Back to Houston

Reliant Stadium
Reliant Stadium is home to J.J. Watt and the Houston Texans - who unexpectedly had a horrible season.  Continuing with our exploration of Texas sports stadiums (we've been to Cowboys Stadium, Texas A&M, University of Texas in Austin, Baylor University and probably some I can't remember), we took a tour of Reliant Stadium.  It was what I call functional-nice, but not fancy-nice (like the Cowboys stadium).  It has a retractable roof that was closed when we were there. 

This was the pretty part.

Virginia was our tour guide.

They had taken up the football field and were preparing for a Monster Truck show.

A view from the press box.  They were partially burying cars to make jumps... I think??

Ground-breaking Texas style.  This 1962 photo was in the lobby of the stadium. 

Reliant Stadium is run by the Texans organization for about half the year (during the football season) and then by the Texas Rodeo the other half of the year.  In March they have a rodeo event that lasts for about 3 weeks.  They bring in big name cowboy-folks and singers.  It is a HUGE event in Houston.  It seems that more people were excited about the rodeo than about the Texans. 

The Museum District and Herman Park

We had a chance to ride the light rail into downtown and then back to the Museum District.  We happened to be there on a Thursday afternoon when they make all the museums free!  We took in the Natural History Museum - where we learned even more about how oil is formed and how they get it out of the ground and saw some really neat dinosaur skeletons.

Spooky lighting added to the scary factor when looking at the skeletons

Of course we had to photograph the largest birds that have ever flown.

Right next to the museums, there is the lovely, large Herman Park.  It has large fountains, a great pond where we saw more types of ducks than on any Wildlife Refuge, a Japanese Garden and the Houston Zoo.  It was a beautiful, warm day to walk. 

The Japanese Gardens...probably not as pretty as they might be at another time of year.

More soon :)  Peggy