The Lone Star State…
Hmmm…what to say about Texas…the state is primarily filled with patriotic people whom, on a fundamental level, I disagree with, however, I don’t seem to have met any of them. To this point, I have only met warm, friendly, like-minded people with whom I have found it a pleasure spending time with on each stop of our journey.
The first stop was Houston. Laurence and I stayed an Airbnb apartment which, as apartment dwellers ourselves, was beautiful. Set in a great location between the city and a lovely green area. The first night we went out to a bar and took part in an “Geek Quiz”, however, once the Americans that were sitting close to us left to play darts we quickly lacked the knowledge to answer any of the questions. This city was much awaited by Laurence and we spent our first day checking out the Johnson Space Centre. All up, we spent four hours there (a relatively small museum). I think Laurence’s highlight was taking the tram into the facility and viewing their testing room. If Laurence had been born in America ‘x’ amount of time ago, I truly believe that he would have tried to become an astronaut. I am sure that this is not the last space related place that I will be required to attend.
That evening we went to the Houston Symphony – we had managed to get some free tickets thanks to ‘google-ing’ things to do in the area. Although the weather was stifling, the music was beautiful and the outdoor theatre was pleasant.
The next day we took a drive to Galveston. A little island/spit of land on the Gulf of Mexico. The drive was uneventful and the scenery could have been spectacular, however, the colour of the ocean (brown and dirty – almost like the Mississippi river) definitely ruined it for me. I could not believe how many people were actually swimming in it!! On the upside, the houses were beautiful. They were all spectacular colours (although somewhat muted – i.e. not highlighter) with lovely open areas underneath (houses on stilts for when it floods) that they used for outdoor entertainment areas.
Our next stop was San Antonio, home of the Alamo. We had three full days here, but only had a couple days of must see things, so we took it easy and spent a bit of time in air conditioning – we even watched Now You See Me 2 at the theater there.
Our first stop, and most essential one, was to take a drive out to the Wildlife Park so that Laurence could see the Giraffes. This trip was full of fun and terror. We started with the giraffes, and seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time there. Laurence was conversing with to giraffes like old friends. They seemed to be listening and to like Laurence. I think his main regret was that the fences were a bit too far apart – so he could not reach the giraffes and that there was a sign stating that he was not allowed to feed them – which he desperately wanted to do.
After the giraffes, we paid attention to the other animals. I was pleasantly surprised that we were to drive through the wildlife park in our very own rental car (yay air conditioning in the heat) but was terrified once we got in there next to all the massive animals with big pointy antlers etc. – the damage that they could have inflicted to our woefully under-insured rental car was not something that I wanted to spend a lot of time thinking about. In fact, on a number of occasions I would be whispering to Laurence that we needed to keep going before the terrifying beasts lent on our car – they came SO close. On at least two occasions I had to practically climb onto the other side of the car to get away from the animals. One big moose-y looking thing stuck its whole head into the window. It was HUGE and had slobber and snot hanging everywhere. I was frantically whispering to Laurence to start moving so it would get its head out before it attacked me, but my chivalrous husband was too busy laughing at my reaction to be able to do anything. The second occasion involved a zebra. I had seen the signs that they could bite, so I tried to close my window – but Laurence the all-knowing and all-controlling (his buttons overrode mine) would not allow it. We compromised with the window half down. As we were parked watching Laurence feed the zebra its stealthy friend snuck around to my side and leant into the vehicle. As I turned my head all I saw was a giant zebra head a few centimeters away from my face. Once again, I appealed to Laurence for assistance, but once again he only saw the humour of the situation and not my imminent danger. Eventually I got away and was allowed to close my window. I think that the trip to the wildlife park was successful, despite the animals.
Our next stop was the Alamo. We did a little tour as early as possible so that we could avoid the heat. It was quite interesting to learn about the history of the place; I must admit that I did not know anything of what we were told during the tour.
Our last stop was the river walk. The place was quite nice, we really enjoyed wandering around with the band playing, the lights, and people enjoying themselves.
Austin – the weird and wacky capital of Texas. As usual, we were getting tired of travelling from place to place every few days, so we took it easy. We did have a good look around the city and shops, we ate from food trucks, and had some drinks at little dive bars. From our short stay in Austin, I think this is a city that we would enjoy. The citizens get out there to do things – on the Saturday morning we drove through town – everyone was out shopping, hanging out, and eating, the river was packed with people paddle boarding and canoeing. Here Laurence tried his first Texas Bar-B-Q, and his second. It is the feel of the city, the experience of it, that we enjoyed the most here – we did not do much, but we very much enjoyed it.
A short drive up to Dallas, the last leg of our Texas trip. After quickly storing our packs and returning the rental car we dashed to the Rangers stadium to meet up with Meghan Pinfold and Patrick Wilson. We also had the pleasure of going to a baseball game with Patrick’s mother Gail and his brother Michael. I think Patrick had spent weeks studying the sun’s movement and the shade that it cast as when we found out seat we were in shade, but only just. The day was hot and sunny, there were not many shaded seats, and as the game went on we remained in shade. I looked out over the stadium and could see that almost everyone else was in direct, full sunlight and smiled at my fortune. Even with the shade I was drenched with sweet within minutes. Laurence looked like he was melting, hair drooping and lank. The game itself was less confusing than I originally thought, and if I didn’t understand something it was ignored. The Rangers won against the Boston Red Sox – although I am not sure how the crowd knew, they arrived late and left early.
The remainder of our stay in Dallas was hot and humid. We went to the Sixth Floor Museum (the JFK assignation museum), the George W Bush Presidential Library and Museum (which actually ended up just being a museum without any books), shopping, Bar-B-Q, swimming in the pool at our complex, and hanging out with Meghan and Patrick. It was a good end to the USA leg of our trip and we were very excited to get on to our next stop.