Tour of Ballparks - Episode 5: Minute Maid Park, Houston, Tx

Our tour of ballparks continues as we headed down I-45 South to Houston, home of Minute Maid Park and the dreaded Houston Astros.

Minute Maid Park aka "The Juice Box".

Our Texas Rangers were playing the Houston Astros.

We were in enemy territory...until they announced that Angel Hernandez was behind home plate calling balls and strikes as he imagines them to be (vs. actual balls and strikes), then we were all on the same team. He got more boos than Adolis Garcia. If you check out his accuracy of that game, you'll understand why!

We were celebrating the most hated player on the Rangers team! He actually got booed!

Minute Maid Park is actually pretty cool. It's right on the edge of downtown Houston. They have a retractable roof but it's full of windows so you can see all the buildings. The park is built on what used to be Union Station and the train is in homage to the site's history. As a lover of history, I like it!

This would be Bobby Dynamite. He's the "engineer" and he wears Astros overalls. Some guy behind us was wearing that same outfit. It looked way better on him than on Bobby. When the Astros take the field in the first inning, score a run or hit a homer, Bobby moves the train forward 800 feet, rings the bell and toots the horn (according to the web). He also gets the fans fired up. 

It was a great game. The fans gave us some grief but it was all good natured, especially considering they lost 12- 8. The guy we were sitting next to asked if we were staying for the fireworks. Why not? They opened the roof, which was cool to watch and then for the next 30 minutes, we had another great show. They do this for every Friday night home game. 

But wait! There's more!  We went down on Tuesday and the game wasn't until Friday so we had some time to knock around Houston. I have to admit, it's not my favorite city. I've been there for work several times and I always got lost. Thank God for the map on the phone. We stayed at the Hampton Inn downtown about a block from the ballpark. It was a great location.

When you think of Houston, you don't think of outdoor things because it's usually very muggy. We picked a perfect week to be there. The weather was fantastic. We went to the Houston Botanical Gardens. It wasn't what I expected but I saw some cool things like this worm chowing down on this apple. These fuzzy worms were all over the place!

We also saw this Great White Egret. It scared the crap out of me because I thought it was a statue. It moves...fast.

We had the whole place to ourselves!

The Menil Collection is a FREE museum that is on the University of St. Thomas campus. It's a cool collection of sculptures, paintings and African art. No photos inside.

Houston is the county seat of Harris County. This is the 1910 Harris County Courthouse. The original courthouse on this site was erected in 1838. Subsequent courthouses also on this site were in 1851, 1860 and 1884. The first courthouse was a log structure that was eventually enlarged and then sold. The 1851 courthouse was erected in it's place but after nine years of service, the walls began to crack so it was demolished. The 1860 courthouse was started but construction was interrupted by the Civil War. It was never finished and the square was used as a municipal park. Then in 1884, a fourth courthouse was built. However, after twenty-five years of use, it too was deemed a fire hazard and demolished.

One thing I really liked about downtown was all the murals. I really liked this one.

This one was good too. It was at the back of our hotel in a parking lot.

We also visited the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center, also not what I expected. There is lots of nature.

I thought it would be more like our Arboretum with tons of flowers, etc. but it was mostly walking trails. That was alright too. We did the outer loop. Since it was Thursday, parking was free. Entrance to the Arboretum is always free.

Then we went the Houston Fine Arts Museum. Surprise! It's FREE on Thursdays! What a nice surprise. Especially because we went after lunch not realizing how huge it was...three buildings! If we paid the entrance fee, I'd have felt the need to power through all three buildings. Instead we got to leisurely enjoy the first building. This was one of my favorite paintings. It's called "By The River" by John Singer Sargent.

Another favorite: "Saint Mary Magdalene" by Michele Tosini. We have already decided that we need to come back and enjoy the remaining buildings.

One of the many historic buildings in downtown, this is the United States Custom House built in 1907. It housed a post office, federal courts and the customs offices but now houses federal offices.

The Annunciation Church, also in downtown Houston across the street from our hotel. It's a beautiful church and you can see the steeple from several places downtown. It's the second Catholic Church in Houston. It was built in 1869 with the intention of it becoming a Cathedral but never reached that status.

