Downtown chick

This week is mostly featuring Downtown. It seems strange because I ended up downtown Houston three times this week so I now know my way in and a little around, well as long as I don’t try anything new! On Monday I agreed to judge posters as the AAPG student Expo that was held at a huge convention centre downtown. Some of the posters and students presenting them were very good. I got a free dinner out of it and handed in my judging forms - I don’t know which student won in the end I will have to find out!

On Thursday night we went to Discovery Green to sit on the lawn and watch a Texan band called the Texas Tornados from San Antonio. It was really pleasant weather - autumn must be coming! And we set up our chairs with Cecelia, Eric and Laura. The beer queue was enormous so poor Stuart was sent off to stand in it. The band was ok and for a free night out it was certainly worth the effort, but next time we will be more organised and take a picnic for our tea!

Another feature of the week was the Harvest Moon. Having read great things about what we were going to see we planned to head to the George Bush reservoir for open space and a good view of both the sun setting and the moon rising. "Sept. 22, 2010: For the first time in almost 20 years, northern autumn is beginning on the night of a full Moon. The coincidence sets the stage for a "Super Harvest Moon" and a must-see sky show to mark the change of seasons. The action begins at sunset on Sept 22nd, the last day of northern summer. As the sun sinks in the west, bringing the season to a close, the full Harvest Moon will rise in the east, heralding the start of fall. The two sources of light will mix together to create a kind of 360-degree, summer-autumn twilight glow that is only seen on rare occasions." Well it wasn’t as clear as one would have liked but the Harvest Moon is when the sun and the moon come up and down at the same time and so the moon gets really bright and because it comes very close to the earth should also appear very big. The clouds were just in the wrong place for us so we saw a nice enough sunset with the sun highlighting the storm clouds in the sky, but only saw the moon when it rose above the band of clouds. It didn’t seem any bigger to us and pretty unimpressive as you see by my little white dot on the photo! So I don’t know what all the fuss was about but apparently that was the thing for once every 20 years!! The next day going to work however, had a spectacular sunrise over downtown. Apologies for the quality of the picture that was through the office window, but I hope you can see how nice it was! (Better than our Harvest moon experience!).

On Saturday I was up early for our usual run and then I was meeting Laura downtown (see there again) for yoga on the lawn at Discovery Green. Yes we were outside between the skyscrapers with everyone watching us. It was fun for the experience but I didn’t think the yoga was anything to rave about. I like my classes at the gym better. Laura had a lady in front of her that was wearing way too short shorts and it was most unpleasant during downward facing dog!

I found a new way Mum and Dad should decorate the golf buggy - just look at this one that was busy moving stuff around!

I have finally got rid of the fluff monster, aka my cheap Ikea white shag pile rug. I was fed up of chasing the white dust bunnies around the house with our terrible vacuum cleaner. In its place Stuart and I went and found a cow! It even has its branding number - how cool. It is very soft and currently smells a bit animal like but it says that should go away in a couple of days! I hope the cockroaches don’t get attracted to it!

The final excitement for the week, well more for Stuart, we went to see Rush playing live in the Woodland Pavilion. The place was packed with all the seats and grass area covered in people, apparently it holds up to 17,000. Since Stuart was on the fan emailing list he bought tickets early on and got seats towards the front. We were off to the side a bit but they weren’t too bad. They had some issues with sound when it started off but they eventually got that sorted - however that did not deter the many fans from shouting and jumping around. We got home at midnight with our ears buzzing! My third Rush concert down :)

Houston Hot Sauce Festival - take 2!

It was that time again – The Houston Hot Sauce Festival! It is hard to believe a year has gone by and we went to this last year on Stuart’s second weekend in the states. Just as he did last year he went all out to prove he is a chilli monster. We had quite a group of us this time and Stuart found some others with a similar passion for the heat (therefore did not put much attention on me having to try some very hot sauces!).

There were lots of stands and they left the best (or most evil) to last of course. The only one that nearly killed me was a chocolate habanero sauce – it tasted of yummy chocolate for about 2 secs shortly followed by seriously burning throat – not so pleasant! Of course I did not attempt one of the hottest hot sauce in the world unlike some others! Let me tell you they came away with a foam chile-head hat and a coozie but based on Stuart’s expression last night the pain keeps coming. Even as he was sweating the chilli was coming through his pores and burning his skin!

After all the tasting there was time for some normal food – hot dogs and burgers and of course frozen chocolate dipped bananas – oh Stuart!!

My First (Triathlon!)

