Houston for Free

Houston is like a beehive. All the busy bees are buzzing around it night and day on all kinds of trajectories. Once off the highway, it’s not too bad, not as crowded as we had expected, but you’ve got to account for rush hour when coming or going, just as in any big city. I liked downtown. The soaring steel and glass skyscrapers compete for being the most futuristic and innovative-looking. I think they’re neat, and you can park in front of the visitor’s center for an hour for free. 

Across the street is Tranquility Park with its symbolic tribute to space travel. Fountains, statues and parks crop up every few blocks. We drove through a wealthy neighborhood with palatial homes and beautiful mature landscaping. Some roads are rough and narrow and laughably designated as bike routes although you’d be insane. We followed Memorial drive along the bayou, although you can’t really see it from a car, and stopped in Memorial Park where lots of people were walking and jogging. From there we went to see a few free sights in the museum district.

Rothko Chapel is a beige brick octagonal building. Inside, there are 14 floor-to-ceiling paintings by Mark Rothko. The huge paintings are black or dark purple and black. A few have a dark horizontal stripe (other than black) along the bottom. Visitors can sit on black plastic chairs, a meditation cushion or a small turkish rug. The idea was to create a non-denominational spiritual place for contemplation and meditation. The paintings aren’t supposed to represent anything so you can get away from preconceived notions of everything. I like the philosophy, but the art doesn’t do much for me. 

We visited the nearby Menil Collection, which has a well-displayed eclectic art collection from various countries. The security guards follow you around and watch your every move. It’s a bit creepy, but perhaps they’re worried people might touch the unprotected pieces in the middle of a room or sneak a photo. 

Our last cultural stop for the day was the Byzantine Fresco Chapel. Inside the outer building is a unique opaque plastic “chapel”, open on the sides, that houses 13th-century religious frescoes that had been stolen from Cypress. The Menils discovered them and purchased and brought them to Houston.  

We had lunch in Hermann park and admired the blooming azaleas. I had assured David there was a bike trail that went through this park. We had our bikes with us but didn’t know where to park. We drove around until we found the trail. It followed the bayou, which, in this section, looked like a deep ditch with concrete sides, crossed a busy intersection and was closed in several places because of construction. Farther on it crossed more busy intersections and turned into a narrow sidewalk. “I don’t want to bike it,” said David. 

We went back to the trailer, got our computers and went to Starbuck’s to get on the Internet. The Port of Houston had sent me an email late in the afternoon canceling our boat tour the following day, which was our last in Houston. Gee, I wish they could have given me a little more notice. We could have gone another day.

The next day we went to the San Jacinto Battleground where Sam Houston defeated General Santa Anna’s Mexican army in a decisive 18-minute battle that resulted in Texas’ independence from Mexico 1836. My 2011 tour book said the state historic site, including the monument and museum, was $1. When we got there, we found out that the museum and grounds were free, the movie was $4.50, the observation tower was $4.00 and the special exhibit was $5. You could go to everything for $12. 

Not in our budget, so we just looked at the free stuff on the ground floor, trying to read while a couple hundred little school kids made a huge din. Their teachers could not get them to be quiet. A man who worked there told them to be quiet. They were quiet for about 5 seconds. The exhibits themselves were just okay, and we learned very little about the battle itself. There were no plaques about the battlefield outside, so unlike Canada where everything was thoroughly explained on outside plaques at every historic site we went to. 

We drove around some unmarked roads and found ourselves in a very nice, huge picnic area with lots of trees, grass, picnic tables and a view of the bay. So we had lunch. Then we walked to the bay. On the beach was a huge black PVC pipeline with fluid (oil?) passing quickly and noisily through it. It was low tide. At high tide it would be submersed.

After that, we drove to a nature preserve, passing by many petroleum processing plants along the way. They look like elaborate puzzles of piping, towers, tubing, domes, holding tanks and steel structures of various shapes and sizes. Flames followed by smokey plumes spewed from tall, thin towers where something was being burned off. Perhaps that’s what makes the haze. You begin to get an idea of the magnitude of the oil industry in this part of the country.

We decided not to pay to go into the preserve. Instead we went to Kemah, which has a boardwalk with a wooden roller coaster, other rides, restaurants and shops. It’s a small carnival on the water, clean and nicely landscaped. A little train runs throughout the complex. At $5 a ride, the $20 a day pass would be the way to go. We walked around, looked at Galveston Bay and returned to the trailer. Next time we come to Houston, perhaps we’ll have more money to spend, but, for a quick breeze through Houston, free was just fine.