Florida, Day 5

Sunday morning we went to Aunt Diane and Uncle Jim’s church. Before we left home to go down, Aunt Diane asked Mom if she would sing a solo on Sunday morning. Mom agreed, so we got to church a little early. I took a picture of Mom practicing:



After church Uncle Jim took us on a driving tour of the Gulf Breeze area. The back windows of the van are tinted, so some of my photos appear darker, although it was pretty cloudy the whole trip. Here’s a heron that we saw on our tour:



We spent the afternoon lounging around the house. That evening, we had to drop Uncle Jim off at church for a meeting. Us three ladies headed to the beach and then went back to church for their Talent Show and Dinner. Our next stop was Pensacola Beach:



The next picture is the view from the toll bridge as we crossed over to Pensacola Beach. It is on the darker side, since I’m taking the picture through the dark window of the van:



We stopped at several areas on Pensacola Beach, so I could take pictures. I had to step in the water at every beach, especially when we were on the Gulf side. Mom took this one of me in the Gulf:



We were going back to my aunt and uncle’s church after the beach, so Mom didn’t want to get too wet:



Now for some surf pictures:









I was trying to get a great close up picture of this little guy, but he was very quick and if you know what kind of bird it is, please let me know:





As we were driving back through Pensacola Beach, Aunt Diane was showing us some of the damage from the two previous bigger hurricanes, Ivan (2004) and Dennis (2005). When you look at some of these pictures, you’ll see some rebuilt homes on stilts and some empty spaces where hotels/homes have not been rebuilt:











If you want to check out more pictures from right after the hurricanes you can search for them on the net, but here’s one of the local websites:

Ivan: http://www.pnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=PHOTOGALLERY0101

Dennis: http://www.pnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=PHOTOGALLERY0103

These are on the Pensacola News Journal (PNJ) website and you can also see pictures of the area after Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Ike, and more. We know that my aunt and uncle did not evacuated for Hurricane Ike, but there are some pictures on the PNJ website of the flooding in their area. We don’t think that Mom’s cousin and her husband evacuated from Houston, but we haven’t heard from them.

Here’s my last shot as we were leaving Pensacola Beach:



This is one of their water reservoirs and I loved the painting on it.

We then went to church and enjoyed a great potluck dinner and talent show. The rest of the evening was spent hanging out at the house and planning our next day.

Florida, Days 3 and 4

We flew from Houston to Pensacola, Florida on Friday (4/4) afternoon. During the flight over, I was trying to see if I could see any areas that were damaged by Hurricane Katrina, but it was too cloudy. My Dad’s sister, Diane and her husband, Jim, met us at the airport. They took us to an early dinner at a restaurant on one of the bayous that had a pretty good hamburger. Then we headed out to their house in Gulf Breeze. Below is a map of the area:



I always had to remember that between the cities of Pensacola and Gulf Breeze is the Bay, between Gulf Breeze and Pensacola Beach is the Sound and beyond that is the Gulf. For the picture below, it was pretty cloudy out, but I’m also taking the picture through the van’s window. This is a view of Gulf Breeze as we crossed the Pensacola Bay Bridge:



The Bridge is 3 miles long, carries 4 lanes of US98 across Pensacola Bay, and they even have signs before you get on it about making sure you have enough gasoline in your car. I’m guessing that they probably had one too many people stall in the middle of the bridge during rush hour traffic. :-) If you look at the map above, this bridge is the one on the left, that heads to where the star is. My aunt and uncle’s house is off of 98, just passed (to the right) of where 281 comes across the bay. History lesson on the bridge: It was opened to traffic in 1960 to replace a two-lane road that was next to it. The toll bridge was left intact, although the middle of it was destroyed some time ago. The two halves (one from the Pensacola side and one from the Gulf Breeze side) became fishing piers. Most of the rest of the fishing piers were destroyed in the 2004 Hurricane Ivan. By the time we were there, the rest of the fishing piers were pretty much destroyed.

The rest of the day was just hanging out at my aunt and uncle’s house.

(Day 4)

I was able to sleep in!! We then headed out to Joe Patti’s Seafood store to get some really fresh seafood. I was able to pick up some recipes, although I know I’m not going to be trying most of them: alligator, catfish, Mahi-Mahi, oysters, lobster, shrimp, and swordfish. If you want any of these recipes, check out: http://www.fl-seafood.com/recipes/index.htm.

Their boats and building:



Their pelican friends on their boats and docks:



As we drove around town, we saw pelican statues. Each one was painted in a different way. For those who know Seattle, it is the same as what Seattle did with the pigs. It’s also what Olympia did with the fish around town. Here's one as we were driving away from Joe Patti’s (I think we were near the Navy base):



Some nice homes that were built out in the Bay. This is just before we went over the long bridge. It is a gated road, so these are taken from a moving van. I have to say that I wouldn’t want to be in them when a hurricane comes in:



For those who know that I work with Drinking Water, you will understand some of my pictures:





If you didn’t figure it out, this is the water tower for the Midway Water System in Gulf Breeze. I just thought the painting on it was pretty cool, but after taking one picture, my aunt, uncle, and Mom would point out every single one we saw. I was hoping to take the pictures back to work and see if I could get “work” hours for taking all the pictures, but I figured that wouldn’t work to well. :-)

Hopefully I’ll be able to get the last few days of our trip on this blog soon, so I can catch you up on my summer happenings.

