Freedom over Texas

July 4, 2009

The decision was made late on Thursday that Independence Day would be spent in downtown Houston for fireworks and festivities. It ended up being worth the drive and hassle.

We got there just before the festival area opened at 4pm. It was a hot day for sure. I found out later, Houston actually hit a record High that day. We hung around and checked out the NASA exhibit. It was neat. They had a few sized down models on display, including the new Atlas rocket and the shuttle. They had a moon rock on display that people were allowed to touch. So I can now say I have touched a MOON ROCK! :)
We walked down past the first army of port-a-potties. I thought it was just a little comic relief to see the armies of port-a-potties. I got a water, but I was foolish and didn't keep a steady flow into my body that day. I ended up not feeling thirsty until it was far too late. I developed a hell of a headache and no longer wanted to move. As the headache got worse, I realized it was me getting more and more dehydrated. I downed 2 bottles of water in about 20 minutes and within the next hour, I made myself eat. I was being evil to my body, and then I decided to do what I could to take a little better care in the stressful heat. There was also several tanks, like real big tanks, on the street. They were from a museum somewhere along the outer area of Houston. Its now on the list of places to visit!
Clay Walker played that night. Turns out I know a lot more of his songs than I realized I did. I rather enjoyed the concert, even from a long distance. We waited almost an hour in the line to get Alex a funnel cake, and I figured why not and got a Turkey leg. It was okay, not great.
We found a nice little spot on the hill and waited out the falling evening listening to music from Clay Walker. From this spot, there was hill sledding from the younger ages. The fireworks were at about 9:30 and ended just before 10pm. They did two identical shows for the two hills in the park. I thought it was really cool show set to music. It was worth the whole thing.

After the show, traffic was really bad. We walked down town for about an hour. I wanted to go down to the Theatre district and see what else was down there. Even after an hour traffic was still really bad, but we didn't have much trouble getting back into downtown from a side street and then out to 59 to 45-S. Oh the fun! Got home around 12:30am.