Lousianna to Hello Texas

It is starting to get real hot here.  The air conditioning is working overtime.  Time to get across Texas and back towards a place where the nights get a little cooler!  In our younger years we would have just found shade and create wind.  Now the body requires a doable temperature usually with air conditioner assist.

We left you in Mississippi on the Blues Highway.  We crossed into Louisiana on our way to Houston for a 90th birthday party.  Louisiana is a special place for us.

The people are fantastic and friendly.  The Cajun food is such a treat.  The  Zydeco music keeps you moving, always.  FM101.in Lafayette, KBON, is available as an app in the google store just in case you need a Zydeco injection.  While we were there a Zydeco barn dance was going on Saturday with live bands in the park on Sunday.

We discovered a bunch of the rarely visited beaches on the southern Louisiana coast.  The beach houses were rarely built without stilts due the extreme potential for flooding during a hurricane.  The land is flat for miles.  Cheap beach front property usable most of the time until a storm surge is available.

From there we returned to Texas to visit relatives and the birthday party.  While in Houston we visited the Johnson Space Center 50 years after the moon landing.  Several million dollars were spent in order to recreate the mission control room.  It was nicely done.  We were able to sit in the gallery area while watching a replay of the lunar landing.  Quite intense for the amount of computer technology available at the time.

The updated  visitor's center still has  the lunar landing vehicle and one of the original moon dune buggies.  There are several tours via trolley exploring the International Space Station and other exhibits such as the Saturn 5 rocket that launched the lunar landing.  It is now under cover of a building.

I was most impressed with the 747 on display that carried the shuttle back across the country when it landed in California.  When we were in the Air Force at Davis Monthan in Tucson, CA they would often stop for fuel.  Weight had to be added to parts of the specially configured 747 in order to achieve balance with the shuttle on top.  There is a multistory display that allows you to explore each vehicle from the inside.

After our space adventure we headed across town to the Red Neck Country Club and the Republic BBQ run by Michael  Barry the talk radio host.  He was there.  The whole operation was certainly customer orientated.  The BBQ and the service was first class.  This rather small venue has hosted to major country music acts.

We maneuvered the land yacht through down town Houston on a Sunday dues to lighter traffic setting a course for Shiner, Texas.  This is the only factory making Shiner Bach beer.  It was started by some German immigrants in the early 1900s.


San Antonio was our next port to visit Air Force friends.  There is always something  going on  in this growing metropolis.  They are trying to keep up with the growth by building new freeways unlike other areas that we have visited.  The tex mex and bbq here is legendary.