After recovering from the self-inflicted late night, we headed to Johnson Space Center. It was just down the street from our hotel.

The plan was to spend the whole day there. That’s what we did. We pretty much saw and did everything we could.

A few highlights:

Mission Status Center

This started with the Blast-Off Theatre and then moved into an impressive array of screens, monitors and live feeds. The guide in this area was very knowledgeable about what exactly was going on with NASA, like, right then. Since there were astronauts actually in space when we were there, it was especially interesting. She talked in certain terms about returning to space and the upcoming goals and timelines for NASA expeditions. It was fascinating.

Historic Mission Control Center

This was the mission control center that was used from 1964 until 1998. The Apollo missions, including the Apollo 7 and 13, and several Shuttle missions were all controlled here.

Saturn V Complex

This is particular building held the Saturn V rocket used in many of the Apollo missions. Huge is an understatement. The rocket itself was nearly as long as a football field. Toward the top you can walk in-between the last booster stage. It was amazingly complex for being so old.

Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory

This particular facility was a 15 minute charter bus trip away. It’s as close as the astronauts get to the extended weightlessness of space. It’s a pool that’s 202 feet wide, 102 feet across and 40 feet deep. I was a little disappointed that we couldn’t get down closer and see inside. You can see the viewing area on the other side of the pool from this Wikipedia panorama shot.

Here’s the other pictures I took.

After a long day at Seaworld, we turned in for the night. The next morning we got up and had a nice breakfast at the hotel and headed for what we missed in the Riverwalk area — mainly the Alamo.

The plan was to go to the Alamo, eat lunch at the Buckhorn Saloon (for which we had a really good coupon) and head to Houston.

I thought the Alamo was very interesting. I’m not saying I didn’t pay attention in history class, but I really had no idea about the history of Texas or the battle for it’s independence. I spent a lot of time reading the chronologies in various places around the main building. The famous picture of the Alamo was just a small part of the huge fort area. You can see more from my pictures here.

We walked down the street to the Buckhorn Saloon & Museum for lunch. It was crammed with stuffed animals and little creepy according to my daughter. Reminded me of Frank Phillip’s lodge at Woolaroc in Bartlesville, OK. I ate a pretty darn good bacon cheeseburger. We didn’t pay to go see the museum upstairs. It looked pretty interesting. I snapped some pictures inside. They’re along with the Alamo pictures if you follow the photo link above.

After lunch we headed east toward Houston. That was one dull drive. We finally made it to the Comfort Suites in Webster, TX. Very nice hotel. I would recommend it highly.

We checked in, lugged all of our luggage up to our room, jumped back in the car and headed toward the downtown Houston to the Toyota Center.

The Houston Rockets vs the Charlotte Bobcats at the Toyota Center was one of the highlights of the trip for me. First of all, it was an NBA game, which I always enjoy. Second, Rachel found us $10 tickets.  (BTW, despite what people say, nosebleed tickets at an NBA game aren’t really that far up. )  We were on the top row at one end.  Third, it was Clutch’s (the Rocket’s mascot) birthday and he invited mascots from around the league to celebrate — one of which was Bango, the Bucks mascot. Rachel, being the cool wife that she is, snagged an autograph from him on the back of our Rockets program. “Go Bucks Go — Bango” looks real nice framed on the wall next to my computer. She also took the cool picture you see here. Finally, the Rockets set a franchise record for the most consecutive wins — 21 when they beat the Bobcats. The crowd was absolutely crazy. What a fun atmosphere.  Here’s the rest of the pictures I took at the game.

On the way home, I somehow missed an exit and we ended up stuck in traffic right next to Reliant Park.  Don’t ask me how we ended up there after being at the Toyota Center.  Guess a Clay Walker concert had just let out — whoever the heck that is.   He must be popular based on the amount of traffic.   Rachel gave up on helping me with directions at this point — for the entire rest of the trip!  I was on my own.  Sniff, sniff.

We made it back to the hotel eventually.

We planned to spend the whole day at Seaworld and that’s what we did. Everything about Seaworld was great. It exceeded my expectations.

We got there early and they let us in anyway. Since it was a weekday before spring break, it wasn’t very crowded. The weather was really nice, too. Overcast and temperatures in the 70s.

We visited the dolphin pool first thing. Rebecca was over-the-top giddy/excited. Rachel even (briefly) overcame her irrational animals-are-gross complex and touched one. (Baby steps, baby steps.)

