Chronicles of a Travel Nurse House-Boy: Catching up, and our trip to Houston and the Johnson Space Center

I have been very slack and fallen very far behind in posting. Going to try to catch up, but will just be hitting the highlights. In July Lane got a second extension on her contract at the hospital in Dallas kept us there until the first part of October.

During our trip home to Franklin in April,I had brought back my Suzuki motorcycle. The idea was I could ride it some on days Lane was working and that would help keep me occupied, since truth be told my house-boy duties do not keep me fully occupied every day.

My 1999 DR350

I guess it was just not meant to be though. Just after I got it here it had a flat tire while I was out riding and Lane had to come pick me up. And then a few weeks later it had some kind of breakage inside the transmission and was completely out of commission. I eventually hauled it back to Franklin. Oh well, so it goes for a house-boy.

In September we already knew we would be leaving Dallas in October... just didn't know where at the time. We decided to make one last trip out to explore more of Texas before we left, since we don't know if we will ever be back. We loaded the pups up and headed south to the Houston area. In particular we were headed to see the Johnson Space Center.

The girls really love traveling.

Along the way we began seeing signs for Buc-ee's gas station. Lane had heard about it and so we stopped. It was really big and had all kinds of stuff, but their gas prices were kind of high.

Buc-ee's

Houston skyline. The Space Center is on the south side so we had to pretty much go straight through Houston.

The next day we spent most of the day at the Johnson Space Center. There was so much to see there. We took a ton of pictures. I am only going to touch on the two bigest highlights for me. First was their Saturn V rocket. Since I was a child watching the Apollo missions I have always been in awe of the size and power of the Saturn V. One of the few remaining unused Saturn Vs is on display here.

Standing next to the 1st stage.

Three of the five engines on the base of the 1st stage.

The base and five engines of the 2nd stage.

Look closely at the bottom of the picture and you can see me looking up at the single engine of the 3rd stage.

Looking from the capsule back toward the base. It is so long/tall it is hard to make out the base.

The other big thrill for me was an unexpected surprise... they have the freshly restored actual shuttle craft Galileo that was used in making of several episodes of Star Trek (the original series).

As it appeared in one of the actual episodes.

The prop was in bad shape when some collectors acquired it and began restoration.

And after restoration.

So what can I say... I have always been a huge Star Trek fan. I couldn't pass up the chance for these.

We had a great day at the Johnson Space Center.

We spent part of the next day hanging out at the Kemah Boardwalk. They have a neat boardwalk, lots of shops, and an amusement park.

Its easy to spot a happy travel nurse.

We had a nice lunch at The Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Interesting decor, and great food.

That's all I have to say about that.

Later we went to Galveston Beach. I guess Lane and I are spoiled by the beautiful North Carolina and South Carolina beaches, but the Galveston beach was a little disappointing.