johnboystravelblog

On day five of my trip to south-central Texas I headed north towards Austin.  First thing in the morning, though, I actually headed east from where I was staying in Buda to the town of Elroy to tour the beautiful Formula 1 racetrack called “Circuit of the Americas”.  F1, as it is known, which races at venues all over the world, used to run their United States race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (I almost went one year but didn’t).  In 2010 they announced that they’d be building their own track, thank you very much, near Austin, Texas – far enough south that they wouldn’t have to worry about cold winter temperatures buckling the track surface.  The track opened in 2012.  It’s future is uncertain, however.  They have commitments through 2021 but are seeking $25 million from the State of Texas to help support the facility and have so far been turned down.  This a state-of-the-art F1, FIA Class 1 facility which was built at no small expense specifically for racing and I can’t imagine F1, who, as I like to say, “has more money than God,” letting it go.  I certainly hope not.

I tried to find a map online showing both Austin and the track but was unsuccessful.  CoTA, as it is known, is about 15 miles southeast of downtown Austin, about 5 miles past the airport.

Here is a map of the track configuration:

(Photo credit: Teslarati.com)

The track is 3.427 miles in length, has 20 turns, and features 133 feet of elevation changes.  To best illustrate those elevation changes here is a photo I found online published by a motorcycle magazine for one of their articles about a bike race held at CoTA.  It shows the track surface as if it were a roller coaster, a pretty clever idea I must say.  Please note that the elevation changes are exaggerated (at least for Turn 1) but this gets the point across.

(Photo credit: CoTA and cycleworld.com)

I knew I’d be doing the tour one day while I was in the area so I actually swung by the track at the end of my first day in Austin a few days earlier to make sure I knew how to get to it and roughly how long it would take from where I was staying.  I got a picture of the back of the grandstands and the track logo while I was there:

I got to the track about a half-hour early the day of my tour and ended up getting a private tour because I was the only customer they had for 10’oclock!  A very nice and well-informed woman drove me around the outside of the track and explained some of the history of the facility which has only been open a few years.

The most prominent feature of the track, which you’ll see in many of my photos, is the 251-foot tall Observation Tower.  Because if it’s popularity fans must pay to go up in it during a race and may only stay a certain amount of time.  My tour guide told me a story about Bernie Ecclestone, the former President of F1, kicking all the fans out so he could entertain his friends up there (and what Bernie wanted, Bernie got).  Needless to say those fans who had ponied up good money were NOT happy! We were not allowed to go up in it during the tour (the only disappointment).  Well, we couldn’t go on the track itself either, since the Porsche club was having an event and we were in a non-Porsche van, so I guess there were two disappointments….

The last shot in this post is looking down toward the main straightaway and start/finish from up at Turn 1.  Race vehicles run counterclockwise around the track so they would be coming towards me from this vantage point.

Next we go to the main grandstand and then cross under the track to the infield (see CoTA Post 2 of 2).

May 21, 2017

On day five of my trip to south-central Texas I headed north towards Austin.  First thing in the morning I actually headed east from where I was staying in Buda to the town of Elroy to tour the beautiful Formula 1 racetrack called “Circuit of the Americas” near there.

Here are more photos taken during my “private tour” of the facility.

These are views from the main grandstand on the front stretch, where the races start and finish (race vehicles traveling counter-clockwise).  There are also private suites on the top level which I am standing in front of.

We then went through a tunnel under the track surface to the infield where we’d visit other parts of the facility.  First stop over there – Race Control.  They were running a small event for the Porsche Club so there was only a small crew of officials working there.  Believe me, on a major race day it would be packed and visitors wouldn’t get near the place.

Race Control has monitors which can view every part of the track and officials have radio contact with track and safety workers at areas all around the track.

As we walked through the corridors of the building inside the track (which houses hospitality suites, offices, and has garages at ground level) I saw this photo of the Observation Tower lit up during a night race.  If you look closely you’ll see the reflection of me taking the picture and my trusty tour guide standing next to me.

Here is a better picture of her (sorry, I don’t recall her name) standing in Victory Lane (in F1 they call it “the podium” and is occupied by the top 3 race finishers, like at the Olympics).  She is standing next to a life-sized cardboard standup of Lewis Hamilton, my favorite F1 driver.  They had standups of most of the drivers so visitors could have their photo taken with their favorite.  She took one of me but it will never see the light of day…

This is the view of the front stretch from the paddock (garage) side of the track and you can see the podium on the left.  Pit road is between where I’m standing on the track from this vantage point and you can see the track climb up to Turn 1 in the distance.

