Texas! Days 7 and 8

For our last full day in Houston, we (sort of) checked off another item on my list of things to see. The Orange Show is kind of like the Beer Can House. Just one guy with an obsession. This guy was obsessed with oranges (much more healthy than an obsession with beer).

Unfortunately, The Orange Show doesn't open to the public for the season until the end of March, so we didn't get to go in, but it was still worth driving by and taking a few photos.

There's actually The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art and it owns both the Orange Show and the Beer Can House, among other things.

I think the craziest thing to remember about both The Orange Show and the Beer Can House is that they're in regular old neighborhoods, surrounded by (mostly) normal houses. I guess it gives you a little leeway to paint your house a bright color when you've got that down the street, but mostly it's just normal homes. Talk about crazy neighbors!

After the Orange Show, Mac showed me his elementary school and then we headed out to Clear Lake to see Rocket Park and the Johnson Space Center. We stopped by this plane on the way:

It's lovingly known as the Vomit Comet since they do weightlessness training and experiments on it. Mac went on a similar plane once.

Then we headed to Rocket Park to see... Rockets!

And Bluebonnets!

And one of Mac's favorite wildflowers - an Indian Paintbrush:

So this is the type of rocket that would have launched the Apollo missions. It's HUGE! You can see a teeny tiny person in the bottom right corner of the photo:


Mac is dwarfed by just one little piece of the rocket, which looks kind of like the death star, if you ask me:

And more rockets outside:

These guys are a little smaller, but still impressive:

This is the back of the building with the big rocket inside:

After Rocket Park, we headed to a liquor store to pick up something for Mac's friend Jose, who we were meeting for dinner. We walk in the door and who's there? None other than 10 time Olympic Gold Medalist Carl Lewis. He's touting Tequila these days. Who knew? We bonded over our New Jersey connection, oh, and ended up buying two bottles of tequila! So funny!

We had a great time having dinner with Jose and then drinks after that. It was a great way to spend our last night in Houston.

On Saturday morning we pretty much just packed up and said goodbye. I think it was hardest on Mac to say goodbye to his cats. Here's Cowboy hanging out in the St. Francis birdbath in his parents' backyard:

And here's Patches. He might not admit it, but Patches is clearly Mac's favorite. She's the oldest kitty in the house and the most lovable. Little Bit is the other one, but she's pretty skittish and I didn't get a photo of her.

Here's Mac giving some love to Patches before we leave.

I'm so glad we got to spend so much time in Houston and that I got to get to know Mac's family a little better. It was good to see Grandma again, and to see the different places in Houston that hosted some of Mac's formative years. I'm looking forward to going back at some point and seeing anything we missed this time around.