My wife and I each took four days off around this weekend so that we had a good long time that we could use for some kind of a trip as a family, because my son was home to visit. We tried planning something but ran into two problems. Problem number one, everything of interest was closed, or the activities that you could do there were so limited that they might as well be closed. National parks, our favorite things to visit as a family, were closed. Most tourist attractions at all the nearest cities were also closed. We could go somewhere--I was thinking about the area around Austin--but would we be able to do anything once we got there?
Secondly, the weather predictions looked about as bad as they could possibly be. There were supposed to be thunderstorms every single day that we were off, and not just in Houston, but all over Texas. If we picked some nature area that happened to be open, how likely was it that we would get completely drenched while we were out there, and have to hike back while miserable and wet?
We didn't do anything on the first three days of our vacation, but finally, after all that time stuck inside, the weather changed. We could make a day trip. Not one to a far off location, but just to somewhere local. My son and I had once gone to a Houston area state park called Brazos Bend, and we'd raved about how cool it was. My wife suggested that we try that. National parks may not be open, but state parks are. Brazos Bend is also near a local beach called Surfside Beach. We could go to the beach after hitting the park. It was a pretty good solution for our problem.
So, we all got in the car, and drove the hour and a half to Brazos Bend. We got there, and pulled up to the ranger station where we pay to get in.
"Hi," I said.
The ranger looked at me through a facemask and said, "did you reserve your day pass online?"
"No," I said, clueless about what he was even referring to.
"All day passes have to be bought online. We can't do any transactions here anymore. And all the day passes for today have already been sold out," he said. "I have a paper here that walks you through how to reserve your day passes if you'd like that."
So, the only way to buy a day pass was through an online transaction. No dirty filthy cash or even virus-laden credit cards could be handed to this employee. It was fine for the losers at the grocery store, but the good folks at our state government weren't going to allow us to access our public lands in such a manner.
Not only that, but they had limited the capacity...at a state park. Brazos Bend is 5,000 acres. That's more than 217 million square feet. How many people could you fit in 217 million square feet while still keeping them six feet apart? My son and I had been there before and seen what it was like. The place was huge, and we never would have had any trouble socially distancing ourselves from other groups of people if that had been a thing back then. There was no reason to limit capacity. It was absolutely asinine.
As you might have guessed, I was seeing red at this point. I bit my tongue hard so as to not say something rude. This guy was not responsible for this idiotic policy, and he did not deserve to have my anger taken out on him.
"No thanks," I said. "It took us an hour and a half to drive all the way down here. We're not coming back anytime soon."
With that, we scratched Brazos Bend off the list of things to do today. We could still go to the beach...hopefully. So we headed in that direction. It took another hour more or less to get to Surfside beach. If we'd only known that things were going to happen this way, we could have driven straight to Galveston, and only driven an hour total to get there. Instead, we drove almost as long as it would have taken us to get to Corpus Christi, where the beaches are much nicer.
The beach was open at least, and it was most certainly way more crowded than Brazos Bend could possibly be. We set up our chairs in the sand, kicked back and enjoyed the sun.
The kids built a sand castle, and we all played in the water a good amount. My kids even took some turns using our boogie board. The beach turned out to be the best option. If only we'd chosen it as our only option.
To finish off the evening, we decided that we would go out and eat at a restaurant for the first time since they'd shut everything down a few months ago. We looked around the nearby restaurants, but couldn't find anything that we were sure would let us in to dine. In the end, we didn't go anywhere near the beach. Instead, we decided to drive all the way home first and go to our favorite local restaurant just up the street from our house.
It was really nice. The place was almost completely empty, which made me feel pretty sad, but I was happy to be out and doing normal things again. It was nice to feel like a human being again for once instead of feeling like a dangerous bag of viruses and bacteria that could murder someone at any moment.
The next day, the weather wasn't a significant issue, but we still had problems coming up with something to do that wouldn't be closed. The last thing we wanted to do was drive an hour and a half only to be turned away again like we were at Brazos Bend. I couldn't find anything that I was sure we'd be able to enjoy. A few places were open, but all their worthwhile attractions were closed, leaving little to do there.
My wife got fed up, and decided to work on the bathroom that she's been remodeling for the last few weeks. She had a day off, and she didn't want to waste it.
I finally came up with a few things we could do, and presented them to her. She liked them, but when it was time to go, though, she had gotten too involved in the bathroom remodeling process, and decided that she would stay and keep working while the rest of us went without her. So we all got in the car, and headed to our first stop, Smither Park.
I'd never heard of Smither Park until that day. I came across it on a list that came up when I searched things to do in Houston on Google. I later mentioned it to the people I know from work who have lived here for dozens of years and they'd never heard of it either, but it was certainly a very cool place to see.
The whole park is full of these great whimsical statues made in mosaic tiles. They tiled and decorated everything in the park from the picnic tables to the sidewalks to the walls on the back of the park.
It was really interesting.
Every step was another artsy treat to look at.
And the tiles weren't just tiles either, like this wall totally made up of dishes.
And dishes were common things used for decoration at the park. Here's another set under the pavilion.
Or this thing made from old street signs.
There were so many cool things to look at.
We'll be back again soon. One of the first things my daughter said after arriving at the park was that we ought to take her senior pictures there. So, very soon, we'll be back with a grad robe and a smiling high school senior to get some shots.
Everyone was ready for dinner now, so we picked up pizza from Little Caesars and took it to our next destination to eat it. This was our next destination:
This is the Gerald D. Hines Waterwall Park. It's a 64 foot tall fountain that runs with water as though it were a waterfall.
I drive past it every day, once on my way to work and once on the way home, and I am a little bit obsessed with it, I must admit. It just seems to be so much like Stephen King's Dark Tower to me, that I can't help but love it.
The way it stands up all black and menacing in the middle of much smaller buildings like it does is just so fun. I came here with some of my kids back in 2018 and did a blog post all about it then.
We couldn't stay long at the Waterwall, however, because sunset was fast approaching, and were going to see the Waugh Bridge bat colony at sunset. I posted about that yesterday. That was just really awesome. If you haven't seen the video, I encourage you to follow that link over and check it out. It was an experience that will require Alzheimer's to make me forget, and as cool as Smither park was, I think everyone loved the bats the most.
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