After a night in a funky little bed-and-breakfast in
the town of Taos, New Mexico
we visited the
Taos Pueblo.
Just outside the town of Taos are Indians
living more or less (less actually) as they have for hundreds of years
The century old pueblos are lived in an maintained with as few
modern additions as possible.
They, of course open their houses to sell jewelery
and trinkets to the tourists.

From New Mexico, we drove across the south end of the rockies
traveled through Colorado before making it to Texas.
What better indication of Texas-ness than
Cadallic Ranch
outside Amarillo.
From Amarillo, we drove through the traffic jams of Dallas
and southward into the heat and humidity of Houston.

We just happened to be at the
Johnson Space Center
when the
space shuttle Discovery launched.
On the plus side we watched the launch on the IMAX screen with
commentary from one of the astronaut team.
On the minus side, the mission control tour was
unavailable because they were busy.
This place wasn’t what I expected at all.
There was the science side of the space program (the tram tour)
but, when you walk into the building you are confronted with this
gigantic jungle gym type of thing.
We’re talking kids climbing and bouncing all over a brightly
colored structure that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with
space flight. The only connection I can see is it relates to
astronaut training. Back in the back are some displays of space
suits and a full sized mock up of the nose of the space shuttle.

We spent the night in Sulfur, Louisiana (it smelled of sulfer
that night too — I blame the oil refinery close by)
and the next day drove across the state to the city of New Orleans.
We took a walk through the French Quarter of that city and
ate some Cajun food.
The boys were unimpressed with the shops and bars.
They thought that, since it was set up as a party town,
you need your buddies and a buzz to enjoy the place.
Can’t argue with that.
What did get their attention were the
beignets
from
Cafe du Monde
– warm donut-like pastries smothered in powered sugar was worth a thumbs up.

Tonight we are in Pensacola, Florida before diving into
the central area of that state and finally to
Walt Disney World.

There are some more pictures up:
Taos Pueblo,
Cadillac Ranch,
Houston Space Center
and
New Orleans
.

We’ve gone over 4000 miles so far and we’re about to start our
third week. We’ll need to get a move on if we’re going to make
it back in our alloted time.