Got into Austin the place looks Adelaide size, checked into the Hyatt. regency…no time for pampering.. time to hit the streets and see what the Texan capital has to offer…Yee Ha.
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After a healthy breakfast we left Houston for the thee hour drive to Austin. It was pretty easy drive with some huge freeway networks and best of all lots of fun signage, BBQ and smokehouses and food deals more crazier than the last. $4.99 buffets, take home your desert, buy one get 2 free (probably for each person). One of the giant billboards that caught our attention was Buc-ee’s a beaver character with slogans like “it’s potty time” . Or “eat here, get gas” or “mom I’m hungry” it started about 75 miles out and repeated every 3 or so… we had to go. The urge was getting worse at each sign ‘I can only think about beavers’ did it…the miles got smaller and smaller until we finally saw it raise out of the prairie. Buc-ee’s was probably the world biggest servo with 50 or more pumps and a store the size of a Woolworths or Coles or bigger selling all the servo stuff plus BBQ smokers, hot BBQ food and souvenirs. We picked up a Buc-ee Beaver T shirt and a brisket roll for lunch, plus some fuel… What a great adventure.
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Just wanted to use that catch cry.. probably the food sums it up the best.
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You might know this village by the 70’s cowboy song by Glen Campbell, and the place was a bit old and worn just like Glen. It overlooks the Gulf of Mexico about an hours drive out of Houston. It was pretty quiet today, but I would imagine it would go crazy on the weekend and especially in the summer. Every shoddy tourist attraction is there, the theatre cabaret, horse drawn carriages in the main street, a tourist train, the haunted house and I’m sure there would have been a believe it or not museum and wax works. The waterfront was pretty good with some nice restaurants, cafes, boat trips and the like. But the best bit about the town was the beautiful historic buildings they were amazing. There were streets of grand old buildings made of iron, tiny bricks or sandstone. Many of them have been turned into galleries, boutiques, bars and cafes. On the other side of the island overlooking the Gulf was a long stretch of surf beach and had the traditional theme park on the pier, heaps of small tourist attractions like mini golf, heaps of accommodation and every type of fast food place you could ever imagine. Many having seafood buffets, eat all you can shrimp or crab for ridiculously cheap prices. All trying to out do each other with lower offers and bigger signage
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We called into Fry’s Electrical near the NASA base, they are one of the country’s largest electrical stores a bit like JB HiFi or Dick Smith only bigger. The store massive, it would have had a floor space over 200 meters square. Selling everything from home theatres complete with chairs and popcorn makers right down to resistors and other tiny components. But the most amazing thing about the store was its incredible NASA theme. Hanging from the ceiling was a full scale model of the international space station and there were pods housing electronics and a big cafe. The shop was probably better than the main exhibition hall at NASA, and the space food was about half the price
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As we all know, NASA was the Mission Control for all the Apollo moon missions shuttle missions. This was a chance to get up close and see some of the most amazing technology and a bit of history. The day started with a bus ride around the facility starting in the actual mission control used for the Moon Landings. They told a story it was removed an updated in the late 70’s to make way for the shuttle control and new technology but was sent to the Smithsonian in Washington. When the shuttle facilities were moved to a new modern building the gear was brought back to Houston and refit exactly as it was in the 60’s. One interesting fact was the Tom Hanks Apollo II movie wasn’t filmed there because the cameras would not fit so they built a replica. The next stop was one of the testing and training facilities. Here procedures could be made and practiced on replica equipment. There was a few large sections of the international space station, the shuttle and some development rovers and robots that are being designed for the upcoming man on mars missions about 17 years away. The tour finished in a huge shed housing a full Apollo rocket, the size of it was amazing, We remember seeing another one at Cape Canaveral on a earlier trip, but the awe of the size still amazes. How you can get something that big into space is an amazing feat especially when the computing power used in the whole mission both on the rocket and back here at Houston was less than what is in our iPhones. There were no calculators, all the calculations were done with slide rules and some pretty clever guys
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Good night sleep beds were really good, so was the complimentary breakfast buffet, still don’t understand why e-mericans are so fat… bacon, cheese omelette, muffins, pancakes, greasy sausages.. This grey gravy stuff with crumbed burger in it…Iced donuts, sugar coated cereals… fortunately I found a banana..will it be chocolate coated or sugar frosted inside..na it’s probably wrapped in bacon. And then theres milk, can’t they just get it from a cow? They are all 2% this, 90% this or that.. might stick to the green tea.
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Got into Houston about 5, picked up the car, (a lovely Hyundai Elantra) then headed to city. Within a few minutes we were giggling at stupid America roadside signs for saving your soul, giant burger offers and run down suburbia… The hotel is pretty good and shower was the best thing. It’s fairly grey hot and steamy here, so off for a few ales, found a grungy bar called Dirt, had $3 well beers (they are bottles served from a well) it was only Pabst, not the best beer but it was ice cold and that was all what mattered. later headed to the house of Blues really cool place, Band playing, real nice staff, tasty lone Star beers and one of the tastiest meals I have ever had, a New Orleans Jambalaya, sort of sausage and chicken rice dish with plenty of peppers and spice. Time to walk home and get some sleep… other than a few semi unconscious moments it’s been 26 hours on the go.
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We got into LAX got bags and through immigration pretty quickly then walked a few terminals to our next flight where the miss management started. It looks like they have tried to add All this new security screening (that no one was really paying much attention to) and forgot to scale it for number of customers or find space to put it. The queue stretched to the street, laptops out, shoes off, stand in this crazy x-ray scanner that took 2 minutes then find your bag and try to put your shoes back on in an area like a cattle stampede. well just as well the brew pub is open and only 20 metres away…9am so time for a beer followed up with breakfast nachos….yummy.
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It’s a good feeling turning left as you enter the plane and today it’s row 1 seat a and c, you can’t get closer to the front unless you are flying the thing. the champagne comes out as soon as we take our seat followed by gift pack of toiletries and pyjamas. A few Fat Yaks later the food comes out with real metal cutlery , bone china and glasswear. the soup was nearly a problem as it got a bit bumpy out there. Theres a cool fully stocked bar with bar stools at the back of our section so once Monsters Inc has finished we are heading down there to have a few more of those tasty Yaks Much to the horror of the cattle out the back glimpsing at us through the cracks in the curtain. We are about three hours in, Tina will probably be belting out the national anthem at the G about now, Our captain is going to keep us updated on the scores through the arvo. The ride is a little bumpy so far due to the crap weather Australia`s east coast has been having this week, but its still pretty comfortable although i can see my shirt wearing a full glass of red or Yak Sometime soon. Its another 10 hours to LA we get in around 8am then we have a 3 hour flight to Houston around lunchtime. Texas bbq here we come! yeeha!
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