Here's a brief summary of my trip to Houston yesterday:

We got to the Houston Museum of Natural Science early, so we looked around at the dinosaur bones and the Foucault's Pendulum before we began our exhibit, Saint Peter and the Vatican. I have to say that the exhibit was quite well done, with interesting artifacts and explanations. There were several very beautiful works of art, and overall, I found it uplifting. My only criticism is that it tended to focus on the material rather than the spiritual aspects of the Vatican, but being a museum exhibit it could hardly help it. It certainly made me wish I could go there, though!

After we completed the Vatican exhibit, we had a little time until we had to watch a presentation in the planetarium...we stood in line for a while. My sister Toni got one of those squished penny things. Finally, we got into the planetarium to see the show, Galileo's Legacy. It wasn't as bad as I had feared, in the religion department, although several quotes were taken out of context, of course. The planetarium dome format, which was something new for me, I found stimulating and enjoyable. Be that as it may, I cannot help but think it was responsible for a slight headache (just enough to be annoying) that lingered most of the afternoon.

When we left the museum, we were all pretty hungry, so dad drove us a few miles to a great little place called the Hobbit Cafe. It was a house-converted-into-restaurant setting, with cute, rustic types of decoration, in addition to a few Lord of the Rings memorabilia. Best of all, the food was delicious, in a wholesome way. I had their black bean burger, which was perfectly enormous, yet I ate it all and the French fries with which it came.

From the restaurant, dad drove us on the "scenic route" (which was basically just the affluent neighborhood in Houston) back to downtown. There's no denying it was very pretty. Azaleas abound in the city, and it is liberally allotted trees and shrubs. The weather, however, was humid and smoggy, at least yesterday, though there was a pleasant enough breeze.

Back downtown, we parked and walked the few blocks to the Enron building. Our exploration thereof was more strange than enjoyable, although we did get a nice view of Houston from the 43rd floor, as well as some free pads of sticky notes. Anyway, after that, we went into the Tunnel, which wasn't very exciting; I don't think we went into the parts in which, my dad informed us, there are shops and stores. Then, after stopping for a while in a random park, we left the city. We stopped in Katy to eat some very good Thai food for dinner.