Washington D.C.

The US Capitol Building

We visited quite a few of the Smithsonian Museums in D.C. They were great.
We went to the Air and Space Museum, the National Museum of Natural History and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
At the Air and Space Museum we saw the actual Apollo 11 command module, which the astronauts returned to Earth in.
At the Natural History Museum we saw the 45carat Hope Diamond, which has an estimated value of $USD200–$250 million.
At the Holocaust Museum we each got an identity card of a holocaust victim, which told their story.

Sean and a scale model of the planets at the National Air and Space Museum, D.C.

Beautiful sunny day at the Whitehouse.

Lincoln Memorial, 5.8m tall, head to foot. I always wanted to see this, from when I saw it on the music videoclip for We Built this City, by Starship.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsdj9NRzqC4

The Pentagon

Sean at the Bier Baron (formerly Brickskellar), according to the Guinness Book of World Records, has the biggest variety of beer available, Sean sampled many of them.

We sampled a half smoke and chili fries at Ben's Chili Bowl, yummm!


The Capitol Building at night.

We saw the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Washington Wizards, it was Andrew Bogut's first game back after injury.

Foamhenge - Virginia

US State #12.

A full sized replica of Stonehenge. Gold!

You are able to get much closer to Foamhenge than Stonehenge, that is for sure.

Foamhenge, ha! Loved it.

Gatlinburg/Great Smoky Mountains National Park - Tennessee

Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge.
This place must have the highest density of mini-golf and go-kart tracks in the US!

Wonderworks...who knows.

The Titanic.

Unfortunately, we didn't make it to Dollywood.

The Great Smoky Mountains NP is named after the heather-coloured mist that hangs over the mountains. The Southern Appalachians are the world's oldest mountain range, and apparently one valley in the NP could contain more species of tree than the whole of Western Europe!

We did the Alum Cave Bluffs Trail hike, which took a couple of hours. It seemed as though a massive storm had recently passed through the area.





Apparently the view is worth preserving...though we could barely see our hand in front of our face!
US State #s 10 and 11.

Only another 1,972miles to go! I think we might just carry on with our roadtrip.

Driving

One of our biggest days of driving also covered the most amount of states so far.
We drove from New Orleans, LA to Knoxville, TN.

US State #7 - Mississippi

The kind of petrol station name you'd maybe expect in Australia!

US State #8 - Alabama.

We also went through Georgia and ended up in Tennessee.

New Orleans - Louisiana

From Texas we headed to Louisiana.

Our timing was great, as we got to see one of the first Mardi Gras parades - The Druids.

We did a self guided walking tour of the French Quarter. Many of the houses along our route were decorated for Mardi Gras.

The official colours of the Mardi Gras are purple, green and gold. Apparently, purple represents justice; green, faith; and gold, power.

Cornstalk Hotel, the cast iron fence is decorated with corn. It was built in 1816.

A bead tree of New Orleans.

Beads anyone?

Sean outside the Hustler Club on Bourbon St, New Orleans, it is probably best that the pics in the windows are out of focus!
Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop (Pub), built before 1772.

Inside Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop

Enjoying the local beverages and beads at the parade.

After the parade we headed to Yo Mama's Bar and Grill to sample the peanut butter and bacon burger, which was AMAZING! We also spent a bit of time at the Chart Room on Chartres St, which had a great vibe and cheap beers.

Houston, Texas

After (sadly) leaving Ang and family in Frisco we arrived in Houston.

First stop was Beer-can house. According to 'Ripley's Believe It or Not' over 50,000 cans have been used. That is one thirsty home owner!

We spent the afternoon down at Kemah Boradwalk. And ended up at Joe's Crabshack, for Happy Hour.
Sean, with the original Joe. Texas was the hottest part of our trip, reaching a max of 27C!

Our second day in Houston was spent at the Johnson Space Centre. We spent about 5hrs there, but could have stayed longer. Seems as though a great deal of NASAs funding has been cut lately.

The original 'mission control' centre, which communicated with both Apollo 11 and 13, amongst others.
They told us that Apollo 11 flight guidance computer had a 2.048 MHz CPU, these days you can get ~4 GHz in many home PCs. So 2.048 MHz would be be comparable to what a modern scientific calculator would run on. Amazing, eh?

The current mission control centre.

Within the Startship Gallery. The wheels of the lunar rovers were made of wire mesh.
We also got to touch some actual moon rocks.

Saturn V - This is the only display Saturn consisting entirely of stages intended to be launched. Funding cuts however have forced Saturn V to remain grounded.

Saturn V

Sean in front of the Space Vehicle mock up facility, where astronauts train to use the equipment.

Full scale mock ups of the different sections of the international space station

One of the tiny space capsules the astronauts return to Earth in. Not much space for them in there, pardon the pun.

We also got to go to the Mission Status Center, where a Mission Briefing Officer provided us with live updates on current space flights and astronaut training activities. We also got to see live footage of the astronauts preparing for a space walk at the international space station. Pretty interesting stuff.