Trial, plumbing and the rainforest

     Last year we arrived in Oceanside, Ca. just in time to watch the natives of the area cope with a cold spell.  During our visit to Tucson in February it snowed.  One day of the Accenture pro golf tournament on Dove Mountain near Tuscon was postponed because of the snow on the golf course. This year the residents of this area as well as most of the country are dealing with the Polar Vortex.   It's almost as if we bring the cold weather with us on our annual adventures to southern areas.  The lead story on the local news playing in the background as I write this is all about the horrendous impact on schools and homes from temperatures dropping to the 20's last night.  I am reminded that cold is a relative thing and that people in the south have no idea what cold can really mean.

Trial
     

      We know it is a little abnormal, but when we travel we like to visit courthouses.  Usually the courthouses we visit are historical places built over a hundred years ago.  Occasionally we will visit courts in action.  Given my previous and current occupations, what goes on in the courthouse is an interest of mine and Peggy claims it's interesting to her to watch court in action.  
     The building pictured above is the Galveston County Courthouse and the fourth floor is home to the 10th Judicial District Court.  We meandered in and got caught up watching the case of Texas versus Robbins.  Apparently having visitors to court was a curiosity for the courtroom work group.  During different court breaks the prosecuting attorney chatted with us as did the defense attorney.  After some other court proceedings ended before today's trial session began,  the judge came off the bench and made a special trip to where we were sitting to shake our hands and welcome us to his courtroom.  Everyone was very gracious to us Winter Texans and the case itself was interesting drama.

Plumbing

      If the courthouse thing wasn't weird enough, I want to cover plumbing very briefly.  Among the things that impressed me with the condo are the bathroom sink and the complicated shower.  All I'm going to say is that there is no place on your body you can't rinse when you take a shower here.  Enough said on this topic.

Moody Gardens Rain Forest
     After our unusual detour to the courthouse, we returned to the tourist path.  Our visit today was to Moody Gardens.  At the Moody Gardens complex a visitor has a choice of several pyramid type structures to visit (for a substantial admission).  We waited to visit Moody Gardens until today because we were told that there was a significant discount on the price of admission because Tuesday is seniors day.  The very nice lady at the city visitor center told us about the discounts and assured us that at our age we would qualify.  We learned that you had to be 65 years old to qualify for the discount and, fortunately or unfortunately (however you want to look at it), we didn't qualify. Yet.

     We chose to visit the Rain Forest pyramid.  We enjoyed the visit, not only because it was our first experience this trip with hot and humid, but because the venue presented an interesting blend of plants and critters.  What follows are pictures of some of the critters including a white-faced saki, blue hyacinth macaws, a scarlet ibis, a random butterfly and some cool poisonous frogs.