From Land to Space to Sea: Three Weeks in Review

Sunday, 31 January 2016
Green Caye RV Park — Dickinson, Texas
Temps: Hi 77F (25C) / Lo 62F (17C)

When we left Galveston Island State Park on the 9th, we anticipated being in Dickinson, a city within Houston, for two weeks.

Wait a minute … I take that back.  We planned to be in Dickinson one week, and leaving the motorhome behind at the campground while we did a Caribbean cruise out of the Port of Houston during the second week.

Foggy night at Green Caye RV Park — very moody.                                           

That’s not how things turned out, however.  We ended up extending our Dickinson stay another week by stealing time away from the stop we planned in San Antonio.  Why?  That’s part of the story I will cover in this blog post to catch up with the present day.

I mentioned previously that our front heat pump went out just before we left Port Aransas.  No time to get repairs done then; and it wasn’t possible to do so while we were in Galveston either.  So on our way to Dickinson, we stopped at Due’s Camping Center to have the problem diagnosed.  “You have a broken blade,” said Dean.  We gave him the go ahead to order the part, scheduled the repair for two weeks hence, and continued to Green Caye RV Park just 6 miles (10 km) away.

We’re in site 14 at the front end of the RV park.

Regular readers of this blog know that we always stay at Advanced RV Resort when we come to Houston.  Why a different campground this time?  Two reasons — proximity to NASA and the Port of Houston; and a more palatable $170/week rate to leave the Phaeton plugged in while we were off gallivanting around the Caribbean.  This is not a destination campground by any means, but then neither is Advanced, so we’d stay here again if it fits in with future plans.

Colorful sunsets are a hallmark of our stay at Green Caye.

The proximity to NASA was important for our stay in Dickinson because we had pre-cruise plans with the Z’s to do the two-day Level 9 Tour at Space Center Houston (SCH), NASA’s visitor center at the Johnson Space Center (JSC).

The two-day admission is the most expensive one offered at SCH — $89.95pp at the time we made our reservation last November, it has since gone up to $99pp.  It’s well worth the price for space aficionados because the first day is a small-group guided tour that takes visitors to places on the JSC campus that are not accessible with the regular admission.  Only 12 people are allowed on this portion of the Level 9 Tour on any given day.  The second day is DIY at SCH at your own pace.

We didn’t go quite as far as the moon for our space experience.

After receiving our VIP badges at the welcome desk, we joined Dave, our guide.  He escorted us to a small van, which took us to the various stops on the tour.  The van was ours for the day.  That worked out well for those sites where we were not allowed to take bags with us — cameras were welcome everywhere, however.

Left: Without this badge you don’t get to go behind the scenes on the JSC Campus.
Right: Our chariot for the day doubles as secure storage when bags have to be left behind.

Dave, a keen fan of all things space related, provided great narration throughout the tour.  “I’m not hundreds of years old, but I was here before NASA came to Houston,” he said and shared many personal anecdotes about the Mercury and Gemini astronauts, as well as those participating in the more recent space programs.  A terrific guide indeed.

Our tour started at Rocket Park, where we saw the Saturn V launch vehicle that was put together from parts that were originally designated for the Apollo 18 and Apollo 20 missions … neither of which flew since the program was ended after Apollo 17.

Left: At Rocket Park with Little Joe II in the background.
Right: Dave regales us with details about the Saturn V and the Apollo Program.

postcard from the tippy-top of the Saturn V Launch Vehicle.
R to L: the escape rocket (designed to pull the command module to safety in the event of a malfunction during launch) & the Apollo Spacecraft (command module for three astronauts).

Then we went off-campus to see the NBL — the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.  This is where astronauts put on special suits and weights and are lowered into a giant tank filled with water to practice performing EVA (extravehicular activity) tasks on a full-scale replica of the ISS (International Space Station).  Apparently a visitor at some point thought it would be fun to jump in the pool, so NASA has since closed off floor access, but we got an excellent view of things from the observation balcony.

The NBL is where astronauts practice EVA tasks.

The crew module of the Orion is at the NBL for testing.  The Orion is the next
generation spacecraft that will replace the space shuttle for missions to the ISS.

Back at the JSC campus once again, we stopped to have lunch at the cafeteria where NASA personnel, including the astronauts, have their meals.  No astronaut sightings today alas.

Lunch at the JSC cafeteria.

Tummies sated, we continued the tour at the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility — referred to more commonly as Building 9.  This building is also accessible on the regular tram tour, but where those visitors look down on the floor from above, we got to wander amongst the space artifacts on the floor, and got a closer look at some of the projects in the works for future missions.  Much of the floor of this building is taken up by a mockup of the ISS where engineers troubleshoot issues.  Also here is a Soyuz capsule similar to the one used to take ISS crew to the station and back.

Engineers are working on Robonauts that will assist astronauts with EVA tasks in the future.

Mars Exploration Vehicle	Orion Mockup

Space suits from the space shuttle make for good photo ops.

The next three stops were at Mission Control — the present … where ISS missions are flown; the past … where the Apollo missions were flown; and the future … where missions to the moon, Mars, and elsewhere will be flown.  In the first and the last, we watched the action from the visitor’s gallery — people were working in them after all.  But in the old mission control room we got to sit where the people who flew the missions sat.  This room is now on the national landmark registry and there are plans in the works to restore it to its former glory.

