Sealy to Lafayette via Houston

We awoke late at the Ranch Motel having missed our opportunity to go for a run. Although our good intentions didn’t count for anything, given the horror movie style of our lodging we were happy to be alive. We headed to the Johnson Space Centre on the far side of Houston and once again were blown away by the Americans’ love of highways. Carl’s ability to negotiate the freeways is improving but we still find ourselves making deals with god.
The Johnson Space Centre was mind-blowing. We’d been told it was a must-see and we certainly weren’t disappointed. We only had about 4 hours, so we had to ration our time: we did the tram tour of the facilities, which was freezing, saw the Houston control centre and the building of computers dedicated to the piloting of the Apollo missions, the mainframe of which had less power than our mobiles. We got to wander through the astronaut training room and were lucky enough to see a group of astronauts, fully kitted up in their space suits, being put through their paces. We saw one of the last three Saturn rockets responsible for the Apollo missions laid out on its side and spent the rest of our time wandering around, looking at moonrocks and old space capsules. We also learnt a lot about the international space station which is equivalent in size to a 5 bedroom house (real talk) and the plans to go to Mars by 2030.

We left the Space Centre and headed towards Lafayette – the Cajun capital of the deep south. After booking into the blue moon saloon, Lafayette’s premier nightclub / youth hostel, we went and had our first meal of the day. The time by this stage was approximately 8:30 and Marvin was starvin’. We gorged ourselves on gumbo, buttered bread and deep-fried cornbread. We then made our way to a little jazz bar we had noticed on our way into town for some quiet beers and cards. After several hours of BB, Abita Amber Ale (Louisiana’s local brew) and a three-piece jazz band we started talking to some of the locals and quickly got ourselves an invite to see their band play in New Orleans. At about 2 we retired. It had been a quiet night.

Note: The days travels were once again punctuated by several phone calls from Preno and much real talk. For examples of real talk – please visit ________ for R. Kelly’s take on real talk. (Please note that this hyper-link thoroughly violates the PG rating that we have been trying to maintain so click it at your own risk – it is pretty horrible)
Missing you all in Australia,
Nick