We looked out and you would have sworn it was snowing but it was just the leaves from the trees being shredded. No harm however and after an hour it was all quiet again.

19 April – The trip today was thru the very green and pleasant countryside of Texas. As usual we are driving the back roads south passing many small towns and huge Baptist churches, all with full car parks as it is Sunday. Our stop is just outside the urban sprawl of Houston at Huntsville State Park. The park was very busy with day visitors but very few camping. We spotted this sign on one of the fishing jetties.

 

20 April – The whole of today’s trip is along the I-45, the major interstate going thru Houston (4^th largest city in the US). The urban area started about 20 miles into the drive, so we drove 65 miles along huge multi-laned roads thru many spaghetti junctions and intersecting the concrete jungle of downtown Houston all at 60mph. Our main objective in coming here is to go to the Houston Space Centre. The RV Park we are staying at is only a short distance from it on the south side of Houston, right beside the I-45. Lots of traffic noise!

21 April – It was a short drive to the Houston Space Centre where we spent 5 hours looking at and experiencing the various NASA exhibitions. After a short movie we entered an area containing the various space vehicles starting with the first orbiting space craft and going thru the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, the

Lunar module and finishing with the Shuttle. Significantly these are not mock-ups or models but the real thing including the charring of re-entry. The astronauts must have been super brave as the older Mercury and Gemini modules were tiny. We saw the original moon buggy prototype and lots of moon rocks. Val even touched a bit of moon rock. Next on our tour was a tram trip around the space centre which is still very operational and covers a huge area. We looked down on the training area where the present day astronauts practise in the International Space

Station and the new generation space craft. Surprisingly we were allowed to take photos of everything. USA and Russia co-operate so I suppose there are no secrets now. Next we stopped at Rocket Park where all the older rockets are on display. The Saturn V rocket used for the moon missions is huge! The second tram took us to the Mission Control building and up to the old control centre used for the Apollo missions. It looked just like the movie “Apollo 13”. We even sat in the visitors’ seats.

To our surprise the present day control room was one floor down and controlling the International Space Station at the time. We were not allowed in there! All in all it was a great day and well worth coming to Houston to experience.