Houston, We Have a Problem

There's no real problem, we're just in Houston and I couldn't think of anything else catchy for a title.

We drove 393 miles today from New Orleans to Baytown, Texas, which is about half an hour outside of Houston.  We have now driven a total of 1,400 miles on the dot and are averaging about 33 miles per gallon on the highway.  Yay for long drives to figure out otherwise useless statistics!

Texas is great!  I mean, look at this:

Yes, that's a gun being raised in the air on that sign.  

We saw this patriotic mural on the side of an oil refinery building.

And finally, we have seen incredible numbers of Texas and American flags.  I mean, they are everywhere!

We found food in downtown Houston at the Flying Saucer and walked around a bit.  It's a nice place with pretty buildings.  It's a lot cleaner that New Orleans.  We're kind of glad to be out of there...it was fun but also sketch city.  

We are spending the night in a campground right on the Galveston Bay, which is just beautiful.  There is a pier that runs out into the bay that we got to watch the moon rise from.  Better still, there is a constant breeze coming off the bay which has helped keep the temperature down from the 113 degrees we saw earlier.  

There are lots of trucks and cowboy hats everywhere and turn signals must not be mandatory because nobody uses them.  Also, there are toll roads here that do not accept cash, nor can you mail in your toll...you have to have already bought an electronic pass to drive these roads...or you can just do what we did and blow through them.  Since then we've heard that this is no big deal, especially if you are out of state. 

It's time for bed now.  We're planning on going to the Johnson Space Center in the morning and then heading toward San Antonio afterward.