We were fortunate enough to have a few days with our friends in Louisiana and as I mentioned in my last blog post we had a home for the first time in 6 months and it was bliss. It's funny how much you can miss the comforts of home like laundry, cooking and just lazing on the coach watching Netflix. Well Jayne opened her home to us and it was very welcome. Nicole had been in Houston visiting family while we were in New Orleans so we finally got to see her when she got home and catch up as we hadn't seen her since our wedding.
During our time in Lafayette we were lucky to see Hunter perform a couple of shows while we were in town. We were the novelty Australians at each show which I hope helped him get a few more people through the door. During our stay Hunter and Nicole showed us around their town making sure we tried the local Po-Boys which were delicious! We caught up on a couple of TV shows that we had missed since the start of our honeymoon and got into the Black Mirror bandersnatch craze.
The highlight would have to be our visit to the Tabasco Factory. Nicole's mum, who recently retired, was a VP for the company so Nicole had the connections to get us a VIP tour of the factory floor which was very informative and cool to see. With our hairnets and the boys with their beardnets a family friend took us through the factory and showed us everything from bottling the sauce, to the labeling, shipping orders and the domestic and international warehouses. I'd only ever done a brewery tour so it was really cool to see how such an iconic product is manufactured. After the tour we enjoyed lunch & then visited the Tabasco shop where I picked up a yummy Tabasco/balsamic combo and we all got to try some of the hottest options Tabasco offers followed by Tabasco soda!
Before we knew it it was time to leave our friends and continue our way west. We first met Hunter and Nicole in March on a cruise, a year later they were at our March wedding and now we were here another year after that. We are on track to see these guys on a yearly basis! We had such a fun time and really enjoyed seeing them and their town. A massive thanks to mumma Jayne for her generous hospitality and putting up with us all hogging her couch for a few days.
Next stop was Houston, Texas. Our main reason for stopping in Houston was to visit the Johnson Space Centre. By now we had the space bug and wanted to do and see anything NASA related. We visited during the Trump government shut down which meant the Centre was being run on skeleton staff but they worked hard to make sure their guests still had an enjoyable time. As the heart of NASA and Space Exploration everything goes through Houston. They may launch in Florida but here is where the magic, and science, lives. The highlight for me was visiting the White Flight Control Room (WFCR). A training room currently, this control room trains the staff who work in the actual control room that is used for launches and talks directly to the International Space Station. The WFCR will be the live control room when the Orion missions to Mars are launched in the 2030's & 2040's.
We then visited rocket park where the Saturn V is located. Saturn V is the tallest, heaviest and most powerful rocket ever flown. NASA used Saturn V rockets during the Apollo missions to send Americans to the moon. Beside the massive structure, each Apollo mission has a dedicated memorial with a short story on the mission and a crew write up. It's a very nice way to honor those who flew in the Apollo missions and of course to celebrate landing on the Moon.
We were fortunate to walk through the Space Vehicle Mock up Facility where again there was skeleton staff on so not much happening but we were able to see mock ups of pods and rovers that are currently being tested for the Orion program. The staff that were there were trialling a live size robot and testing commands like walk to door, pick up bag and open door. Pretty cool to see the robot in action.
Our last thing on our to do list at the Centre was the Space Shuttle Independence. Just like Space Shuttle Atlantis, Independence was bought home mounted to the Boeing NASA 905 which in its lifetime carried space shuttles 223 times over 42 years. A replica of Independence sits atop of the plane today and you can walk through the body of the plane to see what modifications had to be made to support such weight. The body was basically gutted sans 6 seats of first class to accommodate the crew removing the rest to make her as light as possible. We then walked through the shuttle to see just how much space the crew would have had for the journey. And let me tell you it wasn't a lot.
With a renewed space exploration fascination, we were on the road again heading north to Dallas. First stop on the list was the AT&T stadium home of the Dallas Cowboys of course. We got ourselves VIP tour tickets and got a behind the scenes look at the $1.3 billion stadium and the world's largest big screen. With access to the teams locker room, cheerleaders locker room, owners box, members seating and corporate boxes it was a very impressive stadium for the money spent. Best part was being on the field and in the end zone imagining what a crowd of 80.000+ would sound like.As we wrap up week 2 of our road trip we get closer to Super Bowl weekend. With a LA Ram's (Caleb's team) game just a round the corner to see if they make the Superbowl week 3 of this trip will start off with a bang!
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