Stay tuned for more!!

Houston, Day 2

Since I chose the activity for our first full day in Houston, Mom chose what we did on the second day. I at least started the day by sleeping in. Since it wasn’t raining, I got outside and took a few pictures in John and Sue’s yard of their house and view. Some of you may know my love of home architecture, but for those who don’t, now you do. Here are some of my favorite house pictures from our vacation (you’ll see more later). Mom and I have gotten into watching HGTV and are thinking about what to do in our house, especially in our kitchen, so you’ll also see some of my “idea” pictures. John and Sue live in one of those planned communities that is built around some rice patties that were filled with water:



The back of their house:



Never got a chance to be in the pool, since it wasn’t very warm, but we did use the hot tub:



This is one idea for kitchen cupboards:



This is one of the views that they have from their house across the pond (I have my zoom lens, so that’s why the house looks so close):



Now for a picture of the front of their house:



Their house is in a small cul-de-sac and on the water side, they sit on a point, which gives them a great 180+ degree view. Since they sit on a point, Sue had a brilliant idea. Although no boats are allowed on the waterways, she found this cute lighthouse that does light up at night:



After eating breakfast and getting ready, we decided to head over to their son, Eric’s house. They are building in the same neighbor hood as his parents, but in a different section. By water, his parents are just around the corner from him, but it was a drive to get there. I think by the time we left their house for Florida, I had an idea of how to get around the neighborhood, but don’t ask me to find my way back there. The rice patties (ponds) are all connected, so some roads go over bridges but other ones have to circle around the ponds. Which is the case to get to Eric’s house from his parents. Here’s the kitchen cupboards of their house:



John told us that Eric got to chose what kind of kitchen stove they would get, so Kristie got to choose what type of tub for the master bath. I have to agree with her choice, because I’d love to have one of these too:



Here’s the view from their upstairs computer room:



Celebrating the Lone Star State (the front door):



Now a view of the front of the house:



Since we weren’t going to have enough time to see too much, Mom wanted to do a little driving around Houston, so we could see some of the city. Mom’s plan for us was to then go to the Houston Museum of Natural Science. They had a great exhibit about the Americas that she wanted to see. We were hoping to see some stuff on Honduras, since she was going there a few months later with our church. We didn’t make it into the IMAX Theater there, but we were able to see some Texas Wildlife, African Wildlife, Gems and Minerals (these were so beautiful to see, especially all the purple ones). These were both in jewelry and by themselves. Many of them were very expensive and they were actually in a dark vault that you were able to walk through. I’m assuming it was locked every night. The most expensive jewlery piece was millions of dollars.

We really enjoyed the Americas exhibit and wandering through the other ones. Mom and I decided to then split up. There was an exhibit called Lucy’s Legacy that Mom wanted to check out. We found out that it is coming to Seattle too, so she wanted to see if it would be worth it to go when it comes here. It is about some of the history of Ethiopia over the last 5 million years. It will be at the Pacific Science Center from 10/4/08 through 3/8/09. I wasn’t too sure I wanted to see it, so I decided to try out the CSI Exhibit. I have to say that it was so cool. First they put you in a room to watch a short video clip that includes messages from the actors on the orginal CSI (which is the only one that Mom and I watch). You then go to another area where they give you a sheet of paper that has certain questions and places for notes. After that you go in to look at your crime scene and try to solve it.



WARNING: These next pictures aren’t for the faint of heart!!

Here’s my crime scene:





After checking out the scene you go into their “Crime Lab” and get to solve the mystery. I got to learn about getting digital evidence out of cell phones. Checked out how to match finger prints, tire tracks, and DNA. Also got to check out toxicology and entomology. After all of the tests, you get on a computer and enter your findings, which are then reported to Gil Grissom. After watching a lot of CSI and Murder She Wrote, it was pretty easy for me to solve. Right after solving, I saw the list of sponsors and found that the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) was one of them. If you want to check out their website, go to: www.csitheexperience.org. It also shows that the exhibit is going to be at OMSI during the summer of 2009. I highly recommend going to it.

After leaving the Museum, we drove around downtown Houston to check out some of their older homes, see their church, check out some of the old buildings, and whatever else we could see. We ended up at a little Pub for dinner, which was really good (hamburger!!). We headed back to their house to watch some tv, which I forgot to get a picture of (it is a 72 inch tv). Many of you know that Mom does a lot with our family history and Sue had a bunch of old pictures that Mom didn’t have, so they had me take pictures with my camera. I’ll put a few here, but I won’t say who they are of:







After awhile, we headed to the Hot Tub for some relaxation. Then to bed for our last night in Houston. We got up early the next morning to head to the airport. On our way in, I took this picture of two of the domes in town. I took this picture, because after Hurricane Katrina, many New Orleans people came and lived in these buildings. We also passed the Convention Center, which housed thousands of evacuees, but I couldn’t get a picture of it:



Next up--Florida!!

