Houston Space Center

Saturday, October 6, 2007
While I travel to Houston quite a bit for work, I don’t take the time to see the sights. The Houston Space Center is one that I’ve always thought would be fun to see. Today, that desire was fulfilled. The Johnson Space Center is quite large with many different buildings. They have a tour that allows access to the control center for the shuttle missions and a spaceship mock-up building where they have life size models that the astronauts use for training. Did you know that NASA plans to send more folks to the moon by 2020? They plan on putting a space station there to explore long term life studies in preparation for putting astronauts on mars by 2030. They mentioned on the tour that kids ages 3-20 are the age group that will likely be setting foot on mars. Scary to think that our kids will be the ones with that responsibility!
We learned something neat today….The Space Shuttle is launching on October 23 at Kennedy Space Center. I saw the shuttle launch when I was a kid and it is something unforgettable. I have told Sheri that one of my goals for the family was to let the kids see a launch before the shuttle retires in 2010. With the sabbatical, brings spontaneous opportunities. Sheri and I are seriously considering returning to Berryville for a week and then taking a trip to Florida for the launch. If any of you are interested in joining us, we think a caravan road trip is order. I know most of you have to work, but for those who aren’t, feel free to join us.
Friday, October 5
Day 97 – We drove from San Antonio to Houston today. Not really much to say about the trip. The Houston KOA will be remembered by the significant precipitation they received while we were there. I travel enough to Houston to know that they can get some good rain showers and this was nothing out of the ordinary. However, we had become acclimated to the desert climate….. Sheri and I think that the last time we saw rain was in California. People keep asking us if we are excited or looking forward to coming home. Sheri and I have discussed this. On one hand, we enjoy being on the road and seeing places that we never have. On the other hand, it will be nice to have space again. The kids are looking forward to being in their own beds. I won’t have to connect to electricity, water, and sewer every day, so that’ll be nice. Going home signifies one more thing… returning to work. I personally have enjoyed the time with the family. One cannot possibly live life as we have, except perhaps in retirement. I’ve got many years before that can happen, so I must return to work. While I enjoy my job, there is certainly much less stress living the life we have lived for the last 3 months. So returning home has less to look forward to than one might think.