Sunday, August 06, 2006

Riding a shark on the merry-go-round...

We had fun in Houston. Sam's a pretty good traveller. He doesn't complain too much.

Sam wanted to go to the beach (Galveston is about an hour from Houston), but it didn't work out logistically, and we wouldn't have had much time to hang out, anyway... Also, we had been watching all those shark shows on the Discovery Channel's Shark Week, so I wasn't too excited about swimming in shark-infested waters.

We made it in a little over 5 hours. I met with the gallery owner for just a few minutes. She was busy packing up to move the gallery, so couldn't commit to anything. She said she'd get back with me, so we'll see...

I followed the MapQuest directions, which took us almost through downtown, so Sam saw the aquarium and wanted to go. So we checked into the hotel, ate lunch, and then headed off to the aquarium.


It was pretty nice - not very big and kind of cheesy with themed environments, but it was clean and well laid out.

There was a cool "hands-on" area where you could touch some rays and horseshoe crabs. There was a little bubble in the bottom of the ray tank where kids could crawl under and get a better view of the action and feel like they were really under water:


The big attraction was the white tigers. They were really beautiful and I could have sat and watched them all day. But unfortunately they were right next to the gift shop (aquariums, zoos, and anywhere else parents take kids force you to walk through the gift shop when you exit - it's frustrating)...




Outside the aquarium was a kind of carnival atmostphere. We rode the merry-go-round a few times, played one of those rip-off carnival games, and then rode the train through the shark tunnel. It was lame that you had to pay extra and ride a train, but the tunnel was really cool.



The top of the train was glass and the tunnel was glass so you could see sharks swimming over and all around you. It was similar to the shark tunnel at the Dallas World Aquarium. The one in Houston was cool because it had a ton of sharks and even some sawfish, which are supposedly pretty rare. But it sucked that you had to take a train through it. I would have liked to be able to hang out and watch them longer.


There was a similar tunnel at the aquarium in Albuquerque, but it was full of gi-normous eels. It was really fascinating and creepy.

Sam swam at the hotel that night and then we headed back home yesterday. I asked Sam if he wanted to stop in Huntsville and visit "Big Sam," but he said no (thankfully). He doesn't look that big in this picture that I took as we sped by...


I didn't drag Sam to any museums or galleries. Maybe next time...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you had a great time. I'd like to reserve my space for the next trip, k? :)