Day 05: Friday, July 06, 2012

Our stay in Houston started off right with a trip to the Galleria - the 7th largest mall in America.  We mostly just browsed and then ate lunch at a local bistro called la Madeleine, but it was nice to keep it in the A/C for a while.

Next stop was the Houston Water Wall.  It's a 64 foot, U-shaped structure with water running down both sides. Pretty impressive! It's a major part of Hines park and sits in the middle of the Uptown district of Houston.

From there, we went to the Houston Space Center.  That's right...we geeked it out at NASA and we're not ashamed one bit. We got there just in time for a tram tour which took us to see the mission control room where most all US space explorations and the International Space Station projects are still operated from today.  Next came Rocket Park and a view of actual shuttles that made an expedition to space.  The inside of the main museum building was mostly general exhibits, theaters and kids activities.  But you can be sure we found out how we would look as astronauts...

Next stop: Dallas, TX.  On the way we stopped at local restaurant in Hunstville, TX called The Farmhouse Cafe.  I felt like I was back home for a few minutes.  If my sweet grandmother hadn't passed away several years ago, I would swear she was in that kitchen!  And of course, everything was Texas size portions.  Rebecca and I didn't even put a dent in our meals...not even close.  Then, they had award winning dessert so we couldn't say no to that.  I kid you not - my piece of lemon cake was probably 3 pounds.  And the approximate 5 oz I was able to eat of it was amazing. We weren't sure if we were fit to drive after that, but somehow we made it.

We checked into the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas around 10:00pm and were blown away. (Again I'm gonna put in a plug for hotels.com and it probably won't be my last)  This hotel opened in 1912 and was once the tallest building in Dallas.  Lots of celebrities have stayed there over the years, including Queen Elizabeth II!  (I'm sure we stayed in the exact room she did...except for the fact that I'm sure we didn't.)  Our room was kind of unreal though.  It was HUGE and looked like a mini apartment and we definitely soaked up every minute of that.  

A little planning and chatting and then a good night's rest for exploring the city on Saturday.