 You know we live in Space City. There's an astronaut with fries on the roof of a McDonalds. It's gonna be tough to eat those fries in space. |
 The Molly Maid building has a space capsule in front. I also discovered that a building behind Clear Lake Park has a space capsule. |
 Talon Park is fairly new. It's two retired trainers that the astronauts use to maintain their flying skills. It's just outside Space Center Houston. |
 Tourists always confuse Space Center Houston with the Johnson Space Center. Space Center Houston is for the tourists. Johnson Space Center is where NASA really resides. The sign above leads into JSC's main gate. |
 This was put up before Talon Park. It's really cool to see at night. |
 We're now at the Landolt Pavilion at Clear Lake Park. It costs $10 to get in. According to this sign, it's the 10th year for the Celtic Music Festival, but this is the first time I heard of it. |
 Paisley Close has the stage when we arrive. Yes, there were men in kilts. I feel like I'm in the Scottish contingent at the Scarborough Faire. A few tables are selling t-shirts, Irish shirts, jewelry, even purses. An author is selling her books. One booth is selling Guinness and Harp. I tried both for the first time. Rick's description of drinking Guinness was accurate. It was like drinking motor oil. Not the taste just the thickness. A bit salty. Harp had a flowery aftertaste. You could also get it a half and half - Dark Guinness on top of the golden Harp. I'm ready to try some haggis, but no such luck. The food booths are more renfest in fare - turkey legs, fried chicken on a stick or sausage on a stick. Another booth has barbeque. |
 Now you may be wondering why I would have photos of Dragonboat Races. It so happens that they had the races at the Clear Lake Park at the same time as the Celtic Music Festival. The last time we went to the Dragonboat Races, they had the Aloha Fest at the Landolt Pavilion. That sort of made sense, but the dragonboats are Chinese in origin. Today is a busy day in Houston. There's Wings over Houston at Ellington, the Texas Renaissance Festival at Plantersville, the Dragonboat Races, the Celtic Music Festival and the Fire fest at the fire training facility south of the airport. What sucks is that the small festivals like the Dragonboat Races, the Celtic Music Festival or the Fire Fest receive no airtime in the news. I only find them by scouring the web. |
 The Dragonboat races are held on the other side of the park. I thought the races would be cool to do one day, but it's expensive. At this point in time, you need $2500 per group of 25 people so you need corporate sponsorship. I saw Wal-Mart, Center Pointe and the United Space Alliance (USA). Parking was at a premium today since there were also soccer games going on. Cops had a huge van setup with a camera watching everything while they patrolled the area and directed traffic. |
  I had expected the head of the Dragonboat to be carved from wood. It looks like plastic. |
 As you can see, we're back at the Celtic Music Festival. If you look carefully, Piper Gary Johnson has his hat over his eyes. He's demonstrating how pipers were taught to march very precisely so that they return exactly to the spot that they started. In this case, he's returning to the glass of beer. Now that's incentive. By the way, he missed by a few feet. He demonstrated how a bagpipe worked and as well as various Scottish musical instruments. |
 The band Murder the Stout takes the stage. |
 The Cass Academy of Irish Dance was very good. I've seen Irish dancers before at the annual Houston International Festival. They deliberately choose the bright neon colors to draw attention to themselves in competition. I think the Shirley Temple hair must be wigs. |
 Yes, it's Riverdance. The arms hang straight down, and the legs are in near constant motion. Photos just don't do it justice. A video camera would do better here. I saw one mother working a camera and a video camera at the same time.      |
