Taking Up Space in Texas

We set out this morning in search of the rumored "World's Largest Fire Hydrant," in Beaumont, Texas. As it turned out, the hydrant was just up the street from our motel. Funny what you don't notice when you arrive after dark. A passing firefighter informed us that this massive hydrant does indeed work. You just need to find a really large wrench.

A few hours down the road, we visited Space Center Houston, the official visitors' center for NASA's Johnson Space Center. You know, "Houston, we have a problem"? That Space Center.

Unlike Kennedy Space Center, which we toured last week in Florida, and which offers a fairly straightforward tour of the site, Space Center Houston features virtual reality simulators and other interactive attractions to involve visitors of all ages. Andy tried his hand at one of the simulators, but ran out of time before could complete docking his Shuttle at the International Space Station.

We attended a presentation about the current Discovery Space Shuttle mission, watched live footage from space, and saw an educational and entertaining slide show of the work (and play) that the astronauts have been doing for the past week and a half in orbit. Discovery is due to return to Florida early Monday morning, and we wish the crew a safe and successful finish to their journey. They've done even more traveling than we have this summer!

Next we left the theme park area and toured Johnson Space Center itself. The highlight of this tour was a visit to the historic Mission Control room. We sat in the very seats from which statesmen and astronauts' families viewed the legendary Apollo moon missions taking place thirty to forty years ago. We were amazed at the courage of the early astronauts, who ventured into space without the benefits of our modern technology, and we were even more astounded by the fact that their missions were successful. The Apollo-era equipment looks so primitive! Our guide explained that one Pentium processor has more than 300 times the computing power as was in that entire room!

We left the Space Center feeling proud and patriotic and headed west again. Our next stop was at the Forbidden Gardens in Katy, an outdoor museum of Chinese history. When we got there, though, we were disappointed to learn that although their posted closing time was 5:00, the last tour was at 3:30, and they don't allow visitors to walk the grounds without a tour guide. Unlike the nice teddy bear lady in Naples, this museum's curator responded repeatedly to our comments on their unusual early-closing practices with a well-rehearsed, "That is most unfortunate," which really grated on our road-weary nerves. Even so, we wandered around briefly (What were they going to do, throw us out?) and took a few pictures of their fascinating collection, which includes miniature replicas of the Forbidden City and Emperor Qin's tomb, complete with his terra-cotta army. We tried to buy a postcard, but were informed by an attendant that the gift shop closed at 4:30, and it was then 4:35. That, too, was most unfortunate.

On our way to San Antonio, where we planned to spend the night, we stopped in Seguin, "Home of the World's Largest Pecan." We arrived at the courthouse, where our sources said the pecan would be, and were rather disappointed with what we found. Sure, it's big for a pecan, but it hardly compared with the other enormous objects we've seen this summer. Remember that peach in South Carolina?

Only a few blocks away from the not-as-big-as-we-thought-it-should-have-been nut, we discovered a slightly larger "World's Largest Pecan." That first one must only have been an advertisement for this second one, on display at the Pape Pecan Company. Surely a local businessman wouldn't build a bigger pecan than the official municipal nut, would he? It remains a mystery to us, since we didn't bother to ask anyone. We just got our pictures and got out. Besides, even the larger pecan, we thought, could have been much more impressive.

We drove into San Antonio looking for a place to stay. It's not always easy to find reasonable motel rates in big cities on busy weekends, but we finally found an acceptable room at an acceptable price and are tucked in for the night.

Tomorrow we'll be visiting a few San Antonio attractions, including that one place.... Oh, you know the one.... What it's called again? Oh yeah, now we remember: the Alamo.