Monthly Archives: April 2019

The San Antonio Riverwalk is a pretty amazing place. It was built down below the level of the roads and sidewalk, so from the Riverwalk you can't see or hear the traffic of the city. Every so often there are stairs back up to street level, and if you walk up you are often surprised by just how loud and dense an area you are in - you'd never know it from down below. The central section of the Riverwalk is lined with shops and restaurants, and the whole thing is thick with gardens, trees, and lots of stone bridges. Definitely a must-see.

After the zoo we went to the NASA Space Center in Houston. On the drive there we got caught in a crazy Texas thunderstorm. I remember how intense they are from when we used to live in Texas, but it was a new experience for Carter - she wondered if it might be a hurricane! The Space Center was awesome - they had a Skylab trainer that you walk through, and some of the originally-flown modules from the Mercury and Gemini programs. Lots of spacesuits from the early part of the space program, and other great stuff. Carter got to touch a moon rock! We couldn't go see the shuttle because of the weather, unfortunately. In the gift shop, they sell dozens of different patches - one for each manned NASA mission, just like the astronauts get.

We got really lucky at the Houston Zoo - the thunderstorms arrived right as we were leaving. The whole place was full of Live Oak trees like you see below - I love the way they grow out rather than up. They look so cool and gnarly.

First stop on the 2019 roadtrip was Hermann Park in downtown Houston, Texas. There's a man-made lake that we walked around, and saw lots of wildlife. Someone gave Carter a handful of peanuts, and she hand-fed the squirrels. We lots of turtles, and a whole bunch of baby ducks. And it stayed dry the whole time, even through it threatened to rain the all morning.