On our last afternoon, we tried to go to Herman Park. It was a Friday with amazingly beautiful weather so that wasn't an original idea. It was a mob scene! We circled the parking lot with about 20 other cars so we gave up and went to Buffalo Bayou Park. This place was cool. Tons of trails, some only for walkers (vs. bikers). We picked a trail and followed it for a while.

Then we found this fantastic view of the Houston skyline. It wasn't packed but there were others there (they probably couldn't find a place to park at Herman Park either!).

After our day of walking around, we hung out at the rooftop pool to read and relax before we headed to the game.

What a fun time we had! It helped that the Rangers won on Friday. Luckily we didn't stay for the other two games. We will definitely do this again!

Jackson, MS: The City with Soul!

Recently, I told you about Brendan graduating from Ranger school.  Well, there was more to that trip.

We drove to Columbus, Georgia and since we were going all that way, once again, in keeping with our "stop in towns along the way" theme, we stopped in Jackson, Mississippi.

If you like history like I like history, this is a cool town to visit. First, Jackson is the capital of Mississippi, which is another bucket list item (there are so many!).  

This is the original capitol building. It was built in 1839 and is at the top of the main street through downtown. It's a gorgeous building. It's now the "Old Capitol Museum" and it's open Weds - Fri from 10:30 - 2pm. And, it's free!  Unfortunately, we didn't have time to go in as we were only there for one day. 

In 1903, they built a new capitol building. We've been to a few capitols but we must have gone when congress was not in session because they were fairly empty. This one was a hive of activity.  We didn't stay long for a couple of reasons. First, this one didn't seem to have much by way of art of exhibits. I guess all those are in the old capitol museum. Second, it was awkward like if I went to visit you at work and you were extremely busy and I was really just in the way.

The Governor's Mansion is right in the middle of downtown and it's surrounded by an iron fence. They don't want salespeople just walking up to the door and ringing the bell. Construction began in 1839 and the first governor moved in in 1842. You can tour the mansion on Tues or Thurs at 9:30, 10 or 10:30 but you must call in advance...which we did not. Next time!

The state of Mississippi was admitted to the union in 1817 and by 1860, was the top cotton producing state in the union. Enslaved people made up 55% of the population.  How did I know that? 

One of the reasons we didn't have time for much else was because we went to this museum: Two Mississippi Museums. It's one building and one price ($15) for Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.

The Museum of Mississippi History was good. It's starts with a film narrated by Morgan Freeman and there are a lot of cool factoids that I learned. For example, the Choctaw Indians that control the casinos in Oklahoma? They're from Mississippi. They were "removed" to Oklahoma. There were other cool films and exhibits as you progress through time. This is an exhibit that shows an example of the quarters for enslaved people. It's not exactly like a Hilton.

The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum...holy moly! It was very well done. John thought both museums rivaled anything that you'd see in Washington DC and I would agree. After the Civil War, folks in the South had Jim Crow laws that were not favorable to people of color. (I know that's putting it mildly as shown by the Civil Rights Museum). This is an exhibit about Emmitt Till, a 14 year old boy from Chicago killed in Money, Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Justice was not served here on earth. We can only hope it's being served eternally. The short film, narrated by Oprah, left me disturbed.

This exhibit is about three Civil Rights workers that were in Philadelphia, Mississippi that "went missing". Did you ever see the movie Mississippi Burning? It's about these guys. Forty-one years after these men were killed, their killer was convicted.

When we got there, the museum was super busy with students there on a field trip. That was so cool! I didn't realize that students still did field trips and how lucky for them to come here. 

The museum was very powerful and I walked out of there thinking that I could never be as brave as the people that fought for Civil Rights. If you are interested in this type of history, I highly recommend this museum. Plan to spend the day because there's a lot of stuff.

One last little museum that we didn't get to go into but will have to check out next time is Medgar & Myrlie Evers house. Medgar Evers was a Civil Rights Activist and the man received tons of death threats, so much so that their house does not have a door on the front. You have to go in through the carport, which they thought would be safer. He was shot and killed in his driveway in 1963. His killer was finally convicted in 1994.

