We arrived into Houston late on Tuesday night...we were running over 2 hours late at one stage but managed to arrive only 45 min late into Houston! We love trains! Tara and I also made a friend on the train between New Orleans and Houston. Cameron was 10 years old and from Houston. He walked past Tara and I playing Beggar My Neighbour with the cards and asked to play. But, he knew how to annoy Tara. It was hilarious! Without even knowing Tara, he knew what to say to rile her up...I didn't know a 10 year old could play mind games so well during a game of cards!! He then tried to teach me to play poker...that was amusing!!

We headed out to find a bus station and got a bit lost but eventually found one and headed to the Lyndon B Johnson Space Centre. It was about 45 minutes on the bus. We had a look through some of the exhibitions. They have loads of old rockets and capsules (both actual and remakes) and there is a moon rock place.

We then hopped on a tram tour to the actual working Space Centre. We got to get off and go inside Historic Mission Control. This is the room where they controlled all the missions up until 1995 when they updated the system and built a new room, rather than destroy the one that had been almost exactly the same since the 1960s. They're original processing power was 500K and they had two main frames to provide that!!

The new mission control is the other side of the wall with all the screens on...they are running through some mock situations at the moment as they should have a shuttle launch in February some time. Then, underneath where we were sitting is the mission control for the International Space Station. That is obviously manned 24 hours a day!

We then headed to the astronaut training facility. They have lifesize versions of the International Space Station and the shuttles to help with engineering (such as seeing if new equipment will actually fit where it needs to) and astronaut training. They also have pogo, allows astronauts to experience something similar to weightlessness, and a robot that they are trialling so use in this area as well.

We then went to Rocket Park where you can see some of the rockets that have actually been into space!! The Saturn rocket that is inside a shed to protect it is enormous! We also found out that the reason Mission Control is in Houston is not anything to do with science - it is political. When building the space program, they decided Cape Canavrel was best for lift off (they can crash and drop things into the ocean) and that the mission control should be 50-100 miles away. A politician at the time was from Texas and said if 100 miles, why not 1000 and he got it built in Houston!

We fly out tonight to Las Vegas! Woo hoo! Tara is very excited!! Here's hoping this is a flight that actually runs on time...we are loving trains so much better than planes!!