We go through the doors on the left to check out the present day mission control center.

Left: We get to play NASA Engineer in this room from which the Apollo missions were flown.

Right: This mirror flew on Apollo 13.  It was gifted to mission control personnel
by the Apollo 13 crew and placed above the water fountain to remind the
people who worked here of their invaluable service to the space program.

Dave surprised us with one last stop at the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory.  This is also accessible on the tram tour, but we actually got to climb up into the mockup of a space shuttle flight deck and check out where astronauts actually flew simulations to prepare themselves for the real thing.  I understood from Dave that the engineers behind the scenes threw every possible problem at the astronauts while they flew mock-missions from the seats in which we got to sit.

Do you think there’s enough cabling in this bay?  And this is not all of it, either.

Climbing up a very steep ladder, we squeeze through a hatch to play on the flight deck.

Boy what a day this first day of the Level 9 Tour turned out to be.  But there was still more to come the next day when we returned to explore SCH on our own.  We saw movies; attended live mission briefings; learned about day-to-day life aboard the ISS; browsed all kinds of exhibits; saw all kinds of interesting space artifacts — including the Mercury 7 spacecraft, the Gemini 5 spacecraft, and the Apollo 17 command module.  We went inside a skylab trainer so big that SCH had to be built around it; posed with the USS Enterprise Galileo shuttlecraft — of Star Trek fame; and touched one of only eight moon rocks made available to the general public for that purpose.  Oh, and we saw the replica shuttle Independence sitting atop an original NASA shuttle carrier — this is NASA’s latest exhibit, but it had not yet opened to the public when we visited on 14 January.

Space Center Plaza exhibits include a shuttle mock up that visitors can go inside of, a full scale replica of the Orion capsule, and a for-real Orion parachute that was used in a test launch.

Mercury 7	Gemini 5

Moon Rock Touchstone	Coming through the docking module

Fun in the skylab trainer.

Star Year 2016!

Space suit evolution from Mercury … to Apollo … to the future.

Live Mission Briefing: Mars Curiosity Rover.

Independence Plaza is the newest exhibit at SCH — it opened to visitors on 23 January;
we will have to schedule a return visit to wander inside the original NASA shuttle carrier.

We wrapped up this second day at SCH with an early dinner with the Z’s.  It wasn’t easy to find an acceptable eatery nearby.  But when we finally landed at the Nobi Public House, it turned out to be a gem — an excellent selection of craft beer and a limited but very tasty menu of Vietnamese fusion cuisine.

[For those interested, I have a ton of photos from our two-day NASA visit in my online gallery.]

15 January, the day after our NASA visit, was a special one — Mui’s big 6-0 ;-)  We celebrated with the Z’s who treated us to dinner at Landry’s at the Kemah Boardwalk … think Coney Island but on a smaller scale.

A warm January day to celebrate Mui’s big day at the Kemah Boardwalk.

Happy 6-0 and many more returns Mui.

The day after Mui’s birthday celebration, we headed off on a Caribbean getaway with the Z’s.  Leaving the Phaeton plugged in at the campground made getting away for the 7-day cruise very easy since we did not have to close up the rig or worry about winterizing it.  We boarded NCL Jade at the Port of Houston; sailed across the Gulf of Mexico; had a beach day in Cozumel; monkeyed around the Black Howler Sanctuary in Belize; snorkeled on Roatán; and then rock and rolled our way back to Houston with two days at sea.  It was fun even if the weather was not up to the usual Caribbean standards.

If you want to read the story of our Caribbean cruise, you can start with this post in our Two to Travel blog; two other posts finish the story.  For the rest of you, here’s a collage of scenes from the cruise.

Our seven-day Caribbean Getaway aboard NCL Jade.

Remember the heat pump that we were getting repaired on the Monday after the cruise?  Well, it didn’t happen.  We had not yet disembarked NCL Jade when Mui got a message from Due’s — the part was delayed by the blizzard that hit the eastern seaboard while we were on our ‘warmish’ getaway.  Sigh!  To make a long story short, we scrapped our San Antonio plans, extended our stay at Green Caye RV Park for another week, and rescheduled the repair for Thursday, the 28th.

The silver lining in all this  … not only did I now have time to process all of my NASA photos, but those from the cruise as well.  And as a bonus I got to enjoy a couple of spectacular sunrises and sunsets, and visit with the white ibis flock that visits the pond behind our site every so often.  Finally — and most importantly — we now have a heat pump that works and is so much quieter than the one we had before.

Gorgeous sunrise looking across the pond towards the golf course.

Our white ibis visitors at the pond behind our site.

And that’s a wrap as they say.  It took me longer to write this than I had hoped, but hey … it’s not easy to cover three weeks in one post.  Tomorrow we start a new month.  And with that new month we head to San Antonio.  It will be a short stay — just two nights at the Fort Sam Houston campground.  We have one purpose for this stay … to get our official military retiree IDs now that Mui’s turned the page to the 6-0 chapter of the book of life.  From San Antonio, we will head further west to explore a bit of Texas — winter weather permitting of course.

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