Day 78 & & 79 Friday and Saturday, Bye to Houston USA

We returned the rental car safely and breathed a sigh of relief as Rob had managed to drive all those miles/kilometres without any incidents. Gold star to him especially when he was dealing with some very dodgy navigating at times. Our only “citation” was overstaying a parking meter so we can live with that. There are many drivers in the USA who do their own thing. Indicators are optional even when travelling at 80 miles (129km) an hour on freeways. Also any speed limit signs mean that you add at least 15 miles an hour more than what is indicated. Rob was sticking to the speed limit to start with and we were being overtaken by everyone so he felt he needed to go a little quicker. After returning the car we took an Uber to our nearby Hotel. We were able to check in early and check out tomorrow late so this was a bonus. After settling in we did some more exploring of the famous tunnels as it was pouring outside. There was an entrance to the tunnels just across the road from our hotel. We managed to do lots of steps, got lost more than once and found a nice place for lunch in the tunnels. As the rain had not let up we decided to go to a nearby picture theatre and watch a movie. We watched a movie that had only been released on the Friday! It was called Simple Favor and was quite entertaining. It was a good way to spend the afternoon. In the evening the rain had let up so we found a nice little place for dinner and then explored the Historic Market Square. Saturday morning we decided to head out for breakfast and found out that Houston was dead on the weekend. All the carparks (garages) were empty and most eating places were closed. We resorted to Starbucks for coffee and breakfast. More walking around, this time out on the streets as the weather was fine and the tunnels are only open weekdays (clearly for the workers). The streets were so quiet with hardly any shops open. We are now back in our Hotel and will check out later before heading to the airport and then home!

Day 77 13/9 Thursday, Out and about

Heather and Paul were flying off today as they wanted to make sure that Hurricane Florence wouldn’t delay them getting to New York. They will be leaving for Australia on Saturday morning. We drove them to the airport and then decided to visit a nearby botanical gardens as we wanted the peak-hour morning traffic to clear before we headed back into town. It was a lovely little park on the edge of a river filled with beautiful flowering plants. We drove back to the city and went to a huge high-end shopping centre attached to a large hotel called Galleria. We had fun and got fit window shopping over the 3 levels of this centre. All we bought was a couple of cups of coffee. We returned back to our accommodation and after lunch took the rental car to a nearby car wash to give it a good clean as we are returning it tomorrow. We had a quiet afternoon/evening preparing to leave our accommodation tomorrow and moving to a hotel for our final night in the USA.

Day 76 12/9 Wednesday, NASA

A fantastic day was had by all of us at the Houston NASA centre with only a bit of hiccup for Heather and Paul. In the morning they had managed to change their internal flight to avoid the hurricane. They had been told that they would now leave tomorrow and fly to JFK with a stop-over in Philadelphia but when Paul received the email, it said that that they were meant to be on a plane today! Anyway it’s all sorted now. Our day at NASA was brilliant. We started the day with a trolley train tour of the whole area of the space centre, calling into the original astronaut training centre, mission control centre and a massive shed that housed the Saturn V rocket. In the mission control centre we were able to sit in the observation seats that are behind the glass. These seats were the original seats from back in 1969 when Apollo 11 landed on the moon and were set aside for the families of the astronauts, dignitaries and celebrities. Rob actually sat in a seat that was next to a seat that the Queen had sat in. The exciting thing about this area was that it was all being repaired and restored to look and operate just the way it would have been in 1969. They are still doing the restoration work and this is going to be all completed in time for the 50^th anniversary of the landing on the moon next year. Even the old control panels are going to be operational. I could write pages and pages on how brilliant this place was and what fantastic experiences we had including going into the Space shuttle Independence (2 levels) and also into the jumbo that carried the shuttle. Unbelievable! I also actually really touched the Apollo 17 re-entry capsule. I will stop now and you will need to rely on the photos but if ever you are in Houston…you must make a trip to NASA it shouldn’t be missed.

Day 75 11/9 Tuesday, Galveston Oh, Galveston

Again the weather determined our activities today and we decided to take a day trip down to the port city of Galveston. On the way we called into another huge Tanger Outlet complex maybe do some more shopping. We were very surprised as the centre was almost deserted. We talked to one lady in a shop and she said it may have been because of the flood warnings in the area. She would have kept talking to us but as she had no customers and was quite bored but we said we needed to keep moving. Most of the shops were the same with nobody in them. We continued on to Galveston and enjoyed visiting many of the area the lady in the shop had told us about. We visited the historic port district of the Strand and had lunch there. In the port are we saw the huge oil rigs being built and readied to be taken out to the oil fields in the ocean. Following lunch we wandered the streets. The buildings in this area had been retained and restored and were quite beautiful. I noticed a sign that said there was a museum and tour of “Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig”. We decided to do the tour as I was pretty sure it would be the only way any of us would get to see a drilling rig up close. A footbridge led us out to the rig which was in the middle of the harbour. The display and museum was extremely good and being housed in an old oil rig make it even better. The oil rig was decommissioned about 20 years ago. Our drive back to our accommodation was done in the drizzling rain. Hopefully tomorrow it may improve. We have been keeping an eye on Hurricane Florence and at this stage we should be fine flying out on Saturday. Heather and Paul however, have to fly to JFK in New York and have booked to fly out on Thursday with a stop-over at Charlotte, North Carolina so they are waiting to hear if their flight may be changed due to the hurricane.