#53 Houston, TX 2-15 thru 2-18-09

On Monday Feb, 17, we drove to the Houston Elks Lodge, which is actually in Stafford TX, just outside of Houston on south west side. On the way we had to fill up with Diesel. We paid $2.06.9. A lot better than over $4.00 we were paying. It was a long drive for us. A little over 200 miles! But, we made it to the Elks in time for Cocktails! The weather was warming, but still overcast and misting. Sort of like Oregon fog, only warm. I think it hit 72 degrees that day. Here the locals call it humidity. Monday was a holiday, so we didn't do any sight seeing, just driving. On Tuesday we went to the downtown visitor center and got a map of the underground tunnel system.

This tunnel system under the downtown area of Houston is unbelievable. There are 6 1/2 miles of underground pedestrian tunnels. It is a city under the city. And as you can see by the pictures it is well used.

The picture above is one of the intersections of the tunnel system. In the background are two different types of restaurants. We saw flower shops, dentists, hair salons, barbers, nail salons, Dr. offices, gift shops, jewelery shops, boutique clothing shops and more different kind of places to eat than I can name. Every ethnic food as well as fast food and nice sit down restaurants.

When you want to go up to a certain building you just take an escalator to the main floor lobby and from there you can go up or out. We went up to the 59th floor of one building and the 60th floor of another building. Each had a lobby at those higher floors where we could look over the skyline of Houston. And we weren't even at the top of the buildings! You can see part of the skyline of Houston in the picture above. It looks like haze on the horizon. It is "humidity" misting down. One lady told us the tunnel system is climate controlled so workers don't have to go outside during the summer and endure the heat and humidity. Great idea!

Here we are looking down. I think that is city hall in the lower left part of the picture. The one with the dome top. Most of the big tall buildings are banks or investment firms. Chase has 4 buildings, Wells Fargo has one, there are a number of municipal buildings also.

Everyone seems to be in a hurry. Of course it was the lunch hour when we were down there. I'm sure we really looked like tourists to all these workers!

On Wednesday, Feb. 18 we went to NASA. This is Mission Control how it looked in the 60's and 70's. It is not a working Mission Control now. The new Mission Control is much newer. Although these stations were used up into the 90's.

Check out the "red" phone! Some of the kids don't even know what a phone with a dial looks like. Even the handsets on the consoles had dials to reach other departments. How soon technology changes.
Now we are in the training center. No one is training now. There is a new mission scheduled for the end of Feb. The above unit has a reticulating arm that the astronauts use to train with for space walks, and working on the space station equipment on the outside. It moves the equipment in all different directions as if the astronauts were suspended and having to work while floating.
A full size mock up of the space shuttle (minus the wings) is used for training. Everything that the real space shuttle has. is duplicated inside this building.

The Saturn rocket (laying down) is huge. The jets are as big as a small building.

All of this is at the Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX.

We have now been to Edwards Air Force Base, where the shuttle sometimes lands, to Kennedy Space Center where the shuttle lifts off, and to Command Center in Houston. All places we read about, and now we've seen them. What a country!