First of all, Happy New Year!
My posts these days are almost always very late, but thankfully I'm still managing to keep the blog alive although it seems a bit pointless unless I post something useful. Atleast my 2012 started with a bang. After a lot of canceled plans to go out for various breaks, my friends and I finally managed to make one plan work. The idea was to get out of the super cold Wichita at any cost and celebrate the New Year in a nicer, warmer more active place. So off we went on 29th December down south.
29th Dec : We drove through Oklahoma City, Dallas and Houston to get to Galveston Island on the eastern coast of Texas looking at Gulf of Mexico which was a drive of about 12 hours including a few stops on the way. We planned to stay around Galveston and Houston for the next 3 days. Reached Galveston around midnight and headed straight to Denny's on the Beach Road to grab a quite bite. The drive finally took its toll on us and slept like logs.
30th Dec : We roamed around Galveston Island a bit and headed for the Schlitterbahn Waterpark. Most of the outdoor rides were closed and they had a pretty large heated indoor section. It was quite some fun and we didn't realize we spent almost the entire day at the waterpark. When we got out, our stomachs were aching for food and we headed straight for Houston (about an hour long drive) and got to an Indian restaurant. Not great ambiance and above average food but highly overpriced. Frankly speaking, I kinda got tired of Indian restaurants because they all just taste the same. We then headed to the Galleria Mall in Houston. It was a pretty huge mall just as my friends said it would be. After hanging out a bit and looking down an atrium that had a 4 storey tall Christmas tree with people skating around it on a rink, we decided we were tired enough to get back to our room. Another 1 hour drive later we crashed on our beds.
31st Dec : We tried waking up early to look around Galveston. This day was supposed to be a more lazy and less tiring day. We also wanted to hit the beach though we couldn't decide which one. First we headed to a historic street called the Strand. We walked around and noticed an abnormally large population of old people. Is this a place people come to after retirement? Maybe. Not sure. The whole city had this very laid back and relaxed feel. Nobody was in a hurry and everyone was under the speed limits. With lots of people walking around on the streets in the pleasant warmth of the sun, it felt quite good. We entered a few stores and checked out the local sales. After eating at a Mediterranean Cafe, we decided to take a ferry ride across the sea to Bolivar Peninsula. It's a free ride that is sponsored by the Government. We got to the other side in about half an hour or so and resumed driving down the road. Something about the whole place felt very unlike the "midwest" experience in USA we had so far. It felt more European although I've never been to any place in Europe. We noticed fog was picking up. We found a beach called Crystal Beach, a few miles down and decided to drive in. By now the fog was quite thick. We couldn't see very far out in to sea. We drove around on the sand and played some frisbee. After a while the fog got really thick and we could only make out headlamps of cars traveling up and down the paths that were created in the sand. We thought it was time to leave and brought the car a little close to the water so we could get in the car without letting dry sand sticking to our legs. But by the time we all got in, the car started sinking in the sand. We got out and noticed the front wheels 6-8 inches inside the sand. That was quick! No wonder it's called quick sand. Thankfully some locals who were driving by noticed and they "happened" to have ropes to tug. Apparently almost everyone on the island drive wide-wheeled trucks and carry this kind of gear on the trunk. Not surprising.
So after some effort we managed to pull the car out. We were really thankful to those locals or we would have been stuck in a very bad situation with the fog and cold on the less populated island. We could surely call it a day and silently headed back to Galveston. It was already quite dark and we decided to chuck going to Houston and spend the last few minutes of the 2011 in Galveston. We went back to the Strand and found a couple of night clubs. We chose one that looked pretty good from the outside, I think it was The Lounge. On the lower floor it had a few private party rooms each with DJs blasting away and on top was the main club were we went. Once in, we got some drinks flowing and the party was on. The DJ was playing some pretty popular hits and thankfully unlike the rest of Galveston, the crowd seemed younger. Some dancing and drinking soon brought us to Midnight.
1st Jan, 2012 : When the clock stuck 0:00, we jumped like crazy kids and celebrated. Maybe the fact that we were on an island in Texas, inside an unknown club surrounded by unknown people, really brought our excitement out. Some simple things like these just change your perspective about life itself. The drinks helped, of course. We even had complementary New Year shots. We danced away for a while after that and didn't let that excitement wear out even after getting out of the club. Some of us suddenly wanted to walk down the beach road at 2 am. So off we went. We walked down singing our hearts away, dancing, swaying, whatever you could call it. Everything just felt so good. A moment that I would want to forget ever. Thanks to a blog like this, the memories will be recorded for good. We weren't really in a mood to eat so we headed back to the motel. Houston's Johnson Space Center was on the waiting list in a few hours.
