Houston - Day 4 (4th July!!)

Happy Fourth of July!!!

America is a very Patriotic country and I have seen lots and lots and lots of American Flags. There are 13 stripes on the flag to represent the 13 original colonies and 50 stars to represent the 50 states. There are big flags at businesses (especially the car yards) and flags on houses too.

House decorated for the Fourth of July

Caryard with American Flags - the bigger the better!

Today my cousin and I go to NASA home of Mission Control (Hey Houston, we've had a problem here). When we get there we do a tram tour that shows us the control room that was used for the space shuttles and the building where the astronauts are trained. They tell us that althought the space shuttle missions are finished NASA is still operating and next wants to return to the moon.

Misson Control for the Space Shuttles

There are currently 2 Russians and 1 American on the international space station, and flags at the security gate show you how many people are in space and what countries they come from.

Flags at security entrance to NASA

We then look at the "Saturn 5 Rocket", which was like the rockets that sent Apollo missions to the moon. It was very long and big!

Me and the rocket boosters of Saturn 5

Me and Saturn 5

Then we have lunch - a huge ham sandwich (the bread was a bit sweet too).
 

My sandwich - look at all that ham.

At NASA I also got to touch a piece of the moon (strangly it was black), and hear that NASA is also hoping to get to Mars and on August 6th they will have the rover Curiosity on Mars (this will help them study Mars), and they hope to have a man on Mars by 2030!

I touch the moon!

Next it was off to Galviston for fireworks and a Fourth of July parade. Galviston is the area hardest hit by hurricane Ike. We walked in the heat (94 degrees fahrenheit) along the beach, then we went to walk along a rock wall that went out into the sea when we were yelled out by a policeman who said "Maam, Maam you can't go down there!" then we discovered that that was were the fireworks were going to be let off from.  

Boats on the gulf at the end of Galviston

The beach at Galviston - not nice but people still swim there

At the parade there are lots of people driving cars and throwing out beads and lollies (we cottoned on to this rather fast and started collecting!).

Fourth of July Parade in Galiston

The fireworks were out over the beach, we sat on the beach wall, from there you could see the boats on the gulf (I counted at least 16) and one oil rig.

The lights on the horizon are the boats on the gulf

The fireworks were pretty amazing and lasted about 25 minutes. And then there was an amazing full moon.

The moon rising over the gulf

Found where we had left the car and then headed back to my cousins - there was lots of traffic!