We left San Antonio on Friday, 2/28 and we had holy cow moment on our way to Houston! We have spent an entire month in Texas! Wasn’t intentional, but it’s a huge state, it takes a long time to traverse and, well, frankly, there’s just a TON to see. I’m a huge, huge fan of Texas now. We were in Houston Friday and Saturday leaving on Sunday March 1st for New Orleans.

A huge thanks to my CCIM pal, Dave Wilson, for suggesting we stop by a Buc-ee’s. We had wanted to stop by the one his company had developed, but our route to San Antonio from Austin ended up not taking us through New Braunfels. (man, I wish it had b/c we would have then skipped Medina Lake!). When we saw signs for Buc-ees in Luling, TX, just an hour East along I-10 outside of San Antonio, we had to stop. Talk about your taste-buds on hyper-drive! There was so much candy, BBQ sauce, nuts, pre-packed foods, pickled everything and hot-and -ready snacks that my kiddos had to bee reeled in. Izzy and I picked up matching shirts for St. Patrick’s day and I took a snapshot of this funny pick up after your dog sign. LOL.

Jetstream RV Resort was our stopping point on our way to New Orleans so we could check out NASA’s Space Center Houston. Not only was the resort top-notch, but it was set up similar to an airport/hangar, which we found to be very clever. It was completely new with an impressive pool, clean showers, an arcade, over 10-machine laundry facility and business center. They’re still working on getting their dog park up and permitted, but we were able to swing over to the the backside in a fenced area by a bayou to let Riggs get his run on. The site location was pretty unassuming in the rear of an industrial park, upon entry, it was a remarkable site to see this oasis of over a hundred Class As and other RVs parked and secure- (Ben liked the red Porsche we drove by too).

On Saturday, we arrived at the Space Center Museum just a few minutes after it opened and ended up staying all day just before they closed. There was so much to see and do and we still didn’t get to do it all even after our 7- hour day there. We took two trams into Nasa’s campus for a couple of tours; one to see the historic Mission Control Center and the other was the Space Vehicle Mock Up Facility. We even passed by the Longhorns at the museum, a part of their educational programming for FFA. I think Ben and Izzy were just the right age for this museum and they thoroughly enjoyed all the activities, sometimes doing them twice! Ben asked that I take extra pictures for his St. Francis schoolmate, Peyton Z., so here they are! Enjoy!

Below are pictures from the Space Vehicle Mock Up Facility Tour

Below are pictures from our 2nd tour, the Mission Control Tour. We got to listen to and see some of the actual audio and visual recordings from the Apollo 11 mission to the moon.

Izzy and Ben wanted to put on this NASA version of Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak (below) at one of the exhibits inside the museum. We also checked out the 747 that piggybacked the space shuttle and watched a short film about John Kiker who came up with the idea. Brilliant!

Next stop is NOLA!