We woke up pretty comfortably and bade a final goodbye to Galveston. I never imagined a small laid back place like that would give us such an amazing time and great memories. Once in Houston, we headed straight to JSC. It was really a dream come true for an Aerospace enthusiast and student like me. Johnson Space Center is the place from which the space missions are handled. We checked out the control rooms and exhibits spread out. There was a model control on display for us to experience how missions happening thousands of miles away in space are controlled. Reminded me of that famous dialogue from the movie Apollo 13 - "Houston, we have a problem". Wow, to imagine those guys who desperately worked their butts off here in Houston while the crew of Apollo 13 were on the verge of death, just brought goosebumps on my skin. Some feats and achievements we humans have managed truly blow me away. It was the first time I had seen a full Saturn V rocket. Another mindblowing sight. It was laid out horizontally inside a long rectangular building. The stages were separated so that people could walk in between and check out front and back ends of each stage. The nozzles were just unfathomably huge. There were 5 of those mega-nozzles on that first stage. When we reached the front end of Saturn V, we could finally see the tiny brownish red capsule that was home for 3 astronauts during the final minutes of splash down. Oh, what irony. A 35-storey vehicle leaves Earth's atmosphere only to return back as a tiny capsule. Moving on, we checked out the simulators and training equipment the astronauts use to get a grip on how it might be out there in the nothingness of space. Some food and more sightseeing later, we were done. It was evening and we had to get moving. Visiting Johnson Space Center definitely goes down as one of the best and inspiring experiences in my life.
We then traveled to the south side of Houston to a massive Hindu temple built in a style similar to Akshardham in Delhi. It was quite a brilliant piece of architecture so far away from the homeland of the Hindus. We took some amazing photographs here to keep our memories alive forever.
It started getting dark and we quickly got some dinner at a "Paradise Biryani Pointe", not quite close to the Hyderabadi Paradise Biryani but good enough for an authentic Indian restaurant located on the other side of the world. And then started the long drive back home. Surprisingly we were covering the distance quite well.
2nd Jan, 2012 : We were finally back home after such an amazing trip and New Year Celebration. It was a dreamlike 4 days spent on the beach and in a great city. Now were in Wichita. Aw, hell. What are we supposed to do here now? Well, just along with it, Wichita ain't that bad after all. Let's look forward to a hopefully nice year!
My posts these days are almost always very late, but thankfully I'm still managing to keep the blog alive although it seems a bit pointless unless I post something useful. Atleast my 2012 started with a bang. After a lot of canceled plans to go out for various breaks, my friends and I finally managed to make one plan work. The idea was to get out of the super cold Wichita at any cost and celebrate the New Year in a nicer, warmer more active place. So off we went on 29th December down south.
29th Dec : We drove through Oklahoma City, Dallas and Houston to get to Galveston Island on the eastern coast of Texas looking at Gulf of Mexico which was a drive of about 12 hours including a few stops on the way. We planned to stay around Galveston and Houston for the next 3 days. Reached Galveston around midnight and headed straight to Denny's on the Beach Road to grab a quite bite. The drive finally took its toll on us and slept like logs.
30th Dec : We roamed around Galveston Island a bit and headed for the Schlitterbahn Waterpark. Most of the outdoor rides were closed and they had a pretty large heated indoor section. It was quite some fun and we didn't realize we spent almost the entire day at the waterpark. When we got out, our stomachs were aching for food and we headed straight for Houston (about an hour long drive) and got to an Indian restaurant. Not great ambiance and above average food but highly overpriced. Frankly speaking, I kinda got tired of Indian restaurants because they all just taste the same. We then headed to the Galleria Mall in Houston. It was a pretty huge mall just as my friends said it would be. After hanging out a bit and looking down an atrium that had a 4 storey tall Christmas tree with people skating around it on a rink, we decided we were tired enough to get back to our room. Another 1 hour drive later we crashed on our beds.
