So, going back through my pictures, I found some that I wanted to show but couldn't find previously because I downloaded the pictures from my camera in alphabetical order rather than chronological order. As a result, I didn't know where to look for what I wanted to find. However, in going through all those pictures for other stuff, I was able to find them. Here we go!
On December 10 2016, we ventured out to the Houston downtown area where the Houston Heritage Society held it's
54th Annual Candlelight Tour. The tour consists of touring several old houses and a church which have been moved to
Sam Houston Park (
here's another link to a youtube.com video about Sam Houston Park) as well as seeing the jolly old elf, and vendor booths set up for the season. In those old buildings, there were folks in period dress telling the visitors to the park a short history of the family, or families, that lived in those homes, as well as relevant events that happened during that time period, not unlike what is found in other living history museums.
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| Katie posing with the blacksmith. |
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| This man was depicting William Marsh Rice, one of the wealthiest men in Houston in the latter part of the 19th century. |
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| Inside the St. John church. The pastor (an actual pastor in real life) told about the history of the church, and how many european immigrants came through Galveston, then north through Houston to live in the area. To his right (left in the picture) is part of the Houston Boy Choir, which sang a couple of Christmas carols during the 15 minutes or so we were in the church building. |
With the exception of one house,
the Pillot House, we were able to tour each one and get a short visit with each of the docents there. It was an enjoyable late afternoon, albeit being a little cold, that we spent in downtown Houston.
The offices at Eastlake RV Resort had, just like many other places, cards and pamphlets showing the various tourist attractions in the area. One of those was for
The Aquarium, a seafood restaurant, also in downtown Houston, just a few blocks away from Sam Houston Park. It's actually more than a restaurant as it has a HUGE aquarium in it, and if you go to Kemah, Texas, or Denver, Colorado, or Nashville, Tennessee, you'll find other Aquarium restaurants also. In addition to the restaurant in Houston, you'll find a small amusement park complete with a ferris wheel and miniature train.
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| Katie in front of The Aquarium by the ...fish statues. Any idea of what kind of fish they are? ...Well, besides statuefish, ok? |
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| Entrance to the amusement park of The Aquarium. Note the skyscrapers of downtown Houston in the distance. The statuefish Katie was standing in front of is out of sight to the right. |
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| This is the carousel. Note the lack of horses, or ostriches, or benches. Only aquatic life that lives somewhere in or near the state of Texas! |
The food at The Aquarium was kinda spendy, but as in most cases, ya get what ya pay for. So it was pretty good. But the view from our table was more impressive than the food because we were about eight feet from one of the large tanks of marine life. So we had a real good view of the fish swimming by.
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| ...Like this unicorn fish. |
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| ...or this humphead wrasse, and two of the many sting rays in the tank. |
And then, there were fish that weren't moving, just staying in one place, and seemed to be watching folks eat their food. In this case, the folks were Katie and I.
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| These three Queensland groupers pretty much just stayed in front of us all the time we were eating. I'm thinking that they're Queensland groupers at least. We were both hoping that they were amused by watching us eat, maybe crack a smile or something like wink an eye, or have a twitch of some kind... But their facial expressions never changed. I nicknamed them Larry, Moe, and Curly. In the lower left corner is an electric ray, something I didn't know existed until I did research on the fish in this picture. There is a stingray swimming by above Larry, Moe and Curly. |
Not much else to say about our time in Houston, but I did want to mention a couple of eateries that we went to that we enjoyed. They were both Mexican restaurants, the first one was
Los Cucos Mexican Cafe, which is a chain with most locations in Texas, but one in Las Vegas, Nevada, and another one in Sandy, Utah. The Humble location we went to served food that was very good, and there was a fiesta, sports bar ambiance with several screens throughout the restaurant and bar, probably being able to serve better than 150 meals at a time. The second eatery was also located in Humble, but was a much smaller operation being in a strip mall.
Manuel's Mexican Restaurant and Taqueria located a few miles east of where Los Cucos was, and only has two locations in Houston and Humbolt, with the Houston location having a capacity of less than a hundred. What it lacked in serving space it makes up for in really good tasting food, and it was my favorite of the two. As a result, we frequented it more than Los Cucos.
So now I'm done returning to Houston, I'll get up to date as time goes by.
I'll end by saying a cowboy goodbye by saying "Y'all come back now!"