This house is in the middle of a neighborhood. That has to be a little weird for the neighbors to have a museum across the street.

A few little interesting factoids about Jackson. It was named for Andrew Jackson. There's 153,000 people that live in Jackson and it's the largest city in Mississippi. It's also the only city that has more than 100,000 people. There are seven colleges in Jackson with Jackson State University being the largest. The three largest employers in Jackson are The University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson Public Schools and Nissan NorthAmerica.

It's called the city with soul because of all the historical landmarks in the city and how they've helped shape the our country's history.

Our visit to Mississippi was certainly moving and informative. I'm hoping that we go back so I can check out the other museums. 

Rangers lead the way!

Something cool happened this week.  You may remember last year that Brendan graduated from West Point. Well this week we all gathered in Columbus Georgia to witness yet another graduation. This time from Army Ranger training. If you thought he was cool before, he’s a badass Ranger now!

Waiting to get into the graduation area. Brendan's roommate, Sebastian, was kind enough to escort us around. (That's him on the far left with his back to us). Cubna, another of Brendan's friends from West Point, came from Minnesota to show his support. The remaining peeps in the photo are Destiny, Mom, Michele and John.

The graduation ceremony was awesome. The “trainers”, (if you can call them that because these guys were Army Rangers too!), did some demonstrations of the skills that these new Rangers acquired. There was hand-to-hand combat, Rangers inserted into enemy territory...it was incredible.

This was where they were demonstrating their ability to blow stuff up. This was really cool. First you saw a little bit of fire, then a loud BOOM, then the explosions. It was like a movie!

This Ranger is rappelling down the side of the building with an "injured" comrade. To be clear, this guy is rappelling down the wall while carrying another person who would, in theory, be injured. Unbelievable!

The little dots in the air on the rope suspended from the helicopter are Rangers being extracted from a location. These guys are harnessed to that rope. That's all that's keeping them from dropping to the ground. That's why these guys are badasses.

From the program, these were some the officers that graduated Ranger school. To do this, the Rangers-in-training were put through the ringer. They spent time in the mountains, the swamps and the woods in survival mode eating only MREs (which I understand tastes like crap on a cracker unless you've been in the woods, the swamps and the mountains and then it's quite delicious).

What's really awe-inspiring to me is that there were four women that graduated as well. They did everything the men did, no special treatment. Girl power!

A little selfie as we wait for the Rangers to be "pinned" with their Ranger tabs. Behind us is Mark, Sebastian, James and Cubna.

Before the guys took the Ranger oath, the families were invited to come down and "pin" their Rangers. It was pandemonium! You can kind of see Mark and Michele. They are in the middle back toward the river. Brendan was swallowed up by the crowd.

The Bravo Company graduating class. Brendan is second from the left on the second to last row.

All three companies graduating and reciting the oath.

The family there to support Brendan. Note the Ranger tab on his arm. It was a great day! The weather was perfect!

Brendan and Grans. I thought this was a great photo.

After the ceremony, Brendan took us to the National Infantry Museum. It's right outside Ft. Moore and it's free! 

Brendan and Sebastian telling us about the exhibit that we were looking at. What better guide to the infantry museum than an Army Ranger who is in the Infantry?

The museum is cool. It basically tells you about all the history of the U. S. Army Infantry through various wars. I would have liked to spend more time there.

This was one of my favorite photos. So not only was Brendan graduating as a Ranger but it was also his birthday. Because he'd been living on MREs for 3 months, he got to pick where we went for dinner. He chose Ruth's Chris Steakhouse...in Atlanta...which was about an hour and a half. Our reservation was at 7pm so we had to pick them up at 5pm. Five minutes into the trip, Brendan crashed and slept the whole way.

Downtown Atlanta was chaos because the Atlanta Hawks were playing a home game and the arena was across the street from the hotel. We had to park in some weird under the street type lot and then walk about half a mile to the restaurant. Clearly, that didn't matter. The birthday boy was happy.

What a great weekend!