SPACE CENTER AND PRISON

(MARCH 11, 2018) I spent the night just south of Houston in Pasadena, Texas which is only about a mile from the Johnson Space Center, which will be my first stop of the day.  I did find out why weekend traffic is so bad in Houston; the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is in town and this is perhaps the Houston's biggest event of the year. Most of the motels are book and traffic to and from the shuttle lots in and around the NRG Park is really messed up.

It was cloudy and really humid when I left the hotel and made my way over the the Johnson Space Center. The temperature was 77 at 10 a.m. Just think, here I am trying not to complain about the heat and humidity and people back in Virginia are preparing for a significant snow.

A misty rain was falling as I pulled into Space Center Houston. This looks like it is going to be the most expensive day yet. It cost me $5.00 just to park and another $27.95 for the Space Center Museum.

While I enjoyed the tour, $27 bucks is a little much. The highlight of the exhibits was the Apollo 11

Command Module,  "Columbia" and the Apollo 17 Command Module, "America." They also had a few other artifacts from Apollo 11 and of course they had several Moon Rock on Display.

My entire visit took about 2-hours and after a quick trip to the Gift Shop, which cost me another $21.00 I done ready to hit the road.

A quick check of Houston traffic showed only a small amount of Red and since my GPS was suggesting taking I-45 straight North right through downtown Houston, I decided to make a quick stop at the Glenwood Cemetery.

There are a couple of notable people buried there, included Roy Holfheinz who build the Astrodome, NBA Great Moses Malone and the most notable Howard Hughes.  I figure I would give it a shot and see if I could find any of them.

It was a quick and relatively traffic free trip through the heart of Houston and I soon found myself in a very large cemetery.  This is the first cemetery that I have ever been to that has a security patrol. Just about every turn I ran into him and it soon became obvious he was following me and keeping an eye on me.

I had the GPS Coordinates for the Howard Hughes Grave and put them into my phone and was able to quickly locate it.  As I stopped and snapped a few photos, I noticed the Security guy sitting on a little hill a short distance away.

While I am always respectful in Cemeteries, being under the constant watchful eye of the security guard was a little more than I could stand. So after I got my pictures I decided to leave and head north.

Back on Interstate 45 it was an uneventful 60 mile drive to Huntsville.  Arriving in the early afternoon, it was too early to check into my Hotel, so I decided to hit the Texas Prison Museum.

Huntsville is home to the Walls Unit, which is one of the most famous prisons in the Nation. The Walls Unit was built in 1849 and is the oldest prison in the Texas Prison System. It is also the home to the Texas Death Chamber where condemned inmates are put to death.

Just north of Huntsville is the Texas Prison Museum. It a small museum that has a number of artifacts from from some of the country's most famous criminals, including a gun taken from the death car of Bonnie and Clyde and the Texas Electric Chair nicknamed Old Sparky.

For the $4.00 Senior Admission it was well worth a stop.

After completing my visit to the Prison Museum it was off to check in to the Holiday Inn, which is my accommodation for the night.

Tomorrow I plan on spending most of the day here in Huntsville touring the sites relating to Sam Houston and visiting downtown Huntsville. Then its off to College Station and The first of the Three Presidential Museums and a maybe a visit to Texas A & M.

TODAYS MILES:  114
TOTAL MILES:     1820