Houston! We have a problem!

We arrived at Houston on Saturday afternoon 1st September and made our way to the car hire area of the airport. In the process of collecting our car from Budget it became apparent that although we had been quoted around $266 for the hire of the car for 5 days, if they were to slap on insurance and third party waiver costs the total charge would almost double! We were not impressed. Although we initially accepted and went to the car, a minor issue with getting the car into gear caused us to rethink and consider getting alternative quotes. I got quotes from Hertz and Avis and it turned out that Hertz could give us a car for over $100 cheaper. So we went back to Budget, told them what they could do with their car and got a car from Hertz instead.

Then we negotiated the Houston traffic...!

The drive from the airport to the hotel believe it or not is almost as long as driving from Durban to Pietermaritzburg. Houston is so big. The airport is on the north side and the hotel is in the south side very close to Johnson Space Centre. Finally we got to the hotel about hour after leaving the airport. We couldn't believe the number of cars driving at 5pm on a Saturday evening. It was like weekday rush hour!

Space Shuttle mission control centre

JFK Lecturn Rice University

Sunday we visited the Johnson Space Centre. Not as spectacular as Kennedy, but still had a few worthwhile items to see including a tour of the Space Shuttle mission control centre.

Lone Star Flight Museum - B-17

Lone Star Flight Museum - Spitfire

Monday we went down to Galvestone and visited the Lone Star Flight museum there. We also drove to the dockyard side of Galvestone and saw the cruiseliner Ecstacy there. We stayed around a bit and at 5pm it set sail, so we were able to see it depart. Candi has never seen a cruiseship depart from a dock. It is always spectacular and interesting to watch.

Ecstacy Cruiseliner

Tuesday we headed north to one of the smaller airfields and found a flight school who were willing to take me for an "introductory flight" with an instructor to exercise my piloting skills here in the states. We flew in a C172 just north of the field around a lake area, then returned to the airfield. The flight was about an hour and they only charge $99 for the flight! (R730) but then they classed it as an introductory flight.

Final Approach in C172

Tuesday we returned our car to Hertz and caught the Greyhound bus to Fort Worth.

written by

Candi&Damian on September 1, 2007 from Houston, United States

from the travel blog: Candy and Damian USA Aug/Sept 2007

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