Skunky's Intrepid Journey!

Hi!

On the road to Houston

Space Center Trip 028

International Space Station Model

Space Center Trip 002

Astronaut Food

A highlight was going to see the Houston Mission Control room - this is where all the manned missions are directed from.

Mission Control Centre

Mission Control

Space Center Trip 023

Saturn V Rocket

Saturn V Rocket

On the way to Houston there is a HUGE statue of a guy called Sam Houston who was a famous Texas statesman. A long time ago, Texas was a Republic and Sam Houston was president of Texas twice. (Can you spot me in this picture?)

Sam Houston Statue

Oh yeah.... and on the way home we finally found a skunk!!!!!!!!!!

P U!

Unfortunately it was not a live skunk... it was road kill actually... But it was a skunk nonetheless. It didn't seem to contain aftershave and perfume like me - it was pretty stinky. Maybe it's a different breed to me...

We are coming towards the end of our trip and have had so many wonderful adventures. Thanks for sharing them with us!

To Texas, infinity and beyond, then back to NZ!!

Skunky

OK so we have now officially hit the highlight of the trip for Jo - holding and feeding baby squirrels!! I must admit they were super cute. We met the coolest lady who takes care of little squirrels that fall out of trees etc. She looks after them until they are about 16 weeks old and ready to be released into the trees around her home.

Baby Squirrel01

Baby Squirrel27

Baby Squirrel29

What more can I say? Am still waiting for the trip where we get to hold the skunks......

Off to the Space Centre tomorrow! Will report to you from Houston (unless we have a problem of course....)

Over and out

Skunky

Howdy pardners!

A quick update from your old pal the travellin' skunk. Yesterday Nicci and Jo went with Nicci's cousins to some real live American classrooms to share about New Zealand. I can't believe they left me in the car!! They talked about things like where NZ is, school in NZ etc and then Nicci taught the American kids how to say 'banana', 'water' and 'tomato' like a kiwi.

School Bus

It must have been our day for 'real live American things' because later on today we went to a real Texan ranch. There were heaps of horses and guess who got to have a little ride?! Yeeehaa! They also had cattle, goats, pigs, turkeys and chickens. Oh yeah and there were heaps of squirrels- we really liked watched them scampering around the trees.

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We're off out for another adventure so I will write again tomorrow

See y'all soon

Skunky

Hi y'all!

The past few days we've been checking out the interesting critters which live in Texas. One day we saw a hummingbird hovering beside a rose bush. These tiny birds are almost as amazing as skunks. They are the only birds that can hover, fly backwards, left and right and even upside down! They are kind of like a natural mini helicopter. Hummingbirds beat their little wings about 55 times per second - wow! That's so fast that they make a humming sound like a big insect.

Hummingbirds need a lot of energy to keep up that pace so they spend a lot of time looking for nectar from flowers. We decided to help out by hanging a hummingbird feeder outside. Now they appear outside the window every few minutes. If you'd like to see one, take a look in the video section of this blog (the camera isn't fast enough to capture the speed of the wings so it looks like they're just flapping normally but believe me these little guys are going for it!).

Hummingbird 1

Zoo trip 05

Zoo trip 04

Catch you again soon

Skunky on Safari

Finally on Thursday there were no more sleeps left - not even one. Oh boy oh boy oh boy was I excited!!

Set to go

Next it was time to go through some security checks. Our small hand luggage bags had to go through a special x-ray machine to check that there was nothing dangerous inside. Nicci was asked to help and she did a great job. Everything and everyone got scanned - have a look at the photos and see if you can recognise any interesting shapes....

Scanning Skunky

Scanning 1

Finally we got on board and took off. Have you ever heard of a flying skunk? I wonder if I'm the first... The plane climbed gradually until it was 11 kilometres above the ground (that's about the same distance from school to Hamilton city centre but straight up). We flew high above the clouds at about 950km per hour. We found out that the air temperature outside was -48 degrees Celsius. Brrrrrr. I decided to keep my window shut.

Nicci and I had a great time looking out the window at the land and sea below, watching the flaps on the wings move and watching our little TV. It was pretty squashed on board so I was very careful to keep my special skunky smells to myself. The man behind us didn't keep all his smells to himself though - I thought he needed to go in the cargo hold.

At one stage I went to the cockpit to make sure the pilots were doing a good job. They were, so I stretched out for a bit in First Class - aaah much better!

Giving the pilot a break

First Class Skunk

Yours in black and white

Skunky