
We have been to the airport in Newark before but decided that doesn’t count as a “visit.” We’re spending a few days here before heading south to Virginia Beach and then home.
Kathy & I spent a couple of nights in Natchez, Mississippi before starting off on the Natchez Trace Parkway. Natchez sits on a 200 foot bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. We spent a lot of time walking and watching the barge traffic on the river. The river is high and a few roads are closed, but we didn’t see anything serious.
In addition to being the home of Tabasco, Avery Island is home to Jungle Gardens, a 170-acre semitropical garden that stretches along Bayou Petite Anse. Jungle Gardens was created by Edward Avery “Ned” McIlhenny. Born on Avery Island in 1872, Ned was an arctic explorer, naturalist and conservationist.
Today, Kathy & I are in Lafayette, Louisiana where we toured the Tabasco plant in Avery Island and took a swamp tour, then capped off the day with a visit to a roadhouse with Cajun music and fresh seafood. Louisiana is an interesting place!
This past Friday, Kathy & I visited the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. While there we toured various NASA facilities including the Control Room at the Payload Operations Integration Center at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. This is where all of the communication with the International Space Station regarding the payload and experiments takes place. It was very interesting to see.
While we were there, the astronauts aboard the space station were returning from a space walk. We were able to see live video of them returning to the ISS through the airlock and beginning the process of removing their suits. Quite an unexpected treat!