Today we headed to Galveston. First we went to the Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig & Museum. It was fascinating!
We learned about different types of drill rigs, how they work, how they create a new well, how they get things set up to get the oil out, etc. etc. etc.
Workers are crane-lifted on these from boats up to the drilling platforms.
We got to walk around an actual drilling rig platform
Cuteness!
What they install underwater to pump up the oil to boats or to shore.
Once a well is drilled, a boat sits out there above it and receives all the oil. It then processes it to some degree on-ship, and stores it. An oil tanker comes and picks up all the oil it can and takes it back to shore for processing. Alternatively, some setups pump the oil via pipeline all the way to shore.
There are so many sectors of this one single industry. People who make the many different parts of the drills, people who make the pipelines, people who make the equipment that goes on the wells, people who do the science to figure out where wells might be, people who analyze test drills to see how much oil might be in a well, people who build anchors for floating platforms, people who align drilling platforms so they don't get pushed around and snapped like twigs while drilling, and on and on and on and on and on! SO many!
I'm realizing I didn't get a great set of pictures of the different types, etc. There are lots of different types of drills, different types having different costs, different drill depths, etc. Perhaps I'll get better at getting good blog pictures as I practice. :-)
It wasn't a huge museum, but we learned a lot! Kudos to the museum for booklets that our kids loved and that helped them find answers to questions throughout the museum.
And yes, there is a lot of money that goes to government. Billions and billions from this one industry! That's another picture I wish I'd taken.
And yes, there is a lot of money that goes to government. Billions and billions from this one industry! That's another picture I wish I'd taken.
After the museum, we went to the beach!
Eliza feeling excited
I thought this was a beautiful picture of Eliza!
Who's having fun?
She touched the water with her feet. And she was done. Too cold mama!
A mist came in and this building looked like it was floating!
Can you spot anyone having fun?
Taking on the ocean
There were plenty of people and families at the beach, but ours were the only crazy enough to swim in the cold! We knew they would be. Can't let a little cold stop the fun!
Smitten. Me, I mean. Smitten. She's on aunt Salli's lap here.
We were treated to a gorgeous sunset!
As night came on, we left the beach and went to the Cobb's (Dave & Salli's) favorite restaurant in Galveston: Mario's. They bring small balls of pizza dough for the kids to play with while the food is cooking.
In case you were wondering if I counted as a "kid."
No comments:
Post a Comment