Gin?...But Not With Tonic!

I am writing this final post while we are cruising at 36,000 feet on our way to London Heathrow.  Yes we are sitting in very comfy business class seats and yes, we are drinking a lovely glass of champagne each.  I will say nothing else about the flight other than we always remind ourselves how fortunate we truly are.

I had said in a previous post that driving down the backest of back roads in America, you often come across something both unusual and very interesting and guess what?  That's exactly what happened to us today.

We were making our way across country from Houston to Austin - it was enjoyable to get off the busy Texan Interstates - when Linda suddenly noticed a sign saying Texas Cotton Gin Museum!  Having seen and subsequently read about the extensive cotton growing industry in Texas we had seen lots of buildings with cotton gin written on them but never really understood what it meant.  Today we found out in the tiny community of Burton, Texas.

The Gin referred to is actually a shortened version of engine, a machine invented and brought into production in 1794 by a certain Eli Whitney which was used for removing seeds from the cotton fibre.  I could go into great detail and bore you all to death but we learnt so much in the half hour we spent in the museum with our own personal guide.

For the budding engineers the actual gin in Burton was installed in 1914 and is still in working order albeit only once a year for a festival held in April.  They are very proud of their heritage although the success of this gin actually led to a dramatic increase in slavery in the American South as demand for cotton exploded.  Ask me about cotton next time we meet!!

The final thing I wanted to do on the way to the airport was revisit the Circuit of the Americas on this beautiful sunny day.  Very different from when we were there just over a week ago.  We were able to get close by driving through this amazing venue but actually we weren't supposed to do this as massive work was still underway dismantling all the F1 paraphernalia.  Weather like today would have perhaps made it a more enjoyable experience on race day but the race wouldn't have been anywhere near as exciting.  Catch 22?

And so another jaunt around America comes to an end.  It continues to fascinate us endlessly and has further cemented our love affair with the place and its people.

I hope that in the words of that great playwright, Ernie Wise, that you have enjoyed, "some of what I wrote?"  If not, my humble apologies if it is at all possible for me to be humble?

Until the next time, I sign off.

Oh, I am going to Dubai next week to work on Europe's top golf tournament so the next blog might be sooner than you think!!!!!😀😀😀😀😀😀

Space......The Final Frontier

Time is rolling on and our holiday comes to an end tomorrow so we thought that we would finish it on a high.  How high?  Well into orbit and beyond with a visit to the Lyndon B Johnson Space Centre, commonly know as the home of NASA.  This is specifically where human flight training, research and flight control are based.  It had been very much on our radar in 2001 but we were unable to do a full tour because after 9/11 many parts of it were closed to the public, not to reopen for some considerable time.

The best part of the visit here is the Tram Tour which takes you around the whole site stopping off at specific areas of interest.  The two that stick out are the visit to actual Mission Control and the opportunity to stand alongside a Saturn V rocket.

Mission Control, photos of which you see below, is currently concentrating activity on the planned Orion Mars mission in 2030.  However this place is shortly to take over as Control Centre for the International Space Station which today celebrated 15 years of occupation by astronauts.  They were broadcasting to the world while we were there and what was even more cool was that the son of one of the astronauts was actually visiting the Space Centre today with his junior school.  Wow!  Must be something else when you can say "my dad's an astronaut and he's currently on the International Space Station."  Beats saying, "my dad's a banker!"

As for the Saturn V rocket, well it is staggering in its size and scale.  No less than 363 feet tall - that's 58 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty - and weighing 2,950 metric tons. Probably what many people don't know is that it was developed thanks to the input of a number of German rocket engineers, the most famous being Werner Von Braun, specifically for the Apollo programme which saw men land on the moon.

We were lucky today on a number of counts - the weather was beautiful and sunny and the Space Centre was very quiet so we pretty much had free rein of the place.  It isn't a cheap place to visit and many people think it is more like an amusement park.  For me it is worth every cent to see the above displays alone.

We left NASA and headed to Kemah, a coastal town famed for its boardwalk, to enjoy lunch outdoors sitting by the sea.  What better to eat than beer battered fish and chips all washed down with a chilled glass of Sav Blanc.  A delightful way to spend part of our last day.

And so we are back in our hotel, getting ready to pack and travel North to Austin in the morning for our flight home at 1820 tomorrow evening.  Happily we are already checked into comfy seats for our flight home but there are some concerns about the fog you have there at the moment.

Will probably do one final update before we depart American soil tomorrow.