Houston to San Antonio, Sunday 7-April
This was a travel day, driving from Houston to San Antonio. Before we hit the road, we spent time at the Houston Space Center. And on the road, we stopped by Buc-ee's to fill up to see why it's so popular.
Houston Space Center
After finishing up all the extra food and packing the cars, we left our rental in Houston and went to the Houston Space Center. Our tickets let us in at 11 am, and we had tickets to tour the Historic Mission Control at 2:40, so there was time to view things in between. The plan was to look around for about an hour and then meet up for lunch.
The main area of the space center has areas for the International Space Station, Artemis (the next mission to the moon), and future missions to Mars. It didn't take us long to go through those sections, so meeting at lunch was plenty of time for the most part. After lunch, we decided to get into the line for the Rocket Park tour. The line looked pretty long but seemed to be moving quickly. It was only after we went through the doors to outside that we saw many long switchbacks of people waiting ahead of us. We did some quick calculations to figure out when the latest that we should be on the tram before switching over to our 2:40 reservation to Mission Control. Fortunately, it was only a couple of more trams before we were on our way.
The Rocket Park has a couple of rockets and several engines outside, but the thing that everyone goes to see is the Saturn V rocket which is inside the building. The three main stages are made of components meant for Apollo 18, 19, and 20 (Apollo 17 was the last mission). The rocket was on its side so you could walk all around and there were some stages you could walk between and look at the ends. It's hard to get a feel for how large the Saturn V is until you're standing right next to it.
We hopped onto a return tram and had time before we needed to line up for the next tram. We looked around the Space Shuttle sitting atop a 747 (the line was way too long for us to view the inside), and we also walked around a SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage. Just like the Saturn V is impressively large, the Falcon 9 is impressively small.
On our way back into the main building, we took a brief look at the Skylab exhibit (again, the line was too long to go inside), then rested a bit before getting in line for the Mission Control tram. Since this tour used timed tickets, we knew we would get on right away. The tram took us past Rocket Park and drove for what seemed like quite a while before we pulled up to the Mission Control Center building. We were going up to the third floor, but since the second floor has Mission Control which runs the International Space Station operations, they asked us to remain silent inside. While the guide was giving us instructions, a noise over the radio surprised her, and she had a laughing fit. It took her several tries before she could go any further, and even then she had to take breaks to get the giggles out.
We all were seated in the VIP viewing room which overlooks Mission Control, which was restored to how things looked during the Apollo 11 moon landing. The presentation started by showing how the screens looked during the landing of the Eagle into Tranquility Base. Not only did screens work at the various stations, but they also showed representations of what was on the big boards on the wall. After that, they showed how things looked when Neil Armstrong took his first step onto the moon, and later when he and Buzz Aldrin were walking around. It was quite well done, and very moving.
Once the presentation was over, the docent let us leave one row at a time. Each row got to stand up to take pictures of Mission Control (which they had lit more brightly for photos), and he also pointed out the one area where people could take selfies.
After the tram ride back, we were ready to start driving to San Antonio.
Buc-ee's
After not too long, we pulled into a Buc-ee's to fill up. They are a chain of gas stations with a lot of pumps; I saw 124 pumps at the one we were at. In addition to getting gas, there is a store where you can get food and other items. We were hoping to pick up enough for that night's dinner and the next day's breakfast and lunch (so we wouldn't have to fight potential eclipse traffic in the morning).
We weren't quite sure what to expect when looking for food, but it was more like a gas station mini-mart scaled up to absurd proportions. So no yogurt or English muffins; we were able to make do.
After we all got our groceries, we ate outside around a light post (there were no tables). Fortunately, it wasn't raining.
San Antonio
Off to San Antonio. We weren't that far out of Houston, so it took about 2½ hours to get to our next rental home. When we got there, we all found our bedrooms and then started looking around. The first thing we checked for was silverware, dish towels, and hot pads. All of them were there, so we were satisfied.
We found the rec room (essentially the garage) and saw ping pong and foosball tables as well as a mini basketball arcade machine. Tynor and Mallory had a quick competition, and must have been having a good time judging by the peals of laughter we heard from the house.
Having had a busy day, we were all ready for sleep.