31st Dec : We tried waking up early to look around Galveston. This day was supposed to be a more lazy and less tiring day. We also wanted to hit the beach though we couldn't decide which one. First we headed to a historic street called the Strand. We walked around and noticed an abnormally large population of old people. Is this a place people come to after retirement? Maybe. Not sure. The whole city had this very laid back and relaxed feel. Nobody was in a hurry and everyone was under the speed limits. With lots of people walking around on the streets in the pleasant warmth of the sun, it felt quite good. We entered a few stores and checked out the local sales. After eating at a Mediterranean Cafe, we decided to take a ferry ride across the sea to Bolivar Peninsula. It's a free ride that is sponsored by the Government. We got to the other side in about half an hour or so and resumed driving down the road. Something about the whole place felt very unlike the "midwest" experience in USA we had so far. It felt more European although I've never been to any place in Europe. We noticed fog was picking up. We found a beach called Crystal Beach, a few miles down and decided to drive in. By now the fog was quite thick. We couldn't see very far out in to sea. We drove around on the sand and played some frisbee. After a while the fog got really thick and we could only make out headlamps of cars traveling up and down the paths that were created in the sand. We thought it was time to leave and brought the car a little close to the water so we could get in the car without letting dry sand sticking to our legs. But by the time we all got in, the car started sinking in the sand. We got out and noticed the front wheels 6-8 inches inside the sand. That was quick! No wonder it's called quick sand. Thankfully some locals who were driving by noticed and they "happened" to have ropes to tug. Apparently almost everyone on the island drive wide-wheeled trucks and carry this kind of gear on the trunk. Not surprising.
So after some effort we managed to pull the car out. We were really thankful to those locals or we would have been stuck in a very bad situation with the fog and cold on the less populated island. We could surely call it a day and silently headed back to Galveston. It was already quite dark and we decided to chuck going to Houston and spend the last few minutes of the 2011 in Galveston. We went back to the Strand and found a couple of night clubs. We chose one that looked pretty good from the outside, I think it was The Lounge. On the lower floor it had a few private party rooms each with DJs blasting away and on top was the main club were we went. Once in, we got some drinks flowing and the party was on. The DJ was playing some pretty popular hits and thankfully unlike the rest of Galveston, the crowd seemed younger. Some dancing and drinking soon brought us to Midnight.
1st Jan, 2012 : When the clock stuck 0:00, we jumped like crazy kids and celebrated. Maybe the fact that we were on an island in Texas, inside an unknown club surrounded by unknown people, really brought our excitement out. Some simple things like these just change your perspective about life itself. The drinks helped, of course. We even had complementary New Year shots. We danced away for a while after that and didn't let that excitement wear out even after getting out of the club. Some of us suddenly wanted to walk down the beach road at 2 am. So off we went. We walked down singing our hearts away, dancing, swaying, whatever you could call it. Everything just felt so good. A moment that I would want to forget ever. Thanks to a blog like this, the memories will be recorded for good. We weren't really in a mood to eat so we headed back to the motel. Houston's Johnson Space Center was on the waiting list in a few hours.
We woke up pretty comfortably and bade a final goodbye to Galveston. I never imagined a small laid back place like that would give us such an amazing time and great memories. Once in Houston, we headed straight to JSC. It was really a dream come true for an Aerospace enthusiast and student like me. Johnson Space Center is the place from which the space missions are handled. We checked out the control rooms and exhibits spread out. There was a model control on display for us to experience how missions happening thousands of miles away in space are controlled. Reminded me of that famous dialogue from the movie Apollo 13 - "Houston, we have a problem". Wow, to imagine those guys who desperately worked their butts off here in Houston while the crew of Apollo 13 were on the verge of death, just brought goosebumps on my skin. Some feats and achievements we humans have managed truly blow me away. It was the first time I had seen a full Saturn V rocket. Another mindblowing sight. It was laid out horizontally inside a long rectangular building. The stages were separated so that people could walk in between and check out front and back ends of each stage. The nozzles were just unfathomably huge. There were 5 of those mega-nozzles on that first stage. When we reached the front end of Saturn V, we could finally see the tiny brownish red capsule that was home for 3 astronauts during the final minutes of splash down. Oh, what irony. A 35-storey vehicle leaves Earth's atmosphere only to return back as a tiny capsule. Moving on, we checked out the simulators and training equipment the astronauts use to get a grip on how it might be out there in the nothingness of space. Some food and more sightseeing later, we were done. It was evening and we had to get moving. Visiting Johnson Space Center definitely goes down as one of the best and inspiring experiences in my life.
We then traveled to the south side of Houston to a massive Hindu temple built in a style similar to Akshardham in Delhi. It was quite a brilliant piece of architecture so far away from the homeland of the Hindus. We took some amazing photographs here to keep our memories alive forever.
It started getting dark and we quickly got some dinner at a "Paradise Biryani Pointe", not quite close to the Hyderabadi Paradise Biryani but good enough for an authentic Indian restaurant located on the other side of the world. And then started the long drive back home. Surprisingly we were covering the distance quite well.
2nd Jan, 2012 : We were finally back home after such an amazing trip and New Year Celebration. It was a dreamlike 4 days spent on the beach and in a great city. Now were in Wichita. Aw, hell. What are we supposed to do here now? Well, just along with it, Wichita ain't that bad after all. Let's look forward to a hopefully nice year!
