Gorgeous Gulf

I just realized the other day that I promised a blog post of natural wonders from my trip to Houston last month! I am a bad blogger, but better late than never, I hope.

Galveston, the Gulf and the Bay, were the beaches we visited. Above is the Gulf, on a day windy enough that a dangerous surf warning was up. Here's a look down to the other end of the island:

The windy conditions made the heat and humidity (in November!) easier to take. And it apparently was perfect for the fellows we saw wind-surfing on the Bay side of the island:

looks like fun? maybe?

In addition to nature in the raw, we took in a rather spectacular example of curated nature at the Moody Gardens in Galveston. Wow! What a great zoo/aquarium/botanical garden!

The aquarium section was my favorite. I was pleased to see this nice exhibit of African cichlids, fish that we—in our more energetic younger days—actually kept in a large-ish aquarium. They're really fun fish to watch, as besides being beautiful, they're quite territorial. And the moms incubate the eggs, and even protect the newborn fry, in their mouths! We were so excited the first time we saw little baby cichlids bursting out of a parent's mouth.

the Great Lakes here are African rift lakes, not the US variety

There were all kinds of other great fish displays, including this large cylindrical tank, with nephew and lovely great-niece's curly locks for scale:

One of my favorite class of critters in an aquarium is always the jellyfish, and they had a whole room of them! This was the most striking of the jellyfish tanks:

Our last evening on the coast was when we saw the wind-surfer on the Bay, and were also treated to this lovely sunset. A fitting closure to our brief visit to this very interesting part of our state.

Space City, USA

We packed a lot of sight-seeing into a mini-family-reunion long weekend in Houston last week. Along with, of course, lots of visiting and catching up with far-flung family members. 

A highlight of the trip was the NASA's Space Center Houston. It's changed a lot^{[citation needed]} since we last visited when our kids were little. Wow! What a lot of cool exhibits! Including the space shuttle Independence (see above) that you actually got to go inside. Here's the insanely complicated cockpit:

And it's not just the shuttle that you get to see. It's actually perched on top of a giant airliner, as it was when being transported across the country from the High Desert in California back to Florida for its next launch. Sorry I didn't get pictures of the whole thing for you. But of course the Space Center website has better ones than I could have taken, with video, too.

We also took a couple of their tram tours. Motorized transport is required, since the NASA campus is nothing if not sprawling (so apt, being located in the capital of sprawl itself ). 

We took the two free tours that come with the price of admission. One was to a gigantic building where astronauts train for space station missions. The space was full of space station module mockups and was quite a sight to see. I liked this Russian module that sported decals from all the space station missions:

I took the picture from the raised walkway that you take along one side of the building. You can get a better idea of the scale of the place from the picture on the Space Center's website.

The coolest part of the visit, though, was the tram tour to the "Rocket Park." Inside this massive (because it has to be!) building they've put a Saturn V rocket on its side for you to examine in detail. (You can learn more about this workhorse rocket type from the video in the link above.)

Here's a shot of the gap between stages of the Saturn V:

Note tiny people on the other side of the display for scale!

Probably the most impressive part of this rocket is the hind end. Think about those videos you've seen of rockets blasting off as you stand in front of these behemoths! Again, grandchildren and son-in-law are providing scale for you:

The "hangar" where the giant rocket is housed has a whole side devoted to details of the different Apollo missions, starting with the ill-fated Apollo 1, including the almost-ill-fated Apollo 13, and ending with the last trip to the moon, Apollo 17. Super-interesting stuff.

But the NASA museum wasn't the only flight-related attraction I visited. The other was the Lone Star Flight Museum. It's located at what used to be Ellington Field, an old USAF base that I can hazily remember visiting as a child and where my father did his preflight training after enlisting in WWII.

No longer a military base, it serves small commercial flights and has this very interesting museum, full of vintage restored aircraft, and emphasizing the roles Texas has played in aviation development. We discovered that making it through all the informational exhibits just wasn't possible, given our short time frame. But gawking at all the planes was enough to justify the visit.

I didn't catch the name of the cute Union-Jack-decorated craft hanging from the ceiling, but this one was prominently labeled:

This B-25 wasn't the actual Doolittle raid aircraft, but was intended to show what that plane was like.

As I often do at well-designed museums, I enjoyed the sidelights as well as the main attractions, such as this lovely display of wooden propellers:

The technological marvels on display in this part of Houston were only part of the fun activities that we enjoyed. Next time I'll share some wonders of the natural world that we were able to experience.

Wordless Wednesday: Thankfully not prophetic

 

Visiting the old homestead...

...well, sort of.

Henry got to attend his 50th Rice reunion last month (I didn't get mine due to *&#%&# covid!) and we had a pleasant day visiting the ol' stomping grounds. Although (as I've told you before) the campus as it exists today is barely recognizable as where got our B.A.'s in the early '70's. The super-cool fine arts building you see above is but one of the snazzy new buildings that have gone up in the last few years.

After a nice party for the class of '72, we opted to take a stroll at dusk around the west end of the campus; it was just parking lot and fields when we were in school there. But now there's all kinds of buildings, as well as this wonderful installation:

When we were here before (it's featured at the end of this post, which describes our visit to the campus in its centennial year), it was just called the Skyspace. But now it has a different, longer name.  However, it is just as impressive and we spent a good bit of the magic hour here. The Medical Center skyline even color coordinated itself with the pink part of the pavilion's cycle:

Here's a couple of shots highlighting the structures changing color, as well as it's "skylight" hole in the roof...

that's the Shepherd School of Music in the background,
another post-Henry-and-Kathy addition

...and another view as we departed...