Caleb liked the Texas Splashdown ride and the “giant octopus” (in the shark exhibit).

The Shamu show was so cool we watched it twice.

I was a little surprised that Seaworld had a lot of amusement park rides. That wasn’t what I had pictured in my mind. Everything was way better than Worlds of Fun, that’s for sure.

Anyway, here are the 200+ pictures from Seaworld.

We ate a so-so meal at TGI-Friday’s on the way back to the hotel. What is it with TGI Friday’s wait staff? Ours was completely annoying. This is our second such experience there.

Early the next morning, I started my adventure — catching the DART and making my way to Enterprise to pick up the rental car. It was less than 5 miles from the hotel as the crow flies, but according to the trip planner the trip would take 1.5 hours and have one transfer. I found out real quick that my bus route map wasn’t going to cut it. I made it to the downtown area and then missed the transfer point. The bus driver was nice enough to tell me where to catch the right bus. Without him the “quick bus ride” would have turned into several hours. Finally made it to a bus stop a 1/4 of a mile from Enterprise. Enterprise was a busy place. The guy at the front desk said I may have to wait for the size of car that I had reserved — that is unless I would take an SUV. In my mind I was thinking $$$$ in gas cost. I hesitated. He countered with “it’s a Mazda 5, our smallest SUV. It’s hardly the size of a regular SUV.” I agreed and stepped out to find a nice freshly washed Mazda 5 with a whopping 300 actual miles on it. It was real cool. Probably the newest car I’d ever driven. It was perfect.

I headed back to the hotel. We loaded up, checked out, ate a quick breakfast and headed for San Antonio.

We stopped mid-way in Waco, TX to see the Dr. Pepper Museum. It was pretty cool. We poked around the gift shop and sat down by the soda jerk and sipped a genuine Dr. Pepper made with pure cane sugar. Mmmm. Here’s some other pics.

Side note: They say “Everything is bigger in Texas.” Well, everything except for the entrance ramps on all of the highways. Maybe it’s that way in other states or maybe I just don’t get out much. Anyway, I never got used to it on the whole trip.

We finally arrived in San Antonio and checked into the Hill Country Inn & Suites that we reserved through Travelocity. I was pleasantly surprised. It was nice except for the bathroom. The toilet leaked and the shower had a reeeally slow drain.

It was then off to El Mercado in the Market Square and the Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio.

El Mercado and the Market Square was cool if you like cheap Tex-Mex trinkets (which I don’t). We did eat dinner there. That was good.

The Riverwalk was all that people said it was — and more (j/k). I thought it was really cool. From the street you wouldn’t even know it was there, but once you get down to the walk area, it’s like a whole other world of restaurants, art and cool trees. Here’s the pics we took there. And no, I still haven’t been able to figure out how to get decent pictures at night with my camera. The pictures don’t do it justice.

What a long day — an early morning for me, lots of driving, lots of walking and a late night. We all crashed pretty hard back at the hotel.

We flew out of Kansas City on a 9:00 pm Southwest flight to Dallas. Yeah, I know it was late flight. Hey, it was cheaper. The challenge with the plan was 1) we couldn’t take the DART to the motel since it was so late and 2) the hotel didn’t have shuttle service to and from the airport. There was only one other option: take a cab.

The flight in was not that great — the taking off was fine, but the descent to Dallas Love Field was a killer on everyone’s ears. Much worse than I had experienced on any other flight that I could remember.

We got off the plane trying to get our ears working again. We picked up our luggage with no problem and headed out to the pickup area. It wasn’t long before a minivan taxi pulled up. Perfect. We get in the car and tell him we want to go the Red Roof Inn. He mumbles something that I couldn’t understand and takes off. I’m glad it was late because he was all over the road. I knew where the hotel was in relation to the airport. It seemed like he didn’t even know where he was going. I quizzed him a about the location at the Red Roof Inn. He snapped at me, saying something like “You doubt?” We made it there fine. Whew.

Our room was nice except for the musty smell.

We’ve been planning this pre-Spring Break Texas vacation for a couple of months now. The plan was to fly to Dallas, rent a car, drive to San Antonio, spend a few days there, drive to Houston, spend a few days there, drive back to Dallas and then fly back to Kansas City.

Rachel worked her magic in finding us the best deals on practically everything. We researched everything and had it all planned out. The kids were super excited to say the least.

I’ve uploaded over 600 pictures to Flickr. I’ll describe what we did each day in a separate blog post and pull out a few pictures here and there.