Galveston and space centre

---

Galveston oh Galveston: 23/06-29/06
We fancied a week at the beach and Galveston on the Gulf Coast wasn't far away. It wasn't going to be much more expensive to hire a car than it was for the buses so we went out to Austin airport to pick up a bright yellow Chevy. We drove past Houston and over the bridge to Galveston Island and arrived in the weather beaten and slightly run down resort. We found our hostel which was right on the beach. Although it was a hostel we had a private room with a small balcony. After a stroll on the beach and a paddle in the sea, we headed out for some fajitas which we took back to the hostel along with a bottle of wine. The next day started with a massive thunder and lightning storm which we watched from our balcony. When it cleared up, we drove to the centre of town and walked around the docks and the shops, stopping for a margarita and some ice cream. We had a walk along the beach and then ate the left overs from the previous nights dinner.
The Johnson space centre, where the astronauts were talking to when they said "Houston, the Eagle has landed" and "Houston, we have a problem", was nearby so we drove there for a visit. We had a tour around the centre which included the control room, where the first moon landing was co-ordinated, and the current training centre for shuttle missions and the international space station. The tour ended with a viewing of Saturn V, the rocket used to take the Apollo missions into orbit. After the tour we watched some films about space and got an update on current activity and even got to touch a piece of the moon. It didn't smell like cheese. Back in Galveston we went for some pizza and $1 beers. The next day we went to the beach but it was too windy and so we went to the hotel pool for some sand free sunbathing instead. Another storm came in so we went inside to watch the Spain v Russia semi final by which time the sun had reappeared so we went back out for some more sun by the pool. In the evening we walked down the sea front to Benos restaurant for a fried shrimp dinner. The waitress kept on speaking to us as she really liked Richard's accent.
There's a big water park in Galveston called the Schlitterbahn and as Steph had never been to one before we decided to spend the day there. It was great and we spent the day riding the waterslides and floating through the rapids on inflatable tubes. There was one big steep slide that was scary and Steph chickened out as she was sitting on it ready to go because the girls behind were asking the life guard if anyone had died or fallen off of it. She eventually went after some encouragement and chants of "slide, slide slide!" from everyone behind. It turned out to be not that scary but once was enough.
On Saturday we took a walk along the beach to East Beach where there was a bar and live music. We met some guys from Texas who were very excited about the bikini competition which was actually pretty poor. We drank with the Texans for most of the day, as they had a big cooler full of booze on the back of their truck, before heading back to the hostel and crashing out. On our last day in Galveston we watched the Euro final at the hostel eating free donuts and then went for a game of mini golf which Steph won again. (2-1 in the series). On the way back we went to Sonic for dinner where they bring the food out to your car on roller skates. Then we returned to the hostel for the last night mildly dissappointed that we hadn't bumped into Glen Campbell.

---

Photos

Command Centre
"Houston....is anybody there?"

On the moon
One small hop for Dylan, one giant leap for bunny-kind.

Moon rock
Is that a darylea triangle?

East Beach
Beach and beer, yay!

Comments

[David]

Did Richard win the bikini contest then?

[Rick and Steph]

Bikini contest
Richard was a close second, I told him to shave his legs but he wouldn't.