houston trip 4/4

1:55 PM

When I left off, we had just finished up walking with the dinosaurs in the Morian Hall of Paleontology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Once we left the museum, the plan was to go the Museum of Fine Arts, but truth be told, I really didn’t want to go. See, museums are not exactly my idea of fun.

So starving and undirected we decided to walk a mile or so through a little park to get some lunch. The park was thriving with tons of people out enjoying the weekend. But aside from all the happiness around, paddle boats and kiddos whizzing by on bikes, the park itself was quite beautiful. It had a trail along the side with a massive fountain in the middle that poured off into a lake area. There was art, there were structures, but more importantly in the center of all that, there was lunch!

After lunch, we drove through Rice University –which was gorgeous! It’s tucked away in the middle of the city and so worth your time if you have a moment. But we were on a mission to see an exhibit called the James Turrell Sky Space (read more, here) it was so fun and so cool. Big A could probably give you a few more adjectives than that, but I had a good time.

After the museum, lunch, and sky space we went on one last adventure before calling it a night: the Downtown Aquarium. Now, you have to understand, just like zoos, I’ve seen SO MANY aquariums. So on the whole, the Downtown Aquarium was a little anticlimactic. They had fish and they had turtles and that’s pretty much it. There two things that made the experience memorable:

· 1. They had Bengal Tigers. I don’t know why really, but that’s not the point. I’ve never seen a Bengal Tiger. But more importantly, I’ve never seen one so close!!!!

· 2. I touched a sting ray. Don’t think that’s cool, that’s fine. See my reaction below.

Now what you have to understand is that this is the day that I wrecked my car. So all day I was feeling a little down. However, the day turned out wonderful with memorable experiences and I was happy and at peace when I finally took my shoes off.

So after a long day out we returned to our penthouse to relax before getting some Italian. We were lounging about deciding where to go eat when out of complete idiocy; I dropped my phone and broke it for the rest of the weekend. I lost all my pictures that I didn’t take on the camera. I was, to put it plainly, completely devastated. The day had come and slapped me in the face in multiple ways. My car, my phone, in the most teenage way possible, the world was crashing down.

But Big A was having none of that. The weekend must go on.

So I put on a pretty dress, drank the best peach Bellini I’ve ever had, and ate Italian until I felt so full I would pass out.

We ended that day with hot cocoa before bed. Happier then, than I’ve ever been.