Saturday, March 29, 2008

Day 29 New Iberia Louisiana Comfort Suites

"Bilbo's Final resting place discovered"
For those that have not followed “The Hobbit” and have no interest in it, maybe you should. It’s surely is sad to report that I have found the graveyard of Bilbo. I suspect that is why my car left the main road and spotted this old cemetery at Lake Charles Louisiana. One never knows what one finds when you snoop around. What a find, pass this to those who care!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I did find this website by checking the correct spelling of Bilbo.
http://www.tuckborough.net/bilbo.html



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We walked through a Botanical Garden in Beaumont this morning, a nice walk with a small breeze, no alligators. They are rebuilding the shop and only a handful of people were there.

Exit 880 on Highway 10 is the longest stretch of Highway in the nation of course in Texas.



Great Restaurant judged #1 for 14 years!







While at Lake Charles I gave a call to a lady that Angie thought I should contact. As I do not try and use last names those who know what I am talking about know the abbreviation. Patricia P. was brought up as a step child to a Klink. I asked her to e-mail Angie that I had called her, her and her husband were recovering from an influenza and did not want to pass it on, nor did we want to contract it. My question to here about the Klink’s was whether they ever talked about being in Canada. As when we stopped at the Louisiana visitor center they mentioned that many in this region came from Nova Scotia and surrounds. As we have found Klink’s in Canada I thought there might be a connection as to why he came from Minnesota to Louisiana. She had found memories of him and also of meeting Angie and George, well who wouldn’t? Patricia and husband Don suggested for us to eat at their favorite restaurant, Steamboat Bill’s. http://steamboatbills.com/ With her fine directions we arrived there with no trouble. This is true gold for Cajun foods; Shirleen’s shrimp salad had some spicy shrimp, which I inherited. My Crawfish Etouffeé on rice was really good, not spicy but a nice hint after it went down the back of the tongue.



We then drove on Louisiana highway 14, a back road, it gave us a flavor of the real people and not the freeway vision.

This guy must have just got back from fishing, not only did he put up the sign, he re-sprayed the Fresh Catfish. He as really well tanned and sunburned.



Along the crawfish raising area we saw boats like this churning up the shallow water clay fields. Will have to see what this industry does. But remember at the place we ate it said the best crawfish in Louisiana!



Here is a house, see how they are raised above the ground on cement blocks?








Rip Van Winkle Gardens




Look carefully, there is a peacock in the tree.












A scene of the garden beauty,
a fountain, busy doing its thing for us.



The road lining the road to the garden is lined with miles of live oaks. We can never get over the beauty of these trees.





Wish this showed up better. It is a rook of pink Rosetta spoonbills a bright pink wading bird with a long, flat, spoonlike bill. Found one on the net with Answers.com.











This evening we walked to eat at Ruby Tuesdays, Shirleen chicken breast, she said she has had enough fried foods, me some ribs and Cajun shrimp. Tomorrow Avery Island and its Tabasco sauce and its making. Jerr

Friday, March 28, 2008

Day 28, Beaumont, Texas at a Sleep Inn and Suites

"An Ode to Trees" without words. This is for Mary J. who misses trees. This is a live Oak in the Houston Garden, it has leaves and no snow on them. A live oak's wood is three to four times as strong as a regular oak. Mary writes a blog and lamented about her missing tree's down in the Arizona desert outback .















This is one of the best bronze statues I have ever seen cast with a real resemblance.








Guarding the Pres










Spent a couple hours at the Bayou Art Festival. Many exhibitors, with many nice art booths. The picture shows a booth in the middle of the pix, it had neat bold rich colors to the Italian type paintings. They had Bud available!


For Michelle












The rooster at the front of the restaurant we ate at. Pronto Cucinio Mandola's Casual Italian on 1401 Montrose Huston, Shirleen had a roasted chicken leg and thigh with garlic mashed potatoes and Italian green beans with tomatoes.


Abby, I had Fettuccine Alfredo, one of the best, accompanied with a grilled pork chop with caramelized onions, melted caprino cheese with sun-dried tomato. We ate outside.

Recommend this place!!!








Missed the shift again, that Maserati went on by.




We arrived at Beaumont late afternoon, only thing left to do is eat and write the blog.








We drove around and found an old part of town that had a neat street set-up. Country western music and small groups of people. Knew we had a place to stop and eat. We ate outside at Spindletop restaurant, Shirleen had a half ribs roasted over mystique, I two fillets of cat fish fried in a fine crunchy corn meal, heaven. jerr

Thursday, March 27, 2008

March 27, Houston, SpringHill by Marriott

Museum of Natural History by Hermann Park




Butterfly chrysalis some gold colored and some opened. At a butterfly exhibit, one of the best we have seen. A good teaching aid for school lids, many were there.



A 70 by 78 inch piece of petrified sequoia tree.








Sam Houston statue, sorry for the angle, the sun did not cooperate.








A nice - long - walk and well done.









Ate here, Shirleen a BLT and I a burger with blue cheese, both with sweet potato fries, yummy.


