| In July
2007 we went to a birthday party in Texas, then our friend Naomi took us and our mutual friend Jeff on her Death March across the state, I called it the Armadillo Tour of Texas.
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We started with a birthday party for Susan, she is the wife of an online friend of ours. It was the first time I'd visited in the home of a Texan, and I found everyone even more friendly than Texans are in public. It was a great start to a great vacation.
Many of the folks in these photos frequent the discussion forums at the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF).
I used a 50mm F1.4 fixed focal length Canon lens for these photos, with ambient light only. |
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United by a common theme of crazy people with guns, the public image of both Waco and Crawford suffer from famous whackos. But Waco is an interesting place, as we found out at the Texas Ranger Museum and the Dr Pepper Museum.
Later we drove to the very small town of Crawford, Texas. Officer Rupert T. Justice pulled over just seconds after we parked to take photos, yelling at us for not having 4 way flashers going on the parked car. We did not linger in Crawford. |
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We arrived in Austin in the early evening and settled in at our hotel, then we went looking for bats under bridges, but they seemed less than interested in showing off that night.
The next day we went to the state capital, Austin, and visited the capitol museum. I gave my camera arm the day off, so all of the photos in this section are by my lovely husband, Terry.
Austin is a fantastic city with a youthful and liberal feel to it, the state museum was fascinating, I'd gladly visit Austin again. |
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We motored on down to San Antonio next, where we spent the night in a wonderful old hotel rumored to have ghosts in residence. That evening we had dinner on the famous Riverwalk.
Across the street from the Manger Hotel is the Alamo.
On the way from San Antonio to Houston we stopped at a real, authentic Texas style barbecue shop in rural Luling. |
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On our last day in Texas we visited the NASA Johnson Space Center, where our Texan hostress, the Geek Goddess, had graciously arranged an extensive VIP tour for our party.
We got to see behind the scenes Space Shuttle crew training action in the flotation laboratory, a cryonic vacuum chamber over 100 feet tall, and 2 active Mission Control rooms, for the Space Shuttle and the Space Station. Then we were allowed in the historical Mission Control room where NASA guided the Apollo flights to the moon.
Finally we got up close with a Saturn V rocket of the type used for moon launches. |
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Somehow a large number of Armadillos found their way into our luggage as we traveled across Texas.
We think it is part of a giant conspiracy to promote a secret Armadillo Agenda. Probably we should all do something to Protect the Sanctity of Souvenirs.
But they're so cute!
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