"Galveston, oh Galveston"

Not quite the romantic place I had conjured in my head after decades of listening to Glen Campbell's refrain, I wandered around there wondering why Jimmy Webb chose this place when writing that anti-Vietnam war song. Galveston is an old Victorian era industrial port town on the Gulf of Mexico, which had certainly suffered the ravages of Hurricane Ike in '08, with many boarded up buildings and shops with placards indicating the high water mark inside their doorways.
Our visit was spiced up with one of the largest gatherings of motorcyclists in the US, 80% of them on Harley's, and a good number of them on open exhausts.  Took the shine of what I'm sure is normally a quiet seaside town.

Some of the more badly affected buildings from the hurricane

The historic Star Drug Store, with one of America's oldest still functioning Coca Cola Signs

Bikers and their babes

Bikes galore

Pussy Galore

Birds of a different variety

The Ocean Star drilling platform, now used as an educational resource for the energy sector

More modern architecture pops up around the island

Even more bikes

An example of Galveston's grand Victorian homes

Shipping in the Gulf of Mexico

An amusement park along the coast

"on the beach where we used to run................at Galveston..."

Part of the fishing fleet

Houston, we have a problem......

Two very wet humid days in Houston, which ended in an orange sunset caught in the buildings outside our hotel window:

Houston Zoo

Spent a half day at Houston Zoo, then the evening dining at the Houston Aquarium - not eating the exhibits though. Fish and rays swam past while we ate, in a 150,000 gallon 6 inch thick glass tank.
Very impressive.

This grizzly bear was sleeping in the heat, not dead as he looks

Add your own caption, best one wins........something

The type of critter I think may have visited me in the night while climbing in the Sierras

Space, the final frontier............

Flew to Houston, Texas, for Katrina's conference, then went for a trip of a lifetime to the Johnson Spaceflight Center.  Had a tour of the facility, and saw the original historic Mission Control which was used from 1965 to 1992.  Also got to fondle a Saturn V rocket, the size is hard to comprehend (the rocket that is):

The Galileo Shuttlecraft from the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 

Mission Control

Gene Krantz's desk of Apollo 13 fame

A full size mock-up of the International Space Station in the space vehicle training facility

The Soyuz escape module

The new Orion capsule being developed for future space missions

An experimental ROV

An experimental robot with enough dexterity to type a chapter on a smart phone without error

An F-1 rocket (Left) from a Saturn V rocket

5 F-1's!

The size of the Saturn V is hard to comprehend

On the flight deck of a Shuttle mock-up

A Nikon F1 Photomic with motordrive (modified F-36?) and a 55mm f 1.2 nikkor - property of the US Govt, as used by the Apollo crews.

Skylab mock-up

Showering in the skylab

A full size shuttle mock-up