Before we went back outside the track we saw a small, permanent music amphitheater located behind the Observation Tower.

For bigger concerts a big stage can be constructed between turns 11 and 12 (across from 9 & 10, near the letter H, but inside the track).

(Photo credit: Teslarati.com)

And finally, one last view of a car on the track before I left.

This tour, and the chance to see this gorgeous facility up close, is definitely on the short list of the many highlights of my recent trips.

If you want to watch this year’s F1 race from COTA tune to ESPN on Sunday, November 3 at 2pm Eastern time.  This track now hosts the IndyCar series as well.  They had their inaugural race back in March.  I doubt if NASCAR will ever race here.  There is an ongoing dispute between the sanctioning bodies as November 3 is the same date they run the Fall race at the NASCAR track up in Fort Worth.  Although they probably draw totally different crowds, Bruton Smith (who owns Texas Motor Speedway) is not at all pleased that they run the Formula 1 race in Texas on the same day, at overlapping times.

May 20, 2017

Day four of my week in south-central trip meant a trip back south to San Antonio.  It was threatening to rain (though it never did…) and I try to limit indoor activities to days that are rainy or too hot.  I visited the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio and enjoyed it very much.

The photo above is actually the sink in the Men’s room!  It has to be the most unusual one I have ever seen…

The curved thing in the photo above is actually balancing on the tabletop at just one point.  It would move with the air current just enough to convince you it wasn’t fixed in place.  There were signs advising guests not to touch it (and, lest you be tempted, someone was watching…).

May 20, 2017

Day four of my week in south-central Texas meant a trip back down to San Antonio.  It was threatening to rain (though it never did…) and I try to limit indoor activities to days that are rainy or too hot.  I visited the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio and enjoyed it very much.

Looking through my pictures it appears that, while the museum had some outstanding works of art on display, I was rather taken by the architecture style and tile work of the building and grounds themselves.

My notes say I also visited the San Antonio Museum of Art and I remember being at that building but for the life of me can’t find any pictures!  Perhaps I just wasn’t inspired by anything I saw, though I can usually admire just about anyone’s effort to create something from nothing.  If I find any photos I’ll post them in the future.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon at a restaurant a friend recommended (excellent and substantial hamburger!) and driving around New Braunfels before going back to Buda for the night.  I had a busy schedule for the next day and wanted to be fully rested.

 

May 19, 2017

The third day of my week in south-central Texas I took a break from the cities and drove west into the “Hill Country” on a number of what I call my primary scenic roads (the foundation for my trips).  I drove on many of the roads shown on the map below and it took a good portion of the day, but was very enjoyable.

(Photo credit: HillCountryMaps.com)

This took me past the LBJ Ranch, about 50 miles west of Austin, the home and favorite place-to-escape-to from the White House for President Lyndon Baines Johnson, so much so that it became known as the Texas White House.  Unlike Mar-a-Lago, lots of work actually got done here…

The first thing visitors see after parking their cars is an aircraft which often carried LBJ to the ranch.  The jet the president flies on is now called Air Force One.  At the time he was president Air Force One was a Boeing 707, too big to land at the ranch.  This is the plane which visitors to the ranch see upon arrival:

A 12-passenger Lockheed JetStar VC-140.  President Johnson jokingly referred to this plane as “Air Force One-Half”.  The president would fly to either Austin or San Antonio on the 707, then finish the journey on this small jet – considered safer and more efficient than a motorcade.

One thing blog readers may not know is that the Air Force One designation wasn’t used until 1953 when a Lockheed Constellation named “Columbine II” carrying President Dwight D. Eisenhower entered the same airspace as a commercial aircraft using the same flight number, creating confusion for air traffic controllers.  To avoid a potential conflict in the future it was decided to change the call sign of any Air Force plane to Air Force One when the president is on board.

After admiring the aircraft I took a tour of the house (no inside photos allowed).  It is very modest but comfortable.

In the gift shop there was also a model of the house:

After the tour I visited some of the other displays on the property, including some of  President Johnson’s vehicles:

The car above is a 1962 Amphicar, capable of driving on land and floating on the water like a boat (there are propellers in the back!).  Evidently the President liked to drive unsuspecting guests to a local lake and then drive right out onto the lake…

Another of the President’s favorites was his 1934 Ford Phaeton which he considered an all-terrain hunting vehicle:

Also in the gift shop were replicas of pillows President Johnson liked to keep in the house:

President Johnson and his wife, known as “Lady Bird,” are buried in a small family cemetery a short distance from the house:

Their headstones are in the center of the photograph above.

