Picking Up Where I Left Off in the Lone Star State

  Hello again. I finally have strong wifi and can continue where I left off. That was Space Center Houston. Mission Control is totally intact and looks as it did when the last Apollo mission was launched in 1975 and is now a historic landmark.

The next stop on the tram tour was the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility. This is a working building for assembling pods for the International Space Station by multinational teams and also the Mars project, "Orion".

Next stop on the tram tour was the Saturn V rocket building.

The Saturn V is what powered the astronauts to the moon for the Apollo project and is the largest object to ever leave earth's gravity.

The last stop on the tram was rocket park.

The Mercury Redstone rocket that took Gus Grissom out of earth's atmosphere and put John Glenn, the first American in orbit.

  Back in the visitor's center is a wealth of space exploration history and future projects including the Mars project, Orion. 

Gemini V capsule in which Pete Conrad and Gordo Cooper broke the record at the time, for days in space at just shy of eight days and circling the earth 120 times.

The original Boeing NASA 905 shuttle carrier aircraft.

Here is a link if you would like learn more about the space center: https://spacecenter.org/attractions

  After touring the space center we stopped off in Houston to go to the Hard Rock Cafe. Doreen collects Hard Rock city pins and we stop at every Hard Rock on our path.

We had a delicious dinner and went back to the campground.

  Our next stop was Colorado River RV Park in Columbus Texas on the banks of the Colorado River.

Shade provided by a nice pecan tree which are plentiful in the park

There was extensive damage from Hurricane Harvey last year:

The flood waters must have been high as this sign beside the restroom shows:

The restroom sits on higher ground from where the photos above were taken and you can get a perspective here, taken from the road where the damage above is seen. To the left of the bath house is where I took the photo above:

  From Columbus we took a day trip to Austin, about an hour away. First we stopped for lunch in La Grange. I kept thinking of the ZZ Top song when I saw the signs so I had to stop to see what the "Little ol' band from Texas" was singing about.  Not much really but I had an excellent catfish sandwich at Bistro 108.

Once in Austin we visited the state capitol and toured the visitors center and capitol building.

The building and grounds are quite impressive. 

Inside the rotunda and view of the dome:

Stephen Austin, Doreen,  and Sam Houston:

House and Senate chambers:

Alamo and Confederate monuments:

After civics class it was off to E. 6'th Street. for a cold beverage. E. Sixth is lined with dive bars, cafe's and restaurants. It tries to be like Bourbon St. in New Orleans, Beale St. in Memphis, or Broadway in Nashville but to me it is just a bunch of bars and a lot of drug addled street people.

We had a few beers, ordered a pizza to go and got out of there after a completely stoned and incoherent doper slapped Doreen as they each other passed on the sidewalk. She was stunned but unscathed. This was early evening so I am sure it is quite worse as night falls. 

  From Colorado River we went to Medina Lake RV Resort in Lakehills Texas about 45 minutes outside San Antonio.

I suppose this could have passed for a resort many years ago but now it is little outdated. The bath houses were in bad shape and some of the structures are falling apart. 

Our site was decent though; we had plenty of shade from the Juniper trees which aren't too tall so I was able to get a good satellite signal.

The big draw is the deer that come right to your campsite looking to be fed. Bags of corn are sold in the store to feed them. I personally don't agree with feeding wild life but to each his own.

During the day they can be seen relaxing under the shade of Junipers or walking about grazing as they should off the land.

Here they might want to play putt-putt:

  Okay, enough of the deer, it was time to go to San Antonio and see The Alamo and the riverwalk.

Probably one of the most recognizable buildings in the U.S. if not the world as the Alamo is a UNESCO world heritage site with the entire series of five missions in Texas.

The structure above, which served as the fortress' church, is one of two buildings that remain of San Antonio de Valero, aka the Alamo constructed in 1718 by Spanish Missionaries. The other is called the long barracks, on the left, which is now a museum:

Interesting fact: the bell shaped facade' was added by the US army when the church was used as a supply depot in the 1800's.

Beautiful gardens surround the landmark as well as a gift shop, arbor with a 17 minute film, and fountain.

  Just about everyone knows the story of the Alamo so I won't go into it here. Even though the battle was won by the Mexican Army, the Texians (as they were known then) would go on to defeat Santa Ana with his 1600 men versus 800 Texians in the battle of San Jacinto in April 1836 thus securing independence from Mexico and paving the way for U.S. statehood nine years later.

  The Alamo is an amazing shrine to unflagging fight and determination of people yearning for freedom.

  Next we were off for the Riverwalk, a collection of restaurants along the San Antonio River.

I love to catch her before she has a chance to pose!

Of course a visit to the Hard Rock was in order:

Me and the Man in Black:

  So, here it goes. Are you wondering if we have had any problems or issues like last year? Of course!! Just so happens nothing has been trailer or vehicle related. I had to file a police report when my truck got burgled while parked in downtown San Antonio. The scoundrels stole a spare wallet where I kept backup credit cards and all my membership and rewards type cards. I didn't even realize this until I started getting fraud alerts on my phone while at dinner at the Hard Rock. Two of the three credit card companies denied the transactions but the third did not. The vagabonds ran up $2900 worth of charges at various retailers like Footlocker and Lidz, places where the urban demographic prefer to shop I guess. I have to wait for all transactions to clear and my credit union will dispute the charges and then I will not be held responsible for the charges.

  That is it for Texas other than a quick stopover in Fort Stockton (where I am now) for two nights. The heat is brutal, check out the seven day forecast:

The landscape is starting to resemble those of old cowboy movies: 

  Tomorrow we are off for two stops in New Mexico and then to the Grand Canyon. I will likely post after those stops. Until then have a safe Memorial Day.