Minute Maid Ball Park (Houston, Texas)

One of our traveling goals is to visit all the Major League baseball parks, and during baseball season, so we can enjoy a game while we’re at it! Even better would be if either San Francisco or Oakland were playing at each of the ballparks we visited, but that might be asking for too much. So yesterday we caught a game at the Minute Maid ball park in Houston, Texas, between the Astros and the Cincinnati Reds. (Houston is only about 70 miles from where we are staying in Livingston, making it an easy drive there and back.) Since neither San Francisco nor Oakland was playing, we decided we would root for the home team. But, it didn’t help – the Reds won, 4-2. But it was a beautiful day to be sitting outside watching a baseball game. Temperature was in the 70’s, nice breeze, seats in the shade. The day before there were torrential rains in Houston, 7.5 inches in 24 hours! You wouldn’t have known Sunday, what a difference a day can make! This year (2009) marks the Astros 10th Season in Minute Maid Park, located in the heart of downtown Houston. You can see some of the surrounding high rise buildings in the attached pictures.

Today wraps up our stay in Livingston and in Texas this time around. Tomorrow we head out for Arkansas: A couple of days in Hot Springs; a couple of days visiting friends in Conway; then about a week visiting family in Fort Smith. We enjoyed our hiatus in Livingston, it’s a great place to stop and collect your bearings, but it’s time to get rolling again!

Update From Livingston

Hi Y'all!! Dan and I are now officially Texans! Last week we re-registered our vehicles (the Ford and the 5th wheel) and received our Texas plates; we obtained Texas driver’s licenses (and had to relinquish our California driver’s licenses!); and we registered to vote. I must say, it felt a little weird to me! I’ve always been a California Girl, and I guess in my heart I always will be. However, I cannot argue with the financial advantages of being a Texan, not to mention that Texas is an RV friendly state, and besides, the license plates are sort of cool! I would really like to be considered a citizen of all the states. Going through this exercise got me to thinking about how we are forced to designate only one of our fifty states for residency, and I thought how sad it is that we can’t just declare ourselves a citizen of the country at large. In essence, I guess that’s what full-time RV’ing is all about, and the entire country really does become your home. But there will always be the government bureaucracy, and you have to have an address somewhere, so here we are, Texans!

Yesterday we took a drive to Houston to visit the Space Center. It was an awesome experience! From their website: “Space Center Houston is a place where people can experience space -- from its dramatic history and exciting present to its compelling future. Space Center Houston is the only place on Earth that gives guests an out-of-this-world journey through human adventures into space. Space Center Houston's unparalleled exhibits, attractions, special presentations and hands-on activities tell the story of NASA's manned space flight program. SCH is the only place in the world where visitors can see astronauts train for missions, touch a real moon rock, land a shuttle, and take a behind-the-scenes tour of NASA. At Space Center Houston, guests can understand the past, experience the present, and be a part of the future of the space Program.” I’ve attached a couple of pictures from our tour.

We also wanted to go to The Museum of Natural History to visit the “Lucy” exhibit, the 3.2 million year old human fossil remains from Ethiopia. We ran out of time, and will have to make another trip to Houston to see her before we leave the Livingston area. That’s okay, there is a Whole Foods in Houston (actually there are three Whole Foods in Houston), and I always seem to need something or another from that store.

We have been enjoying our travel respite and using the down time to take care of minor maintenance on our vehicles, hiking in the Sam Houston National Forest, riding our bikes, and taking morning runs. Come December 1st we will be on the road again, heading further south.

Next Stop (after our brief Thanksgiving visit to Sacramento): Mission, Texas!