Or the worse-than-LA traffic?
Robin
Two sites you can check out on hte web for water parks. Sine I’m not from Texas, I can’t give a personal reference as to how good they are:
And here is a site that has other things of interest:
http://www.houstonpage.com/tourist.htm
Enjoy!
And since no one’s mentioned it, Houston was recently determined to be the “fattest city in America”.
I believe that during this time of year, Houstonians just move from one air-conditioned venue to another (house to car to office to car to mall, etc). Minutes spent out-of-doors are minimal.
[General Zod]
So, this is planet Houston…what a strange surface.
[/General Zod]
With that, he wasn’t wrong. 
Since the first of the year, I’ve been traveling to Houston every two weeks or so. I too am arriving on Sunday.
Definitely rent the car. Turn up the air con in the car and your hotel room and you’ll be fine.
I’ll third the Ginger Man. Once you go there you are in the so-called Rice Village section, which is about the most pleasant part of the city I’ve found. Plenty of good places to eat around there; Collina’s, just up the street, does outstanding pizzas.
Good town for bands. Find a copy of the City Paper to see what’s happening.
If you can stand baseball, and if the 'Stros are in town, a game at Enro- , I mean Minute Maid Park is worth the trip. It’s a beautiful ball park, and the A/C works a treat.
Cheers,
Don’t know when you were here last but Downtown Houston is kind of happening these days. Maybe you would enjoy seeing the Lion King at Jones Hall.
The Astros will be playing the Brewers and the Cubs on the road but maybe a tour of the park would be fun. We took some kids there on a school field trip. They seemed to enjoy.
Minutemaid Park
I just want you to know that, despite whatever antagonisms may have arisen, I have never ever wished Houston upon you.
Ever.
Houston also has a very good fine art museum.
Oh, fer chrissake. Lies, lies and more lies about Houston. And from Texans. The shame, the envy, etc.
Pretty much all of Texas is going to be blazing hot this time of year. And I will let minty explain to us how 105F in Dallas/FW is ever so much more comfortable than 95F in Houston (actually, scanning the temps in the paper from my new northern perch, I see that it’s been on the cool side in much of Texas this summer). Still, do not plan on doing anything resembling exertion outdoors between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. You will regret it.
Too bad you weren’t in San Antonio a couple of weeks ago to enjoy the region-wide water park.
If only the Astros were in town, you would be able to enjoy baseball in air-conditioned comfort (they open the roof when it cools down in the evening), eat mediocre ballpark food and sing “Deep In The Heart of Texas” during the 7th inning stretch. Homebrew is dead on with recommending Pappadeaux’s. Have a large bowl of the sausage and seafood gumbo, a mess of crawfish and some sweet potato pecan pie (I will enjoy vicariously). Take the people that hate you out to dinner there, and they might end up only disliking you mildly.
Rice Village is a pretty good place to hang out of an evening, shop and eat.
You can take a nice tour of NASA. The kiddies will have fun. Send elucidator a t-shirt, if they have extra extra extra large.
I’ll give you directions to my old house, and you can tell me how the old bat who bought it has destroyed my garden. But keep an eye out for snakes.
There’s a lovely sculpture garden across the street from the art museum as well – the pics on my website were taken there (and around the museum in general). The museum district is good; all the museums are within about five minutes of each other. I like the Museum of Natural Science, there’s also a planetarium and IMAX there and the Cockrell (?) Butterfly Garden-Pyramid thingy. All of this indoors, of course, except for the sculpture garden, but I’m a freak and I can wear a coat in this weather.
I work down the street from NASA; as far as that’s concerned, there’s a tour and then a family-oriented indoor um, “Amusement and Learning” centre called Space Center Houston. Don’t eat the Space Dots though, they give you brain freeze. The Kemah Boardwalk is very cool for food; there are a lot of restaurants, a miniature train, a ferris wheel and a couple other kiddie-type rides. I haunt Galveston occasionally because I like to sit on the seawall, but the Strand is awesome if you want to see a bunch of cool antique stores, an old-style ice cream shop, old Victorian houses and other neat shopping. About ten minutes down the road that runs along the seawall, you can follow the signs to Moody Gardens, which also has an IMAX, an aquarium, and a rainforest pyramid. Moody Gardens is cool but a bit pricey.
If you take a day trip to Galveston in a rent car, you could visit the Strand, the beach, have lunch somewhere along the sea wall (there are many, many restaurants) and then visit Moody Gardens. There’s also a pretty cool mini-golf course a bit past the turn for Moody Gardens.
I don’t recommend Astroworld. The lines are long, everything is overpriced (including tickets), and even on the weekdays it is very, very crowded. Not worth it given other options, IMO. (Especially air conditioned options.)
Is the Kemah boardwalk near the museums and NASA?
If it is that might be my Thursday, day trip. Either that or Glaveston, then perhaps a last supper at Pappadeux before I face death.
Is that doable?
Well the museums are downtown, but Kemah and NASA are not so far apart. Heading out from Houston (south) you have NASA, then Kemah, then Galveston. It would be pretty easy to go from one to another in one day (And I have done so myself in the past.) The museum district is downtown, about 45 minutes from where I am, and I am slightly north of the NASA area. If you decided to go the museum route, you’d be better off eating somewhere in the Rice Village/Uptown area, but I can’t help you much with that as I seldom go up there myself.
I’d offer to tour guide for you, but I’m timid about meeting people that know more about me than I do them, and I have to work that day anyway.
Oh, and I’d like to add, you DON’T want to get stuck downtown during rush hour. The traffic south of Houston can be heavy on I-45 going north around 4-6 o’clock, but it doesn’t approach anything like the traffic downtown and around the 610 loop at that time.
If you are out near Deer Park or Pasedena (the far east side of Houston) take a couple of hours to visit the San Jacinto monument and battlefield. That Washington feller’ has a pretty nice obelisk, but with the star, ours is a bit taller.
Don’t forget to visit the Texas, the only surviving pre-WW1 Dreadnought class battleship.
If you are downtown, there is a tunnel system connecting most of the major buildings so that you don’t have to get out in the heat. Texans hate to sweat just as much as you do.
Will they let you in if you’re not a Morlock?
Just curious, Scylla: are these people among the ones you tried to electrocute on your fence?
Oddlt, some are.
They’re in-laws and they really really hate me.
The “Clear Lake” area is about 25 miles SE of Downtown. NASA, the Kemah Boardwalk, plus several bars around Clear Lake abound. I haven’t been down there in some years.
The Gingerman is worthy. It is also in sight of about 4 other bars (The Villiage Ice House, Baker Street pub-home to a couple of Dopefests, The Bar formerly known as Griff’s, The Bronx.) The Villiage has many other bars and restaraunts within walking distance.
The museum district has several museums (Natural science, Fine Arts, Holocoust, Childrens museum.) Papadeaux’s is quite good. So is Pappa’s Seafood, Pappasito’s, Pappamia’s, Pappa’s Barbeque. It is all owned by (duh) the Poppa’s family, but it tends to be pricey, by Houston standards, which I hear is fairly inexpensive compared to most big cities.
I still get surprised as to how many people think of Houston as an arid climate. I even remember a TV show which superimposed the skyline onto a desert. As the above posters have said, it is a humid, wet place that averages about 47 inches of rain a year.
A great place to grow rice.