Lucy had some free tickets to the aquarium and I'd never been there before, so we went and checked it out.
Jellyfish.
Alligators and turtles. I guess they don't eat them?
Octopus with a toy truck for him to play with.
A big tank.
Ooh, I've always been scared of eels, especially because of how their mouths move when they breathe.
Poisonous frogs.
Big snake.
Seahorses.
There was also an area with white tigers.
The guide's best reason for why they have tigers in an aquarium is because tigers like to swim the most out of all the cats. I still don't buy it, though.
Gotta love the petting area.
Lucy petting a ray.
Aw, this guy was trying to hide by covering himself with sand, but it wasn't working too well.
Us on the ferris wheel.
The train.
Going through a tunnel with sharks all around.
On the Lighthouse Dive.
Downtown Houston.
And back onto the ferris wheel at night.
I like the alligators on the carousel.
While I was getting a tire put on my rim, I watched this court show in the waiting room. I don't see how people can watch this stuff.
I always see accidents on the lanes going the other way. I think I'm using up all my luck.
There was a free showing of The Lost Boys at Alamo Draft House. Here they were giving out prizes to people who dressed up as vampires.
More free stuff for people who could remember vampire names.
And even a comedian.
Another accident.
Wal-Mart at around 3am. I guess they don't have people out getting carts all night long, so the cart corrals get full and people start leaving them everywhere. The morning shift employees all go out and help pull them in.
The iPhone 4 was coming out, and I got there opening day at 3am.
Unfortunately, even though I had called and asked and they said they'd have some to buy, they didn't. Oh well, I'll just come back Tuesday. And since I had gone to sleep early the night before and brought a book to read while waiting, it wasn't that big of a loss.
In Transformers 2, Bumble Bee is a Chevy Camaro. This guy put a Transformers sticker on his, which I thought was pretty fun.
Another wreck, this one involving a semi in the HOV lane.
Isn't there some ordinance that says your trees and bushes can't obstruct sidewalks?
Jenny and I had dinner at Saffron. We couldn't combine the Yelp special with a Restaurant.com coupon and the unlimited mojitos only came with the unlimited BBQ, but the 5-course family style dinner was still tasty.
Jenny with the bellydancer there. Aw, their outfits kinda match.
Tough decision: outdoors in the beautiful weather or inside so you can watch the belly dancer?
Watching both Portugal vs Brazil and Korea vs Ivory Coast at BWW.
These people were both on their laptops the entire time.
Getting river shoes at Academy for our trip. I wonder how many people have tried them on before me and how many food diseases are on them? Gonna make sure to grab a pair from the back.
Doing a research study testing motion sickness.
Morning with Jenny, Mel, and their two cats and one dog in San Antonio.
Jenny keeping her food away from the dog.
We went on a nature hike at Guadalupe River State Park. This was the Rust House.
There were lots of these shells of dead bugs.
Our tour guide talking to the group.
Apparently you can make wine from these vines.
Limestone with holes.
Gall wasps plant their eggs into trees, which develop these balls in response.
There were some antlions with their holes there. I'd always though antlions were neat, so I'm glad I finally got to see some.
A nice view over a ridge.
Big tree, low branch.
Spanish moss.
Some other moss that looks dead, but if you put some water on it, it comes back to life.
Woodpeckers cut lines in this tree, then eat the insects come to eat the sap that oozes out.
A fern by the river.
Everybody walked right by this gigantic spider without seeing it.
Lots of lilly pads.
By Honey Creek.
Our tour guide talking to the group again.
Jenny enjoying the view.
Water striders.
Oak tree with a cactus growing on a limb.
A pretty sky.
People picnicking and tubing down the river.
We walked down there.
But we didn't see a place to rent tubes, so we decided to do it somewhere else.
A common sight.
We went to Dry Comal Creek Vineyards for wine tasting and a tour. Here are some little coasters that look like sandals.
I'll take this over the wine.
Lots of shaded parking in Texas summer = awesome.
Doing our wine tasting.
Us with the tour guide.
A giant stick bug Jenny almost sat on.
On the tour.
Wine straight from the tap.
Barrels of port.
Another building.
That was kept really cold.
Jenny by the grapes.
Some of their grapes.
After that we went tubing.
We brought a little cooler that I sat on my lap with drinks.
The shallow areas were little rapids.
Don't drop the beer.
Some really thick trees.
Some people playing with their dog.
Lots of hawks overhead.
Some guys jumping off a rock.
Thankfully they tested the depth of the water before jumping.
In addition to tubers, there were also kayakers. Here are some going through some rapids.
Jenny all wet after the rapids.
Another area of rapids, although at least no giant boulders.
Some neat plants.
A guy fishing and a group in a boat.
Jenny sleeping again.
Ducking under this tree. We tried to stay in the middle, but sometimes we got pushed to the sides.
A boat.
A little waterfall.
A little area on shore where people had chairs.
The biggest rapids we went over. Jenny got stuck on a rock and the guy who was fishing helped push her over.
It was a pretty long trip: five hours. Near the end we were rather tired and hungry and the water was moving really slowly, so I swam and pushed or pulled the tubes the last hour to get done faster.
A view back from the end point.
At the house of some of Jenny's previous co-workers. Here they're all singing karaoke.
I knew there was something wrong with this cat when I saw it, but I wasn't exactly sure what. His eyes are crossed.
The wrist bruise is from volleyball; the thigh one is from dodgeball.
We went to Gristmill River Restaurant for lunch.
It was a really neat multi-tiered restaurant.
You could see the river through the trees and occasionally tubers would come along.
Good thing we got there early; there was a long line as we were leaving.
Gruene Hall
A little garden store.
With these fun bird houses with license plates as roofs.
We also went to the Snake Farm & Exotic Animal Park. Here are some giant anacondas and pythons.
Turtle.
"Red on yellow, kill a fellow; red on black, venom lack."
There were lots of kids there.
Skinny green snake.
Fat green snake.
Kind of skinny green snake.
Neat coloring on this diamondback.
Alligators and alligator snapping turtles.
King cobra.
Funny birds.
The male and females are different colors.
Pretty birds.
Ooh, some blue ones.
This rooster was on top of a building.
At 1pm they brought out a python people could hold.
Us with the python.
capybara sharing food with some chickens.
More pretty parrots.
A little feeding area with pot-bellied pigs.
Jenny feeding the llama.
A whole family of pot-bellied pigs.
Feeding some baby goats.
I loved this goat because it butted the little kid and made him run away.
This one got up on a little ledge.
Gecko.
Monkeys.
Zebras.
Warthog.
Some parrots that played with each other.
A peacock hiding under a truck.
Alligators.
Hyena.
Monkeys.
A tortoise happily eating his cabbage. Unfortunately we couldn't ride on him like we did as kids at Reptile Gardens.
Pretty butterflies in the store.
Lemurs grooming each other.