Last weekend was a busy one. Friday night we were out celebrating Cecelia’s birthday at Little Woodrows in Midtown. It was fair group of people and they slowly managed to consume the beers! At midnight I dragged Stuart home because I needed to get up for running at 0530 the following morning. It was not easy getting up I have to admit but I always feel better for it, and I was a short run day (6 miles) so I don’t mind those. I decided we should go and see the butterfly centre at the museum. It is a large butterfly conservatory and all the butterflies are flying around in a hot tropical paradise (Stuart did ask why we had come to see this during Houston’s summer!) They also had displays of all sorts of insects, most of them pretty ugly and creepy. Since we were going to Karen and Dave’s for dinner we needed a gift some bought them some cheddar flavoured maggots! They weren’t that excited when we gave them to them!! Dinner was great and since they knew I was doing the triathlon the following morning in combination with weightwatchers they did a great balanced meal J Not to mention I got to go home with a couple of weightwatcher recipe books to give us some more ideas. Again it was nearly 11pm before bead and another 5am rise – oh joy. Stuart had agreed to come with Amy and I to support us at the triathlon so he didn’t even get a lie in.I have now successfully completed my first Triathlon and actually quite enjoyed it surprisingly! It was held along the road from us at Katy High School. So that meant the swimming was in a pool. Quit often in Houston the swims are open water, therefore in a lake, but after speaking to a girl at this event about alligators and snakes to look out for at those events I may be tempted to stick with the swimming pool! The course was a 400m swim, 14 mile bike ride and 3 mile run, otherwise known as a sprint!! I laugh at the comment sprint as I am more of a getting through it person rather than a sprinter but I was assured there would be plenty of other like me. I realise I would never win one of these events, but I am competitive enough not to like coming last!! With 300 folk taking part I was cautiously optimistic I wouldn’t be at the end.

You all get written on with marker pen to indicate your number and you get a timing chip to put around your ankle to track your times across electronic mats. Since swimming is first the order I which you swim is determined by the time you put down to swim the 400m. I gave myself a little longer as the instructions on the webpage were very strict on not underestimating your time and holding up other people. Anyway we all stood in numerical order and took about 30 minutes from the starters to me to get in the water. There was a person entering the pool approximately every 10 seconds! I didn’t know the format before starting but you swim up and down the lane then duck under the lane rope and do the same again across the pool, since it was 8 lanes wide you did the 400m (16 lengths) and got out the other side of the pool. I managed to overtake at least two people before the end of the first length and then overtook another few before the end of the swim. Only one guy got my goat as I tapped him on the feet (as you are meant to do to indicate you want past) and he didn’t let me go at the end of the lane. So I took him up the straight and hopefully gave him a mouthful of water! The transition from swim to bike was my longest I had to put on a top and put shoes and socks on however I was pretty impressed I did it all and if I hadn’t lost my sock (I moved it in my hast to get dressed) then it would have been even better! The bike was fine but I didn’t have anyone close to chase o I just set myself a goal of staying about 17 mph. When the road surface was smooth it was easy to go faster but I still did pretty well (I say myself)! Next was riding in to the transition area for another shoes change before going for the final run. Well I was suddenly feeling tired and had jelly legs! I did my best to run away from the start, slightly choking on the cup of water I grabbed (note to self don’t do that again!), but once around the corner I had to walk a bit. There was certainly nothing spectacular about my run, actually it was dismal, and half way around I thought I was going to die of heat exhaustion since the sun was fully up as it was after 9am. After a bottle of cold water at the end I was feeling fine and all the pain of the run had been forgotten – when is the next?!

So I can 143^rd in the end – not too shabby . But I was most happy about my swim as I came 1^st in my age group (out of 23 doing it in 7:21 even though I had put down 9:00 for my start time. I could probably have been even better if I hadn’t had to overtake! Next time! Things to work on – going from biking to running. My results are below so I will be able to compare them in the future.

Swim 7:21.2; T1 2:06.1; Bike 46:39.0 (avg speed 18 mph); T2 1:52.9; Run 37:28.8 (avg 12.05 min miles!); Total 1:35:28.2

Positions: 12 out of 23 (age group); 143^rd overall

Grapevine Texas

On Labour Day weekend, Stuart, Laura, Danny and me headed about 4.5 hours north of Dallas to a little place called Grapevine. Laura had heard about it from a friend and so we decided it would be fun to check it out. We decided to leave on the Saturday morning to miss the Friday night rush out of Houston and that worked quite well. We took off up I45 when Laura said oh Christie never comes this way because of the traffic - useful comment when there were no other options left!! Fortunately it wasn’t a problem as there was no real traffic to talk off.

What happened on the journey up - we saw a flying palm tree and a big statue of Sam Houston. We stopped for lunch at place that said it was famous for its jerky. I have always been sceptical of the dried out lengths of meat, but the lady gave us a taste of their buffalo jerky and it was really good - not as chewy and dried out as I expected it to be. So my lunch was a stick of buffalo jerky and Laura's was a bag of kettle corn (with me occasionally helping her out)!! Just around Dallas we narrowly avoided two sheets of corrugated iron in the middle of the freeway followed by a whole car bumper!

