Tanner's Trip to Houston and Galveston

While we were at the BYU football game on Saturday, Zac learned from his work that he would need to be in Houston by Monday.  We had been wanting to take Tanner on a getaway before he graduated from high school and this seemed like a perfect opportunity as he was between sports and wasn't currently working.  Houston seemed like a great choice for Tanner as he is fascinated by space and NASA and the NASA space center is right there.  We also arranged for some deep-sea fishing and golfing at Top Golf!  There were a lot of last-minute flights, hotels, and rental cars booked, but somehow we got it all worked out and headed out Sunday night to begin our adventure.

Zac dropped us off at NASA Monday morning and Tanner and I spent the day touring their engineering facilities

Visiting rockets that had actually been used to launch shuttles into space!

Seeing the actual mission control room as it would have appeared in 1969 when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.  Amazing!

We were surprised to find out that the NSASA facilities house cattle, through a partnership with agricultural programs in local high schools.  And because the land is protected on the NASA campus, wildlife roams in abundance.  We saw lots of deer and various birds and were told that alligators are also abundant.

As NASA is currently also partnering with Space X, we also got to see a Space X rocket that had been used to launch payloads into space.

The jet that was redesigned to haul the space shuttle across the US was also at the Space Center and available for touring.  This massive jet was incredible to learn about.

We made a full day of NASA and when they were ready to shut down, Tanner and I walked across the street to our hotel, ordered some takeout and waited for Zac to finish his day of work.  When Zac finally came in, we headed down the road for some Top Golf.

After a few wild hits, Tanner seemed to get the hang of it and killed Zac and I on the first round.  After golf, we headed into town to get our fishing licenses and some snacks and drinks for our fishing adventure in the morning.

We got up quite early in the morning in order to leave with the tides and headed to Galveston.  We had to make a stop at Shipley's Donuts for their delicious fresh donuts and some kolaches, which is a hot dog wrapped in a donut and fried.

We were worried a little about sea sickness, so we loaded up on Dramamine and did just fine!

The morning started a little slow but after a few hours we were able to catch a few different types of fish!

Tanner reeled in the first catch, which ended up being a catfish.  It was big but nearly as big as the Red Drum that we were looking for.

On our search for the Red Drum, we passed a marooned oil tanker that had a very fascinating history.  This is the USS Selma, which was commissioned in World War I 1919 by Woodrow Wilson.  It was built out of concrete, due to material shortages, and worked, but wasn't ideal for ship construction.  It ended up with irreparable damage and was abandoned here just off the Galveston shore.

The fishing continued to be slow, so our guides took us in closer to the docks where they were sure we could reel in some flounder.  They were right and we reeled in several flounders, which was fun, but they weren't, really any bigger than the fish that we catch at home and we wanted to catch something big!!  After a misguided cast on my part landed my bait on the table of a local diner that was set up on a nearby dock, we decided to shove off and give one last effort to finding the Red Drum.

Sadly, our boat engine decided to have issues and we had to head back to the docks to switch ships.  The guides decided to give us an extra hour because of the issues and in that last hour, the Red Drum finally hit!

Tanner reeled in the first big fish and the crew teased us that it had Crewkeepem, which concerned us, until they laughed and said that particular size of Red Drum is really good eating, so they tell their clients that the fish has "Crew Keep Em", in other words, they want to keep that particular fish for themselves.  We told them that we would keep that one, as we wanted to try it for ourselves!

Zac caught the next fish and after the boys had their turns, I decided it was my turn.

I had never reeled in such a big fish in my life and it was hard!  It took some serious muscle and strategy that I never knew were involved in fishing.

Our fishing guides cleaned and gutted our fish and told us of a little diner in town that would cook up our catch for us, so we decided to try it out.  Turns out it still tasted like fish, which I don't mind but the boys would have rather had a steak.  We had them cook our fish three different ways so we could try which was best, turns out according to Zac, no matter how they cooked it, it tasted like tarter sauce.

We spent our last day hanging out on the beach, which wasn't super warm as it was November, but still warm enough that we waded in waiste deep and jumped a few waves.

We lunched at the Rain Forest Cafe, which is an awesome restaurant that is made to look like a rainforest with large aquariums and life-size elephants, gorillas, and birds that move and make realistic noises.  Throughout the meal, an occasional thunder and lightning storm would roll through.  It was pretty amazing.

On our way to the airport we had time for one last stop in Galveston, The Bishop's Palace, which is one of the oldest and grandest residences in Galveston and is now uninhabited and has been restored for the public to walk through.

This may have ended up being Zac's favorite part of the trip as he was totally enamored with every little detail and finish in the house.

Overall, I think Tanner had a wonderful and memorable time and I enjoyed having him all to myself to soak in some time together before he is off on his next after high school adventures.  I am really going to miss this kid.  We have a lot of fun together.