Houston Roundup

Texas, Texas, Texas

Houston is huge. You see it when you arrive at the airport. The baggage claim area is spacious. Which is good, because when you hear the instructions for picking up firearms you can back away.

The room at Residence Inn Downtown Houston was huge. Huge. A living room, a full kitchen, a dining area, a dance floor between the king sized bedroom and bathroom.

My living room

Bush Senior

Running in the city is nice because the sidewalks are big, and broad. It’s easy to run when it’s 59 degrees and sunny at 7 a.m. and everything is flat as a board.  I found myself at the Buffalo Bayou Park one morning after passing some huge public art.  Bike and running trails and land, lots of land. 

Buffalo Bayou Park

Big Art

The grand shrine that is the Marriott Marquis de Houston is not built to human scale. The lobby atrium is miles wide and stories high, the meeting rooms have vaulted ceilings with enormous chandelier lighting. 

Big Marriott meeting room

Big messages

Texas is all about Texas. A friend once said of a woman who was particularly keen on her ancestry, “Everything’s got to be Norway, Norway, Norway.” Well in Texas, it is Texas all the time. It’s the most self referential and self reverential of states.  Everything is shouting Texas.  From the décor at the Marriott Marquis to the quote from the Texas poet laureate in the sidewalk, to the cowboy boot the ice sculptor surprised us with.

A friend of mine lives in San Antonio, though she is really all Malibu/Tucson. I asked her to rescue me during my stay. She immediately hatched a plan for us to leave Houston. We would go to the nearby beach, Kemah and see the cool shops and eat at a waterside restaurant. But this was not to be. We were soon to learn that Houston’s rainfall is also huge -- 51 inches a year. And a good two to three inches decided to fall on our “beach day.”

We checked out the Rothko Chapel. It is a modern chapel filled with 14 enormous Rothko paintings, all black. Or, are they? The idea is to sit quietly and look at these paintings until you feel something. The vastness of the universe or the dark hole of outer space. Or until you start to see something. I thought I saw Monet’s Water Lilies under the surface.  Or if you turn your head away and then snap it back, you will see the black paintings turn purple. 

Rothko Chapel

There’s a little light rail that runs through Houston.  The fare is only $1.25.  Efficient, above ground, clean and nice.  I got on it downtown and went to Rice University for its running path.  It turns out Rice is nice. 

A word about the big hair

They can’t help it. The women with the big hair in Houston.  They have just given up and given in to the huge humidity that ruins everyone’s hair. So why not poof out and make it big and stiffen it with spray? Because I guarantee you that there is no amount of “product” that will keep your hair straight and sleek. There was 100 % humidity BEFORE the rain. Really. Surrender to win, as they say.

Rice is nice

So I liked you pretty well, Houston.  You give a person a lot of space. You are welcoming but not warm.  You are large without being small. Your Mexican food (Pappasitos Cantina, and Last Concert Cafe) is not half bad. You’re the fourth largest city in the United States, no less! No wonder you are huge.

Texas Chainsaw ice sculptor...

...gives us the boot