Houston, We Don’t Have a Problem!

We pulled into Houston leaving the fog back in Galveston for good!  Yay, we got to see the sunshine again.  We stayed at the Advanced RV Park in Pearland, TX.  Very nice park with nice amenities like a heated saltwater pool and hot tub.  Nice to hop in and relax after a tough day.  Here are some pictures:

The indoors of the buildings were very nice as well:

Really, a jigsaw puzzle room!  I could have spent days there creating masterpieces that would have been hung on the walls for all eternity.

I had a “Country Breakfast” on both Saturdays when we were there.  I mean, really, how could I pass up scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, spam (Ok, I passed that up), biscuits & gravy and, of course, grits.  Good eating all for only $4.00.  On Sunday night, Keenan came to visit and we ate the “Shrimp Boil” with shrimp, potatoes, crawfish and bread for only $6.00 each.  Keenan came around 4pm because I told him dinner was served at 6pm so we had time to take the dogs out and have a few beers.  We went over for dinner only to find out that it was at 5pm – my bad.  At least they had enough left for Keenan and I to enjoy.

It was only Keenan and I because Kat flew to Arizona to meet up with the Ambria girls for an extended weekend and then after that she flew to Chicago for wedding dress fitting.  I guess we have a wedding coming up and things need to get done.  She flew back the next Sunday and was supposed to land at 11pm.  I was going to pick her up at IAH, which is about 40 minutes away from the park.  Snow in Chicago, delays after delays, until she finally arrived at 3:58am on Monday morning.  Needless to say that we both slept in!

While Kat was gone, I bided (or bade?) my time by seeing Keenan and taking the dogs out.  Specifically by taking Bear to the dog park that was about 1.5 miles away.  Good walk both ways and Bear got to play with other dogs.  It was a bit muddy and I had to wash him off afterwards.

The other activity I did was to go to Cleveland for Renegade Shareholders Meeting.  It was nice seeing the employees again.  I also ran for the Board of Directors and got elected.

It was nice to have Keenan around to take care of the dogs whilst both Kat and I were away.  I think that Keenan enjoyed spending some quality alone time with them as well.

Katrina isn’t the only one of us that know people around the country.  I was able to meet up with Elizabeth Polk Goza and her husband, Don.  Elizabeth and I (and 53 other people) traveled to Europe together in 1984.  It was a trip that I thoroughly enjoyed and “grew up” a lot on.  I mean I had to.  I didn’t know anyone else and got to be friends with so many people during our 60 days and 20 country experience.  Although I have lost contacts with all of them except for Elizabeth whom became Facebook friends earlier this year.  Thank goodness for Facebook!

While Kat was still away, Keenan and I went out for a very nice steak dinner at Georgia James.  It was located down the street from Keenan’s new townhome which I got to see.  A nice place that he is renting with his roommate, Grant.  Before dinner we stopped at Present Company for a drink with a couple of Keenan’s friends.  I felt a little old at this place with the boom boom music blearing but his friends made me feel right at home!

I got three other things accomplished during Kat’s absence: installed a portable water softener and lighting in the pantry and put on our new Florida license plates on both vehicles.  Now we have soft water, drive legally, and can see the chips better!

And I foolishly thought that my days of working around the house were over!

Back out for dinner with Elizabeth, Don, Katrina and I at the Roost Restaurant.  Farm to table place that was really good.  Elizabeth pulled out her photo album (long before digital) that Kat and I looked through.  Great memories!  One that’s not around anymore was going through Checkpoint Charlie in the American Sector of West Berlin to get into East Berlin.  A bit scary for a 24 year old!

Houston is booming with road construction everywhere.  Building bridges that cross other roads meant a hard time navigating to get somewhere.  Seems we were always going in the opposite direction just to flip a u-turn to head to where we wanted to go.  I coined this maneuver, the Texas two-lefts.  It may catch on, who knows?

We had a chance to see Keenan’s new apartment which is very unique and close to the Montrose area that he was in before.  Even helped him move the heavy icebox for him.

Katrina got us tickets to go to the largest Bar-B-Que Cook-Off in the country which is hosted right before the Houston Rodeo, also the largest.  Over 1000 contestants by invitation only.  Each contender decorated their “booth” and had BBQ pits roasting away. Unfortunately, one could not get samples nor purchase from the contestants directly due to food service regulations.  But, it sure got your stomach growling walking around.

It made me get the urge to join in the festivities with my new Traeger grill that the kids got me for Christmas:

Maybe not the Houston BBQ Cook-Off winner, but still good eats!

The best part about our visit to Houston (besides seeing Keenan, of course) was having Keenan take us through some of NASA because he can get us into exhibits where mere normal visitors can’t get too.  Three very cool things:

• Johnson Space Center for the ISS Crew Debrief from missions 56 and 57.  This is where the actual astronauts discuss their mission and thank/award those on the ground for their support.  Very unique opportunity where Keenan got us tickets.  The bonus was the pictures that the astronauts compiled and talked us through the slideshow.  (Btw: Keenan worked on transferring the data back to earth).

• 2.  The Space Vehicle Mock-up Facility (SVMF) that houses all current and potential future modules that connect to the International Space Station (ISS).  NASA uses a lot of TLA’s and FLA’s jargon.  Keenan told me that he needs to consult an on-line resource to check all the time.  If you don’t know, TLA is a Three Letter Acronym and, you guess it, FLA is a Four Letter Acronym (or the state of Florida when we were in grade school for state abbreviations, not the new two letter ones that our kids learned).  After rereading this, TLA could be for True Love Always as some of you might have used.  Anyway, we got to go inside the mock-ups of the Space Shuttle, the Russian Soyuz, the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) and other ISS modules:

Pretty cool, eh?

We also got to see the prototypes of robots (Robonaut and Valkyrie) that may be used when we start to colonize Mars:

• 3.  Keenan got us entrance into the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) to see where astronauts train for space walks.  Underwater is similar to no gravity so they have a huge pool with a mock-up of the entire ISS underwater where the astronauts train for EVA’s (space walks).

Inside the Decompression simulator.

The pool view from the deck.

The coolest part of the entire experience was when Mike Hopkins suited up to go “Space walking”.  Mike is an Illinois alum and when he walked by us, I said ILL.  You know what he said back to me?  Yep, INI.

Keenan is loving his job and being part of NASA.  Still thinks of it as his dream job!  It is pretty cool seeing all that is NASA.

On our final day in Houston, we had brunch at “The Kitchen at the Dunlavy” at Buffalo Bayou park with Kat’s high school friend, Sally Schwarze.  Great place!

Sally was able to make it back to the Busse Bus to check out our traveling home.

Off to NOLA to attend Mardi Gras, but a quick stop before we get there…..