The Great Adventure of the Road; Days 15-18

Bourbon Street in New Orleans Louisiana at night (click to enlarge)
Nikon D810, Nikon 50mm f/1.4 G lens, 1/80th sec. @ f/4; ISO 3200; camera held above my head

  We arrived back home last evening, a couple of days ahead of schedule, but have had some excellent experiences in the mean time.  We arrived home early for a couple of reasons.  My traveling companions were ready to get back.  The couple who traveled with my wife and I just celebrated the birth of their first grandchild a week before we left and they were anxious to return.  That is okay and very understandable.  I was a bit surprised they decided to come along with us with such an important event in their family.

Additionally, we were all a bit road weary, which will cause me to re-evaluate how I take road trips in the future (I will say more about this in my next post, which will also include a trip summary and opinion about the gear I took as well as which gear to take in the future).  Finally, it appears that there was some bad weather following behind us and we didn't need rain and snow showers on our last days of the trip.  So, we made the decision to head home early.  In this case, I think it was a good decision.

But where did we go and what did we do since my last post?  Read on.

Another image from Carlsbad Caverns (click to enlarge)
Nikon D810, Nikon 24-120mm f/4 G VR lens; 0.4 sec. @ f/4, ISO 3200 balancing on stainless steel hand railing

After we left the Carlsbad Caverns, our next place of exploration was to be San Antonio.  But it was too far to drive comfortably in one day, since the first half our day was was spent in the caverns.  So, we picked Ft. Stockton, Texas as the place we would spend the night.  Using TripAdvisor, as we had done throughout the trip and on previous trips (TripAdvisor has never let me down for lodging or restaurants! I highly recommend using it when traveling), I found a hotel and called to make reservations.  I almost always call the hotel directly as one can get better prices, find there is a vacancy when the website may indicate otherwise, and negotiate with the management rather than talking to a toll-free operator on the corporate level.

We then plotted our path to Ft. Stockton.  Unfortunately, there was only one road from Carlsbad Caverns to Ft. Stockton.  It was a two lane, country road through the semi-desert Texas oil fields filled with dipsy-doodles (the kind of road that is built with the way a roller coaster is built) and many places which had large amounts of gravel due to flash flooding overwashing the road after a rain.  A long, straight, and very boring drive.  I didn't think we would ever get off that road.  But, it was the only one and we had no other rational choice.

Upon arriving in Ft. Stockton, we checked in and asked the desk clerk where she would eat if she were going out for dinner that night.  She gave us a couple of ideas and we then checked them against TripAdvisor.  We chose one and had a nice dinner at a local restaurant.  The restaurant was filled with framed newspaper pages of the Kennedy Assassination, landing on the moon, etc.  The food was basic but tasty.  Nothing fancy, but good food.

The next morning, we headed east with our goal of arriving in San Antonio before lunch, which we did.  Again, we had booked a hotel and, upon arrival, asked the desk clerk if we could park in the parking lot until check-in time.  He graciously said we could.  Parking downtown in any large city can be challenging and expensive.

I declared this day was a "no photography day" for me as I had been to San Antonio, Riverwalk and the Alamo a few times before and really just wanted to enjoy the day without making images.  My wife, however, had her trusty Canon G11 point-and-shoot compact camera.

We then walked to Riverwalk to enjoy the sights and have lunch.  I was the only one who had previously been to Riverwalk so it was nice to be the guide.  We spent the afternoon at Riverwalk and at the Alamo, then headed back to the hotel to check-in and unload our luggage.  The temperature was in the mid-80s, definitely hotter than we had experienced in the past several days.  My companions enjoyed the tour.

Dinner was, again, at the Riverwalk and excellent.  We then had a cool evening walk back to our hotel and would head east again the next day.  This was an unremarkable day, but enjoyable.  I made no images.  Now, that is different for me!

Comment: I had no problem putting down the camera for the day.  In fact, it was somewhat liberating.  I just enjoyed the companionship of my traveling partners and the sights of the city.  I may do that more often when I go somewhere I have been many times.

In the morning, we headed east.  My buddy, who is a retired military pilot and a space aficionado like me, remembered the Johnson Space Center in Houston.  Yes!  I had forgotten all about that and we decided it was a "must see" for us.  It was on our way east as we were driving through Houston anyway, so we decided to deviate to the Space Center and take the tour.  Good decision on our part.

Driving through Houston was quite an adventure.  I won't do it again!  It was never wracking.  I don't know how those people who live there do it.  I thought it worse than driving in or out of Washington, D.C.  Really!

Original NASA Control Center from the early days;  where we sat was originally built for dignitaries (click to enlarge)

Arriving at the Johnson Space Center Visitor's Center, we took the tram ride across the property to the Space Center itself.  Fascinating.  We were taken to the astronaut training center where each of the space station modules is replicated for training for familiarity as well as for training to solve potential emergency situations.  We viewed an older Control Center which was used for the early space flights as well as some of the rockets used to propel astronauts into space as well as too the moon.

As an aside, I have been a space junkie since I can remember.  I remember, in 1957 or 1958, walking with my grandfather and father to a place where we could view Sputnik flying overhead in the night sky.  I have never forgotten that nor the teachers in grade school bringing small black and white televisions to our classrooms to watch as each launch was taking place.  Space junkie;  that is me!  So, it was a thrill to tour JSC.

Johnson Space Center astronaut training center.  All of the space station modules are replicated here for training.
(click to enlarge)

Two of the newer Moon/Mars rovers not yet completed.  There were four there and each was a bit
different in construction.  Two out of the picture are the ones you see in news reports and on programs
about the future of U.S. space travel (click to enlarge)

From there, we headed to New Orleans.  Another city to which I have been several times.  My companions were very interested in seeing Bourbon Street in person to get a perspective.  I have to say that Bourbon Street itself was physically dirtier than I had witnessed in previous visits.  Much of the sexual promotion material and photographs had been removed from the front of the clubs, but, in my opinion, the place was nasty.  Dirty, debris nasty.  New Orleans needs to do a better job of cleaning and washing the street down each night.  I have no plans to ever go back.

Typical New Orleans architecture (click to enlarge)

Another from Bourbon Street (click to enlarge)
Same gear; 1/200th @ f/4, ISO 3200

Canal Street at Night with historic trolley in the center of the street in downtown New Orleans (click to enlarge)
Same gear; 1/80th sec. A f/5.6; ISO 3200

As we left New Orleans, we decided to head north/northeast.  At that point we didn't know whether of not were were going to get home early or head up to Chattanooga for a night, then east through the mountains.  Birmingham, Alabama was the decision point.  As I have stated, ultimately, we decided to head home a bit early.

So that is it for the narrative on this road trip.  On Monday, I'll sum up the mileage, expenses, thoughts on the trip, what was the best and worst parts as well as opinion on using only a full frame digital SLR versus only a M4/3 versus a combination of the two as well as lenses to take for the future.  Check back.

Thanks for looking.  Enjoy!

Dennis Mook

Many of my images can be found at www.dennismook.com.  Please pay it a visit.  I add new images regularly.  Thank you.


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