Naturally, it was a day for a science museum in Houston

Houston Museum of Natural Science

We woke up to warm and humid conditions here in San Leon, Texas today.  With overcast skies I was able to walk in the east-west direction as I avoid that in the morning when the sun is out because I know the sun has to blind drivers headed east and I don’t want to be walking on a busy road with blind drivers.

After some discussion we decided to visit the Houston Museum of Natural Science today and were not disappointed. Apparently neither was about 30,000 public school children who were also at the place today.

Reminder to self: Before visiting any public semi-educational venue call ahead and find out if half the school children in the city would be visiting on the same day.

Dinosaur

Actually, I made that sound only slightly worse than it was as most of the students were under the supervision of teachers who kept a fairly good handle on the students.

At one point we left the museum to eat our lunch (which we brought in the car) and passed some noisy students being herded like cattle to waiting school buses. I couldn’t help but ask Joan, a former middle school teacher: “Do you miss those days?”

A skull carved from a solid piece of crystal

“Yeah, right,” she said, which judging by her body language and tone of voice was actually “No, you idiot, how could you possibly ask such a stupid question.” But then I know how to translate Joan.

My only beef was that one of the exhibits at the museum I would have like to visit was the Civil War artifacts, but that cost an additional $25 for a ticket and that just seemed a little high for the time that we had so I passed on it.

But we enjoyed seeing the displays of dinosaur bones and a mollusk section that had some incredible shells and some that I had seen many times.

The scenes of wild animals were very well done and we especially enjoyed the section that focused only on species that live in Texas.

Carved from a solid piece of gemstone, these were incredible

If you know Joan at all it won’t come as any surprise that we spent the most time in the very large gem section where there were some outstanding examples of the world’s many beautiful gem stones. Most of the displays showed gemstones in a natural state, but there were some stunning pieces of finished jewelry that were held in a gem vault.

(You can see more photos of the gems in a post below this one, just scroll down)

We also toured the Weiss Energy Hall, which not surprisingly had a heavy emphasis on the mechanics of drilling oil. There were very interesting displays that explained in mind-numbing detail how drilling works and the different types and grades of oil from around the world.

Animal displays were outstanding

Joan and I have sworn off nearly all fast food and we found it kind of difficult to smell the wonderful aroma of French fries throughout the museum as there is a McDonald’s franchise located in the museum and I would guess about 96 percent of everyone who attended the museum today enjoyed an order of fries.

About  3 p.m. we were about ready to leave when we suddenly learned that we had missed the basement floor and an Egyptian mummy on display there. Hey, if you have a chance to see a 3,000-year old mummy you have to do it.

With our mummy visit behind us we headed out and left Houston in time to beat most of the afternoon rush hour, although we did get caught in a little traffic.

More dinosaurs

One thing that gave me pause is that we found a “free” lot to park in, but as soon as I parked I noticed a van with one of those yellow “wheel boots” attached to the rear wheel of the vehicle. To make sure I wasn’t parked in a permit lot, I walked about a ¼-mile back to the entrance and re-read the sign.

What I should have done first was read the notice posted on the van which said the vehicle had been booted for a large number of outstanding parking tickets and warrants. So we left for the museum confident that we would have at least three uninterrupted hours of museum visiting.

Some of the incredible jewelry displays

When we went out to eat lunch, I moved the car to a new spot to add another three hours to our parking time. The van with the boot on it was still there.

Also there was a sidewalk display of the planets and the one marked "Uranus" brought back memories of Joan's childish 8th grade students who loved to say the name of the planet.

"I used to make them say it over and over and get over the giggles and laughing so we could get back to studying the planets," she told me.

On our way to the museum we stopped and picked up the potty part I ordered last week and have set aside some time on Saturday to get down and dirty with the toilet and change out the broken spring part with the new one.

Speaking of science and nature on the way home Joan spotted an Armadillo road kill on I-45 and got very excited because it was only the second road kill Armadillo we had seen. Told her that the natives down here would probably get a kick out of her excitement over that.

Back at home we finished up the seafood leftovers from last night and Joan cooked up a couple hamburgers to make sure we had enough to eat tonight. A very good dinner indeed.

We saw the real ones with Diane and Denny

A couple weeks ago I lamented that I could not find a do-it-yourself car wash after driving around for more than an hour looking for one. Well, and anyone could have seen this coming, since then I seem to run into a new one close by our trailer on every trip out of here. Don’t know why I didn’t see them before, but they are popping up like crocus since I complained about the lack of them.

And here’s another tidbit that I have been meaning to mention. When Joan and I travel without the trailer and stay in hotels I always take the remaining hotel-sized bottles of shampoo, conditioner and soap when I leave. I hate to see it go to waste and I use them when we camp.

I have found, and this is a very scientific study of a man who weighs just around 200 pounds, that a hotel shampoo bottle (normal size) will last nearly a week, as will the conditioner. But a bar of hotel soap can last up to two weeks if handled carefully.

This looked pretty real

“I’m not cheap, I’m just broke…..”

And one more little note from our recent travels. As I mentioned early in our stay here in San Leon, we are without cable television. We are completely at the whim of whatever over-the-air signal we can snatch.

Some days are better than others, but we tend to stay on a channel and watch crap we would not normally watch just because we have a reliable signal. Last night we watched the 1960 movie “The Alamo” (as if we haven’t had enough of that at this point) simply because it was the only solid signal we could receive.

This morning I watched an old movie based on a Shakespeare play simply because I didn’t want the hassle of adjusting the antenna again.

As a boy I remember the old antenna televisions with their massive array of knobs and adjustments that could be made. There was one adjustment that we would often have to make on a television – and please don’t ask how I remember this because it will just serve to illustrate how cluttered my brain is – is the knob that would keep the picture from rolling.

Sometimes that adjustment was so delicate that if you walked away from the television and sat in the wrong place in the room, the flipping would begin all over .

If you can remember that, you have an idea what we are dealing with here.