Recently I went to Houston for a 4 day work conference. After the conference Maria came over and we spent the next 2 weeks traveling around Texas, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico (just), Arizona, and Nevada.
Since the trip was so long and would take for ever to blog I am breaking up the trip into stops and adding a new stop to our blog site every couple of days.
March 29 to April 3.First up Houston, Texas.
I arrived early at the airport as I wanted to do some duty free shopping and have a parting hot chocolate with Maria, unfortunately Qantas had other ideas. The check in process took over an hour and half to complete by this stage maria was getting fed up with the wait so I recommend that we say goodbye in the check in line. After finally getting my boarding ticket and quick shop to get some duty free alcohol :) I went to customs and security. The wait here was also very long and by time I got through the plane was boarding. After running to the gate I encountered another security check point, but luckily this one was quick.
Finally I was on the plane with 12:30 hrs of flying to
Los Angeles. The arrival in
Los Angeles went pretty smooth and after a 15 minute walk I was ready to go through the whole security process again to catch my connecting flight to Houston via Denver. personally I think the security at the Australia Airport was superior to the airports in America. In Brisbane they queried a lot of my items, but in America they just waved me through. It seriously looks like security was added on at the last minute to most of the airports.
Arriving in Phoenix I had a short
walk to the next terminal to catch the flight to Houston. Unfortunately at this stage a teenage child managed to pass through security without being checked so the terminal was placed in
lock down mode for 20 minutes until the child was located. I seriously think security over there is just for show.
Finally I arrive in Houston and picked up the hire car, a Ford Fusion, not a bad car. After surviving the drive to the hotel via the toll road and the crazy drivers I finally had a chance to rest. Driving on the right hand side was not difficult, after about 10 minutes i really didn't have to think about it that much.
For dinner I went to the
Krogers store (think
Coles,
Woolies) and bought some precooked Baby Back pork ribs. Not bad at all.
That night I managed 3 hours sleep it was going to take a while to get over the jet lag.
The next day I decide to visit one of my favourite places in Texas, Brazos Bend.
Brazos BendBrazos Bend is a small state park that has a lot of wildlife including alligators, deer, etc. You can basically walk up to an alligator and touch it if you are game.
Below are a few pictures of Brazos Bend
Small Gator
Big Gator
Large Gator in Flowers
Tortoise
Deer
The full gallery can be viewed
here. The gallery includes more photos of alligators, birds, flowers, the park, etc. It is a truly great place to visit.
After Brazos Bend off to
Goode Co for some Barbecue :)
The Beef Brisket here is just so good, but I was actually disappointed in the pork ribs. I must be getting better at cooking my own :).
Since I was in Houston for work I probably should mention what I did. I was in Houston for
the First Annual R&D IT meeting. The system administrators from
various R&D centres gathered in Houston to have a brief meeting with each other, do some team building exercises, etc. Overall it was a good 4 day meeting. The Meeting finished on Thursday which was when Maria was Flying in.
More to follow.
