We decided to do a little sightseeing before we started our cruise. We stayed at a RV park just north of Galveston, TX and after a bit of wondering around, we found the Johnson Space Center.
On our tour of the Center we saw the control room that was used for the first man on the moon mission. It is no longer used but it is now a national landmark.
In this room is a mock-up of the space station that is used to train the astronauts that are going there.
The Saturn 5 Rocket: it is difficult for me to imagine anyone having the courage to sit on top of this thing when it fired up.
One of the things Galveston is known for is its old mansions.
It was time for our cruise. Actually, we went on 3 separate cruises, one 4 day cruise and two 7 day cruises. All were round trip out of the Houston/Bayport cruise terminal. During all the cruises, we visited only one port more than once. We stopped in Cozumel two times. Our main objective on these cruises was to visit the Mayan ruins on the Yucatan Peninsula. We were able to tour 5 of them.
Chichen Itza A world heritage site.
There is not much doubt about what happened on this platform. Notice that each of the skulls is different.
This is one side of one of their large ball fields.
This is the target that the teams would try to get the ball through. Very little is known about the rules of the game. The one thing that is known is that it was the captain of the winning team, not the captain of the losing team, who had the “honor” of visiting the platform shown in the picture above.
Chacchoben
Coba Maya
Small ball field with sloping sides.
One of our ports of call was on the Island of Roatan. It has no Mayan ruins but it is a pretty place.
This small island was reserved for cruise ship passengers.
An example of why you should choose your cruise line carefully.
Back on the Yucantan Peninsula. Altun Ha
Tulum
This is a photo of our guide holding up 3 photos of the sun seen through windows during the spring and fall solstices and in mid summer.
I can’t resist throwing in two sunset pictures, taken just in front of our winter quarters.
Where are we off to next? Perhaps a trip down a river in Europe.
