Tuesday, April 26
Evan and I woke up early this morning. (Deja vu, huh?) It was the start of our last full day in Houston and the first day back at work for my Aunt after Easter. Her 15 mile commute can be anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour or more, depending on Houston's rush hour traffic. We bid her farewell, thanked her for her hospitality, then ate sugary cereal and watched Phineas & Ferb as she drove away.
We took the much more sane route - let the girls sleep in, pack up our stuff and wait until after 9 to even try and drive into town. We had only one destination for today: the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
You know who else had that idea? Every #$*^%! Elementary School and Day Care in the Greater Houston Area. (And by that, I mean everything south of Dallas) As we drove through Hermann Park to the Museum, we drove past dozens and dozens of school busses. There were vast armies of children - all in matching color shirts based on classroom - being marched around the park. To the outdoor theater, to the gardens, and much to our chagrin, the the Museum.
But all was not lost! We pulled into the 3 hour parking right in front of the building (we didn't plan on being there too long.) The groups were still getting assembled, giving us time to sneak past them, get our tickets, and get to the exhibit we wanted before them! Right?
The ticket line was only about 3 people long, but was taking F O R E V E R. Finally, we were able to buy our tickets and get over to the Cockrell Butterfly Center before the roaming hoards! Or so we thought.
It's call the Butterfly center, but it's really a wing of the museum dedicated to insects and small creatures of all kinds. The very first thing we see when we walk in is this guy and several of his pals:
He was a Blue Poison Dart Frog. And Madison flipped out. She had been looking forward to the Butterfly exhibit for weeks, and now all of a sudden, she's deathly afraid of all insects & creatures. As parents, we faced a choice. We could 1.) Calmly pull her aside, talk to her about her fears, and reassuringly let her know that all of the creatures are either dead or behind glass. OR 2.) tell her to knock it off and go though the exhibit.
1 didn't work, so we went with 2. However, in that brief moment of time, one class did sneak in ahead of us.
Madison did quickly realize that she indeed wasn't afraid of any of these things and was soon pointing out the hissing cockroaches to Evan.
Emperor Scorpion
It's an Atlas Beetle. Of course you have to flex while standing in front of it!
After learning about the creepy crawlies, we entered the butterfly exhibit. And I put my new camera lens through it's paces.
In addition to the butterflies, they had a very happy looking Green Iguana. Who just happened to be orange. Whatever.
Inside the butterfly habitat:
We were not allowed to touch any of the butterflies. (Their wings are very delicate and touching them will rub off their tiny scales and render them flightless. Then they're nothing more than a small, colorful penguin.) You could hold your hand out and let them land on you, but none of them were as such inclined to do that.
After leaving the butterfly house, we encountered this vending machine.
Items included chocolate covered insects, Sour Cream & Onion flavored Crickets (also available: Salt N' Vinegar & Bacon and Cheese) BBQ flavored Larvae and candied ants.
I only had $2 in cash on me, but one of the bills was fairly old and tattered so the machine wouldn't accept it. And I was actually looking forward to the chocolate ants.
By the time we left that wing of the museum, the place was absolutely mobbed with kids. Its a good thing we only planned to see that section.
We still had about an hour before the car would be towed, so we walked around the park a bit to the reflecting pool that we saw from the train and boat rides. And thus, the picture that lead off this TR was taken:
Our next stop just across the road at the statue of Sam Houston and the horse he rode in on.
And suddenly...they felt a dance coming on!
With that rug sufficiently cut, we headed back to the car, under a canopy of Texas Live Oaks.
This sort of sums up Texas, don't you think?
Unfortunately, after that picture was taken, the camera was put away for the rest of the day. Madison wanted pizza for lunch, so we plugged "pizza" into the GPS. The first place it took us to was a construction area where it appeared that a building has just been torn down. I guess we missed that place by about a month or so. The second place was a scuzzy carryout only place that I wouldn't eat at if my life depended on it. Finally, we found a place called New York Pizzeria. The side of their cups bragged that they were Houston's top pizza place in 2009, so I couldn't be that bad, could it? Actually - it was really, really good. I'm usually more of a fan of thicker, Chicago style pizza, but since the single slice I ordered measured about 14" long, I quickly adapted!
From there we went to our hotel for the night - the Country Inn right across the road from the airport. Our window faced the runway, so we got a great view of the planes landing.
We decided that despite the cloudy, windy weather we would try out their outdoor pool. I stopped at the front desk, and it should have been a clue that something was amiss when I asked for pool towels, and I got a look from the desk clerk like I was the first person to ever ask that question.
We got outside to the pool and, well, it wasn't pretty. The pool was kind of shoehorned in to the side of the property, so it was quite small - maybe 12'x20' or so. Of the 8 or so plastic lawn chairs out in the "courtyard" none of them were structurally sound enough to sit in. The pool was not heated (it actually seemed like it was cooled, but maybe that was just the cloudy weather talking.) There was what appeared to be algae growing in spots. It kind of reminded me of the Hotel Coral Essex from Revenge of the Nerds 2.
Bambi and I sat on the edge and dangled our feet while the kids swam for a bit.
Dinner that night was by recommendation of a sign at the front desk, advertising local restaurants. Pappa's Bar-B-Q. Mmm... slow smoked beefy goodness!
After dinner, we went back to the room, cleaned up the kids and got them ready for bed. We had a 4am wake up to make it to our flight..."home".
I used the hotel's wireless network to stream an episode of PBS's Wild Kratts for the kids while Bambi and I packed and slyly attached the yellow Magical Express tags to our luggage. We got everyone settled down to bed. The kids were bummed that vacation was almost over while us adults exchanged shrewd glances, knowing that instead of flying home, our plane was headed to Orlando. And instead of sleeping in our own beds tomorrow night, we would be at Animal Kingdom Lodge. All we had to do was keep the secret for 12 more hours...
Up Next: The Reveal!
the water looks cold for some reason.
This oughtta be good! 