While researching the ranch for this post I learned that in 2018, the year after I was there, the National Park Service discontinued tours of the house due to “health and safety concerns” created by water leakage in the house.  It wasn’t me who left the faucet on upstairs, honest!…

After visiting the ranch I continued my drive on the scenic roads and made a brief stop in Luckenbach, Texas, site of a popular country music venue.  This trip was pre-blog and I didn’t take as many pictures as I would if I were making it today.

 

---

 

Or as it’s often known:

The second full day of my week in south-central Texas I headed north to Austin, only about 20 miles from where I was staying in Buda.  First stop – the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue downtown:

SRV, arguably the most talented blues guitarist of all time, died in a tragic helicopter crash in Wisconsin at the age of 35.  This statue is located on the south shore of Town Lake, across from downtown Austin.

Next stop – the Capitol building (since Austin is the capital of Texas):

And for those of you who shop at Whole Foods, Austin is their headquarters and this is their main store:

And yes, that’s my brown Nissan Altima with “rock-star parking” right in front!

My first full day in south-central Texas I headed for San Antonio, about 60 miles to the south of where I was staying in Buda.

Of course the first thing everyone should see in San Antonio is The Alamo, actually the Alamo Mission as that’s really what it was – a Spanish mission founded by Roman Catholic missionaries.  Hard to tell from my photos but The Alamo is right in the heart of what is now downtown San Antonio, the city having been constructed around it.

A really neat feature of San Antonio is Riverwalk, a river which runs for several blocks (5 miles, actually) downtown (and 10 miles outside the immediate downtown area) and affords many of the restaurants downtown an opportunity to offer outdoor dining at a level lower than surface streets.  Very nice!

There were boats (basically taxis) which ferry paying customers up and down Riverwalk:

This guy found a very friendly squirrel (or, the squirrel found a very friendly man):

And this is some other fancy artwork in the playground portion of a city park downtown:

I’m not much of a beer drinker but I do enjoy an occasional “cold one”.  I don’t drink enough to be able to discern one brand from another and pretty much limit my opinion to “I like it” or “I don’t”.

Prior to my “Texas Loop” trip I had, on a few occasions, enjoyed a cold Shiner Bock and it is solidly on my “like” list.  I was therefore delighted to learn that, with a small route variation, I’d be able to visit and tour the K. Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, Texas where Shiner Bock is made.

May 16, 2016

After spending 3 days and nights in Houston I set out to travel 2 hours and 45 minutes west to where I would ultimately stay in the little town of Buda.  My plan for the next 7 days was to visit Austin and San Antonio, which are about 80 miles apart in south-central Texas. I originally booked an Airbnb for the full week in San Marco which is almost exactly halfway between Austin and San Antonio so that I’d have the flexibility to go to either one based on weather or specific things I wanted to see. Unfortunately that reservation was cancelled prior to my arrival and I was forced to make other arrangements and stay in Buda instead (which is closer to Austin).  The original Airbnb host was very apologetic that he had to cancel the reservation for a reason beyond his control, which I fully understood.  I ended up staying with a very nice family in Buda so it all worked out just fine.

The brewery, named for founder Kosmos Spoetzl, a Bavarian immigrant, is the largest independent brewery in the state of Texas.

In addition to the free plant tour I enjoyed 3 of the 4 complimentary glasses (small, 4 oz. glasses) of various Shiner brands I was offered (I was obviously driving so I chose to pass on the 4th glass), and of course visited the gift shop where I purchased some Shiner swag.

I drove through the town of Shiner, a very nice little town, before heading northwest to Lockhart for lunch and on to Buda to get settled in for the week.

In Lockhart I had an amazing lunch at a highly recommended barbecue restaurant.  Most of those venues in Texas offer you a choice of brisket, ribs or spicy sausage and in all cases I chose one of each.  Believe me, Texans know how to make all three!

May 15, 2017

The main reason I stopped in Houston during my early 2017 “Texas Loop” was to visit NASA’s Johnson Space Center.  When manned missions were launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Mission Control there managed the events until the spacecraft cleared the launch tower.  The remainder of the flight was managed by Mission Control here at JSC.

The two jets in the photo above are like the ones which helped astronauts train for flying the Space Shuttle.  They were also “chase planes” which flew parallel to the Shuttle on many flights once they got down towards the Earth’s surface and especially when they landed after a mission to shoot video and take still photos to help NASA engineers monitor flight characteristics.

