Houston

Hello and welcome to an incredible Saturday from Houston, Texas here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is April 22nd. 

While Chairman Joe and Teresa have been enjoying Portland and their journey up the Columbia River, my crew and I have been having grand adventures in Houston. Last year, I wrote a blog post #HoustonOrBust about our trek to Houston to attend the 2022 FIRST Championship.

After last year's competition, we made a pact with a friend that, if Team 2883: F.R.E.D. made it to Worlds in 2023, we would road trip. Amazingly, when the team won the Great Northern Regional in Grand Forks, ND, we called our friend and said, "Guess what? We're going to Houston!"

Our friend was game and the road trip planning commenced. Our friend's a good planner and he comes with a lot of perks. Not only can he cook, play, navigate, and drive but he also makes travel playlists. We enjoyed The Music Man soundtrack through Iowa, a kind of very relaxing Hare Krishna music and Paul Simon through Missouri, Oklahoma! in OK, capped off with "Deep in the Heart of Texas" and "Yellow Rose of Texas" when we finally crossed the border into the Lone Star state.

The Fifth and Second Graders were really travel pros. And this isn't just Mama talking. Straight up, these kids behaved, got along, and entertained themselves for 1,500 miles.

Another good move on the part of the travel planners (our friend and me) was to rent an SUV-type vehicle, not only to fit 6 people comfortably but to travel worry-free. Our youngest vehicle is from 2010 and we've already pushed our luck with several other 3,000+ mile road trips.

The travel planner friend also secured us a pretty amazing VRBO by doing some swift, diligent research right after the regional win. We've enjoyed a residential neighborhood that is about 1.5 miles from the George R. Brown Convention Center where all the robot action has taken place. Here's a hot travel tip: When visiting cities, look for accommodations that offer off-street, private parking. It is worth it.

Last year's Worlds trip was all about enjoying the company of the other Robo-moms and staying close to the robot action (Except for a quick jaunt to Galveston to dip our toes into the Gulf of Mexico, but only after FRED did not make it into the playoffs.) For this year's trip, our travel planner friend researched things to do and places to visit while in Houston: A zoo, an aquarium, a children's museum, and Space Center Houston, to name a few. But it was King Tut's Tomb Discovery Experience at the Houston Museum of Natural Science that won unanimous support from the kiddos. 

The bonus, once we drove over there, was learning that the museum is part of a gorgeous, sprawling park complex that includes the museum as well as the Houston Zoo, the children's museum, a fine arts museum, a golf course, an outdoor theater, multiple gardens, and FREE public parking - all in one place! Even though we didn't visit all of these things, the maximizer in me went absolutely bonkers at the availability of so many spectacular things all within walking distance. (And did I mention the FREE public parking?) Back at the VRBO, I learned that this area is called Hermann Park and, folks, if you only have one day to spend in Houston, this is the place to spend it.

Before even getting to the museum, we learned about and saw so many new things! A local couple strolling through the park pointed out black-bellied whistler ducks and an invasive rodent called a nutria which, to my Minnesota eye, looked like a capybara, and these bossy black birds with fanned tails called great-tailed grackles. The best part about traveling with kids is their curiosity and enthusiasm for all things new. Despite the long walk to the museum, the kids hopped, skipped, and squealed with each new delight along the path, while the grown-ups enjoyed the exercise and the warm Texas weather.

Before we immersed ourselves in King Tut's Discovery Experience, we visited the Cockrell Butterfly Center also at the museum. Kids studied the life cycle of bugs, beetles, and creepy crawlies with a studiousness that made me feel proud; like all those hours watching the Sci Channel with Dad had paid off.

Finally, it was time to step back in time - to 1922 - to experience the discovery of King Tut's tomb by following the footsteps of British Egyptologist Howard Carter. The thrills and chills of anticipation prepared me for an Indian Jones-like experience of descending the sixteen steps to the outer chambers and then further into the tomb. Honestly, it wasn't like that. It was a museum environment through and through. But what the museum lacked in real dirt and dust, the kids made up for with their imaginations. We imagined ourselves entering the tomb and marveled at the replicas of the treasures found in the antechambers. We listened to the stories painted on the walls of Tut's tomb and watched the explanations light up across the wall projections. We were in awe of the ornate decorations and ornaments that adorned, well, everything. My favorite was the golden tips placed on King Tut's fingers and toes. We gaped and took in the magnitude of the layers of sarcophagi followed by the multiple coffins, like Russian nesting dolls. We imagined. Imagined, imagined, and imagined some more.

But wait! There's more!

After all that mental floss, we headed over to the Hall of Ancient Egypt where we saw real artifacts and mummies. Then down to the Morian Hall of Paleontology where we were rewarded with massive skeletons of a diplodocus, T-Rex, pterodactyls, mastodons, and a Megalodon jaw positioned to swallow a prehistoric elephant in one bite that made the Second Grader feel like he'd realized his finest dream.

We flurried through the Farish Hall of Texas Wildlife where we saw creatures we never knew existed and zipped through the Frensley/Graham Hall of African Wildlife to study the flanks of zebras up close and came eye-to-eye with a faux gorilla.

Throughout our visit, we passed by the Herzstein Foucault Pendulum to check on its swinging progress and were rewarded with a knocking down of a cone and a cheer from the crowd.

The takeaway from this trip? Well, it reminds me of the story The Bremen Town Musicians. If you haven't read it, a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster decide to make their way to Bremen to become town musicians. Along the way, they encounter a little cottage in the woods where four thieves are feasting and frolicking. The animals frighten the outlaws, who run away, take up residency in the newly vacated little home and never make it to Bremen town at all. This trip was a little like that. We came for the robots (which we did see on Friday) but, the delight and the adventure have been in the journey and discovery along the way.