Houston, Day 1

Sorry for the long posts, but I love taking pictures and can never chose which ones to use. Since the post was getting long, I'm breaking it down into a few of them. I’m finally getting around to posting about our vacation back in April. We put off our trip, because I was going to the M’s Home Opener on March 31st. We flew south on April 1st hoping for nicer weather. Although it wasn’t that great of weather at least it was warmer than home. Our first stop was Houston. We stayed with Mom’s cousin Sue and her husband John. It had been many years since we had seen them, so it was great to catch up with them. We were only there for two and a half days, so we had to pack a lot of sightseeing into that time. Mom and I had never been there, so we wanted to see as much as we could.

We had an early flight, but weren’t sure if we were going to get out with all the fog. There was hope since we could see a little of the sun:


We had an awesome view of Mt. St. Helen’s on the flight down:




We got to Houston in the late afternoon and hung out at Sue and John’s all evening. We were able to jump in the hot tub too. The weather wasn’t warm enough to go in the swimming pool, but the hot tub was great.

NASA

Our first full day in Houston was spent at NASA Space Center Houston. When we got there, John, Mom, and I went on the Tram Tour of the Johnson Space Center (JSC), which took us out to some of the NASA training buildings. Sue decided to stay in the main building (she’s been on the tour before) and scout out our plan of action after the tour. John and Sue have been there before and they did say that before 9/11 the tour went to more of the buildings, including the training pool (world’s deepest pool). Had to take a picture of Mom and John before our Tram Tour left:



Since I can’t remember where all of these pictures were taken, I’m not going to try to describe everything. Here’s some of the flags of the different shuttles:



These pictures are taken in the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility at the JSC. This is where the astronauts, engineers, and other space flight professionals learn and practice their skills. There are some shuttle orbital trainers, International Space Station trainer, and more:







This is the grove of trees that are planted in honor of all of the Astronauts that have perished in flight, such as those on the Challenger:



These are some older rockets and shuttles that were around the Center grounds:





This was some kind of rocket that I think might be called the Saturn V and there are only two or three left in the US:



As we were riding around, I came across an awesome car, so I had to take a picture. I’ve narrowed my car choices to two and here is the Mustang convertible in the same color that I’d love to have:



If you want to learn more about the Johnson Space Center, visit their website which is pretty cool: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/home/index.html.

To learn more about Space Center Houston go to: www.spacecenter.org.

After the outside tour we headed inside to find Sue. She had planned out the rest of our visit, so we were able to see the most stuff.

Our first stop was the Starship Gallery, where we watched a movie about the space flight program in the US and then traced the progress of the space program with artifacts and exhibits. Mom and I were even able to touch a moon rock:



This picture is for my Uncle Jim (we saw him later in Florida). He worked for HP for many years, so thought he’d like this one:



We watched an IMAX movie on life inside the Space Station. I remember seeing another Space Shuttle movie at the Seattle Science Center IMAX theater, when I was young, but I can’t remember what it was about. We were able to feel the sensation of a Blast Off, before we learned about the current shuttle mission. We also got to learn about the challenges of living and working in space. Here’s some pictures from that demonstration:





John and I took our turns on the Flight Simulators. I’m not sure how well John did, but I crashed once and went “where no one has gone before” (probably back into space).

John:



Me:



Mom and I went up into a “Shuttle” and were able to look into the controls area:



This is the shuttle. Either I’m short or the shuttle is just very tall:



DYNAMO

You probably don’t know what this is about, but the Dynamo is the Major League Soccer (MLS) team in Houston. Sue, John, and their kids and grandkids are into soccer. Two of their sons have season tickets to the Dynamo. Their oldest son, Eric and his wife, Kristie, are in the front row right near one of the goals. It also happens to be on the Dynamo sidelines, so we had great views of the guys warming up right in front of us. Their youngest son (Mark) has season tickets in the row behind his brother. The Dynamo were playing in an international tournament and had a home game on Wednesday night, so Eric and Kristie got an extra ticket so that I could join them (they assumed that I’d like to go and they guessed correctly--I would have gone anyways, just because it was in the front row seats to a major leage team). Mark was in Europe, so he wasn’t able to join us. We had John, Eric, Kristie, Susan (Mark’s girlfriend), and myself, while Sue and Mom took care of the grandkids.

I was excited for the game, because there happened to be several players from Seattle. The Dynamo’s color is Orange, but I don’t understand the reasoning behind that color. There are a lot better color choices and no one looks good in orange. I would have chosen another color, but......Here’s the two teams on the field at the University of Houston just before the start of the game (Houston in orange and Deportivo Saprissa of Costa Rica in Blue):



The goalie, Pat Onstad:



Some action shots:







Craig Waibel, from Seattle, warming up (no telephoto was used):



My tradition for the Mariners games is to get a picture of the final score, so for the Dynamo, here it is after 90 minutes of play:



Yes....the final score was 0-0 and there was no shootout either.