 

Although we couldn’t go in it, the building above houses Mission Control at JSC and has been named for Christopher Columbus Kraft, Jr. who helped establish the overall Mission Control concept, was Flight Director for many of the manned missions, was eventually named Head of Mission Operations and ultimately became the Director of JSC.  He was still living when I made this post earlier this year but passed away July 22, 2019 at age 95.

Frankly I wasn’t nearly as impressed with the Visitor Center at JSC as I have been with other NASA facilities I have been to.  Perhaps the most interesting thing, other than the Saturn V rocket (see next post), was what greets visitors after they have parked their cars and are walking towards the Visitor Center:

This is the actual Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), tail designation N905NA, which is one of two specially modified 747 jets which could carry the Shuttle “piggyback” on top of the plane (the second 747 has tail designation N911NA).  This was necessary for early test flights where the jet would carry the Shuttle up to high altitude where the two vehicles would separate and the Shuttle would glide back to Earth.  When the Shuttle actually flew in space there were many times when it would land at Edwards Air Force base in California (early flights in particular – a much larger runway located in a remote area, for added safety, and when proven stable if bad weather prohibited landing at Kennedy Space Center where it was attached to the booster rockets and launched).  On all those occasions one of the 747’s would return the Shuttle to Florida.  At the end of the Shuttle program the 747’s flew their final missions, taking the Shuttles to airports near the various museums around the country where they are now on display.

After it’s last Shuttle ferrying flight the second 747, N911NA, was flown from Edwards Air Force base to an Air Force facility in Palmdale, California and is being cannibalized to keep another NASA aircraft in service.

The airplane above is real but the Shuttle on top is a model.  Visitors could go inside both.

I hadn’t noticed it at the time but in researching the aircraft for this post I found this photo of a silhouette near the front of the plane showing how many times it carried various Shuttles:

(Photo credit: None – Public Domain!)

I also found this photo of the Orbiter Mount which is where the Shuttle is attached to the airplane.  You can’t see it in the photos I posted but please note the humorous comment someone painted on it:

(Photo credit: Rob Elliott)

———————–

Where are the Space Shuttles now?

Atlantis is at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida

Discovery is at the Udvar-Hazy Center (part of the Smithsonian Institution) adjacent to Dulles airport outside Washington DC

Endeavour is at the California Science Center in Los Angeles

Enterprise (which never went into space but was released for 5 “glider flights” from the 747 shown above) is now on the deck of the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum (a former US Navy aircraft carrier) in New York City.  It had previously been on display at the Udvar-Hazy Center outside Washington DC.

———————-

Challenger was destroyed over the Atlantic Ocean shortly after launch

Columbia was destroyed (over Texas and Louisiana) during re-entry at the end of it’s mission on it’s way to Kennedy Space Center in Florida

 

The main reason I stopped in Houston during my early 2017 “Texas Loop” was to visit NASA’s Johnson Space Center.  When manned missions were launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Mission Control there managed the events until the spacecraft achieved orbit around the Earth.  The remainder of the flight was managed by Mission Control here at JSC.

One of the more impressive items on display was a full-size Saturn V rocket.  The Saturn V (5), designed by Wernher von Braun and Arthur Rudolph, launched all of the Apollo moon missions as well as Skylab, the first American space station.

Above is a photo of the first stage.  Below are the 5 F-1 engines capable of producing over 1.5 million pounds of thrust (each!) for a total of 7.5 million pounds.  To this day they are still the most powerful liquid-propellent rocket engines ever built.

I will be telling a story about these engines when I post photos from my visit to the NASA facility in Alabama where these were tested.

Here is the second stage, with 5 smaller engines:

And finally, the third stage with just one engine. This engine was initially fired to get the vehicle to full orbit around the Earth.  By the time this stage kicked in the vehicle had gained considerable altitude, was traveling at very considerable speed and required much less energy to achieve orbit. This engine was later fired a second time to remove the vehicle from Earth orbit and send it on it’s way to the moon.

On top of the third stage was a cone-shaped section which contained the lunar lander.

Finally, a can-shaped service module (gray in this photo) which contained fuel and other equipment to get the spacecraft back to Earth and the command module (brown in this photo) which the astronauts rode in.  At initial launch there was an emergency thruster (escape module, white in this photo) attached to the top of the command module in case it needed to be jettisoned for safety in the event of a launch failure.  The command module itself only had tiny “thrusters” to maneuver it in space and they wouldn’t have had nearly enough energy to get the command module away from the rocket at launch.

Here is look back down from the “top”

There are only three full-size Saturn V displays in the world.  This is the only one made completely of flight-certified hardware.  The other two displays contain a mix of flight hardware, mockups and test components.