Not far from the pavilion is the home of the Baker Institute, a relative old-timer (1993) at this end of campus. It has a very nice fountain:

Of course, most of the buildings we knew intimately are still there, although occasionally refurbished and added-on-to. One landmark for Henry that doesn't look different (at least from the outside), is the old Hanszen tower, site of many undergrad hijinks:

And another site we were happy to see as unchanged, the Rice Chapel, where Gramma and Grampa got hitched, not quite 50 years ago:

to see what it looked like during our nuptials,
check out this 2011 post, at the end

Of course, there was also a football game this reunion day, although the less said about that the better. However, the Rice MOB entertained as always, especially with alums participating:

I'll close with another piece of campus art. I think you'll agree that, even if you're not an alum, this campus is a spot worth a visit if you're looking for something new to do in Houston.

Fluttering by

On a recent trip to the really big city we took in a new (to us) museum experience, among other fun activities (including granddaughter babysitting!).

The Houston Museum of Natural Science's Butterfly Center is a really amazing place, one that was not in existence the last time I visited the Museum (since that was a long time ago). The educational exhibits inside are very interesting and informative, and they even have a whole wall of chrysalises in various stages of metamorphosis—some of our group even got to see a new butterfly emerging!

But the big draw is the multi-story butterfly garden where hundreds (possibly more?) of the lovely creatures flutter about in their multicolored and delicate beauty. On the right you can see a more-or-less panoramic shot of the garden, to give some idea of its scale.

Such a wonderful array of butterflies! And many posing so perfectly for the cameras...

No, I can't identify any of these guys for you. But lack of knowledge didn't diminish my enjoyment in the least. Various practical questions did arise during our tour of the facility, though, including how they're sure the lovelies get enough food...

feeding stations are scattered around the garden

...and what do they do about population control! We saw several instances of new life getting started, by the way of mating behaviors...

...but we're not sure how they keep the population from outgrowing the space. Someone suggested that overnight they bring in some snakes from elsewhere in the Museum or from the zoo! Glad that wasn't on display during our visit.

Wordless Wednesday: House of Endearment

What regular rainfall will do

Driving 200 miles east in some parts of the country and you'd have crossed several state lines. Here, you're still well under the Lone Star, but you have crossed over into a completely different climatic zone. (Actually, as you can see from this natural regions map, you don't have to go very far from San Antonio in almost any direction, and you're in a different zone.)

Houston, our weekend destination a while ago, is definitely in another world as far as biomass is concerned. And there wasn't a better example than the gorgeous pinetree in our generous hosts front yard.

I couldn't get it all in one picture, but the top half is above and here's the bottom...

...and its very handsome crown...

Trees just don't get anywhere near that tall around here.

We had a nice walk around their attractive neighborhood and saw several more examples of Mother Nature's largess. Here was a particularly huge live oak that caught our eye:

Isn't that stunning?!

We didn't do much more sightseeing (the main reason for the visit was a reunion for my Rice graduation class—I'm vain enough to want to withhold the number, but suffice to say it was a large one). But I'll show you what we saw on another stroll next time.

Happy Halloween!

We saw some cute, and quite elaborate, Halloween decorations during our walk around an upscale Houston neighborhood a while ago. 

One yard had a skeletal football game...

...complete with cheering crowds and referees...

We'll be visited this year by our own special Halloween mummy. I'll share pix of her when I can. 

Have a safe and fun All Hallows' Eve!

Little trip to the big city

Last weekend I visited my old home town and had a great time seeing old and new college friends. A group of women more or less my age holds these informal reunions every year and I finally was able to attend one.

Since most of the weekend was spent with a bunch of old ladies in rooms chatting, sipping wine and eating cookies, I didn't get many pictures to share.

But one of our dinners was at Discovery Green, a relatively new downtown Houston park, and a few of us walked over there from the reunion hotel. So I was able to snap a couple shots of some of Houston's impressive urban scenery (I took better photos during a 2012 visit, if you want more).

The restaurant was quite nice, and so was the park. Perhaps a little more crowded than usual since there was not only a baseball game going on nearby, but later that night an NBA playoff game, too. (I SO wish our one major league sports venue was downtown; the San Antonio powers-that-be really screwed up on that one.)

In addition to being in close proximity to baseball, basketball, and soccer venues, the huge Houston convention center is also right there. You can see it in the shot above. Yes, I know it looks a lot like an ocean liner, with those red pipes, but it's a convention center, big enough to host the offshore tech conferences that take up a lot of room.

Here's a couple more shots of scenes around the park:

an interesting fountain

the Rubik's cube-like wall you may have seen in my last Wordless Wednesday post

If the little bit of greenery you can see in these photos looks really green, well, that's because it's Houston and everything always looks greener there than in San Antonio. But we also had some big rains while I was there. The friends I stayed with measured 7 inches in their rain gauge over 35 hours!

On the way home I documented some of the leftover evidence of the rain, at the Colorado County Rest Area near Columbus, perfectly situated to relieve travelers of the tea they drank at brunch...

Wordless Wednesday: two walls met