We just managed to catch the end of the Grapevine farmers market but no in time to try anything unfortunately so it was straight on to the tasting rooms. We decide a plan - hit them in order of closing hours that meant the first one we went to was called Homestead Winery and actually it turned out to be the most fun! They stocked Texan wines from their vineyard in Lubbock quite some distance from Grapevine. For $5 you got four tasting and they were really generous pouring’s, actually after the second I was starting to feel tipsy! Although I didn’t really like any of the wines - too sweet - it was worth a taste for the money. The tasting room was in an old house and the floors were all squint and walls covered in people’s signatures and messages. It was certainly different not to mention the people were very 'special' :) The second wine tasting was at La Bodega Winery. It was in a different league to Homestead in a smart building with a patio outside include misting fans to keep you cool and water features. The wines were a mix from all over the place but in trueness to Texas we tried to stick with the Texan ones where possible and in amongst a few shockers there were one or two that were quite nice and of course I can’t remember what they were called! We then went to Su Vino on the Main Street. This was just a bar looking like place and all the wines were bought by them and then some were infused with fruits and other flavours! One of the nicest was Almond Champagne (well marzipan sparkling wine). But we did try ones like 'Island Paradise' with kiwi and Pear flavour!! We met up with one of Laura's colleagues, Christie and her sister, for Mexican. Then there was just enough time to hit another winery at Farina's again on the Main Street. It was a nice place and the wine wasn’t too bad either. So we managed 4 of the 5 wineries in the centre of Grapevine before heading off to the local sports bar full of college kids! We then had the mile walk back to the hotel (slightly up hill) to Danny's dismay!! It really wasn’t too far at all but his shoes were hurting :(

Sunday's plan was to catch the vintage train to the Fortworth Stockyards. The train was not leaving Grapevine until 1pm so we had a lazy morning taking a long breakfast at the hotel - Laura and Stuart has great fun making Texas shaped waffles and Danny enjoyed munching down 6 sausages (I was on bran flakes due to weightwatchers and a night of wine!). We sat by the pool reading our books before heading to get on the train. However, we nearly didn’t get on, they were sold out but the lady said she could sell her special reserve tickets - luckily for us! The train was old but still a diesel engine, not steam. There was no air con but you could sit inside with all the windows open or in the outside carriages. We chose inside. The seats on the train were really cool as you could flip the back of the seat to change the direction you were sitting it so that meant we could face each other as a four. However, leg room was minimal and it involved putting your knees between one another -Laura kept telling me off for fidgeting!! The train went very slowly and on the way they did a pretend train robbery. There were guys on horse that came out of the bush firing fake guns. The train stopped and the robbers came on pretending to take everyone’s money but they were really handing out stickers to the kids. Then the sheriff came and chased them off! Finally we got moving again and some hour and half later we ended up in the stockyards - tourism at its best!!

The Fortworth Stockyards is really centred on one street called Exchange Street and there are plenty of saloon bars and cowboy shops all the way along. We went and tried out a couple of hats! I also decided to sit on a longhorn for $5. It was me and the children!! I asked the lady how long they had to stand out in the sun before I got on and she said two maximum before a new one comes out. Randomly there was also a camel walking through the stockyards - certainly not native to Texas!! We did not get much time there as we had to catch the train back to Grapevine but we did manage a stop at 'Billy Bob's' - I can only describe it as a huge warehouse with bars, arcades, a bull ring, dance floors for line dancing and yes about anything else you can image in one place. On the walls there are all these hand moulds of famous people. Some had really big hands, while others just looked really weird!

The train journey back was long and hot and we all managed to pass out although we all had stiff necks when we woke as there was no head rests! As we were getting back towards Grapevine the train conductors start to play a game of seeing how many cars we can get to honk their horns at the level crossings. So the idea was everyone on the train makes arm signals like you are pulling a train horn out the window at the cars. I thoroughly enjoyed it - all the others just starred in amazement :)

That evening, although it was a holiday weekend everything in Grapevine seemed to close because it was a Sunday so we struggled to find anywhere semi decent to eat. In the end we ended back up at the Mexican place for a second evening. It was good and we all chose different things off the menu - including Danny choosing an enormous Mexican pizza! The night ended in a bikers bar!

On Monday we were going to take our time back to Houston and went to stop by Grapevine Lake. It is a man made lake and looked very similar to Lake Travis near Austin - actually it was quite spooky how similar. There were lots of people power boating and some swimming and some preparing for a day of BBQ'ing on the lake shore. From there we went into Fortworth itself and the centre was quite pretty with some older building and modern sky scrapers. Stuart and I picked up our touristie fridge magnets and we went for a lunch at a place called the Flying Saucer. It is a chain and apparently there is one in Houston. It serves over 200 beers and the beer menu is enormous! Laura decided to join the UFO Club as it is called and she has to drink her way through all 200, but only 3 per visit!!

It tooks us 4 and half hours home and we missed all the bad weather Houston had that weekend!