More walking.








The lower black element is the walkway, the center blue and gold is the end of the hall, the bracketed soft white is the end of the room just before you walk out of the hall. The walkway is under a street between two buildings. It changes color and did to a purple but the photo was still blue????





A Charles Umlauf piece, we toured his Austin Texas garden.



More walking!










An Islamic Quran dates back to the 1100's.











Ice cream serving set, silver and gold. This would work well for Shirleen's ice cream eating.








A beauty of a picture




Georgia O’Keefe






Louie Comfort Tiffany window









We looked high and low for this Garden and finally found it on the second day here.


More walking!





Untitled piece, it looks like a leaf for Michelle.








Had popcorn for a night snack, no dinner, just like last night.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Day 26, Houston, Comfort Suites


It was another windy day when we got up in Galveston. Off toward the Houston - Johnson Space Center. http://www.spacecenter.org/ I’ll get it off my chest right away; we pay for NASA with our taxes but we still pay $20 each to get in the Center.



We took the Tram around the sight and saw the training center for the astronauts; they practice on full sized shuttle parts. A couple pictures will show the immensity of one building.






Then off to a mock-up of the Saturn V what a giant of a spaceship. You walked along the massive rocket and saw the parts of the craft, piece by piece.











Now we went to center it this has many exhibits. It was fun to see the space vehicle mocked up on the moon.



We sat in a mock-up of mission control. A lady briefed us on the present mission STS 123, where it was when we stepped in to the room. It was headed off the east coast of South America about mid-Brazil. When we left it was 7,000 miles further, over central Europe, around Czech Republic. Maybe I am partial.

We headed into town and for a lunch spot. We were around Rice University campus. We found Hungry’s café & bistro since 1975. Shirleen had a burger and fries, I a Poblano Chicken Breast, grilled chicken breast with poblano, mushroom cream sauce. Served with garlic mashed potatoes & French green beans.
http://www.hungryscafe.com/ in Rice Village. Good taste, fries home cut, poblano sauce tasty.
















Shirleen had read about the Byzantine Fresco Chapel Museum around Rice U. This Museum displays the dome and the apse of a small Byzantine votive chapel of the thirteenth century. We are always interested in frescos since our first Italy tour. http://www.menil.org/byzantine.html From the handout: the Chapel Museum is the repository in the United States for the only intact Byzantine frescoes in the entire western hemisphere. These masterworks from the 13th century -- a dome and an apse -- were ripped and stolen out of a chapel near Lysi in the Turkish occupied section of Cyprus in the 1980's, cut into pieces, and smuggled off the island by thieves prepared to sell them piece by piece. The fresco fragments were rescued from the thieves by The Menil Foundation with the knowledge and approval of the Church of Cyprus, the rightful owner of the frescoes. The Menil Foundation then funded a painstaking two-year restoration of the paintings. The wall surrounding the chapel was made from the stones of the original chapel in Cyprus.

The Lysi dome represents Christ Pantokrator, “All Soverign”. It defines space with no beginning and no end. Absolutely frontality has driven time out of space. His gaze is transworldly: not looking but seeing all.

In the apse the Virgin, flanked by archangels Gabriel and Michael, stands in the ornate posture.











We then took a stroll through Hermann Park, by Rice. Many beautiful BLOOMING flowers, yes they bloom in March. They had a small Oriental garden.





Peace Garden with statues from all over the world memorializing those who tried hardest for Peace. No GW here. - jerr






Mahatma Gandhi





Dr. Martin Luther King









Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Happy 70th Birthday Uncle Pat!!! Day 25, Galveston Island another Comfort Inn & Suites on the seashore


Moody Mansion

Today was touring houses day. We went to the Moody Mansion Museum, built at the turn of the century by a woman whose husband would not built one for her and he died. http://www.moodymansion.org/. It is four levels of 18 inch brick walls inside and out. Over these walls is built the inside of the house. The outside of the house has a nice arrangement of verandas to sit and watch the poor people go buy. It is made of sandstone and brick with a lot of metal fence work. The interior is furnished with oaks, cherry, mahogany, and other exotic woods. She mentioned that children were not allowed to eat with the parents except for Sunday’s, Mrs. said that they eat together each day. The bolsters around fireplaces were hand carved, much as the dining room table legs, buffet table and china cabinet. There are the normal luxury items, the windows that slide up and out of sight so you can walk through the opening out to the stairs to meet your invited friends. The tables are set with the finest silver and dinner plates with huge silver serving bowls. This house took 20 people to staff, all of whom lived on the ground floor, looked like nice accommodations to me it had gold leaf ceilings in the dining room. The food was made on this floor and a dumb waiter carried it to the serving floor, where the butler would service the guest and places it in the pantry because food platters were not allowed to set on the table, you had to request more to eat. The house also had an intercom system, voice pipe tubes and a flag device. The mansion was also fit with gas and electric lighting, when the electricity went out the help would light the gas jets. The stained glass window which greeted the visitors said, “Welcome ever smile” from Shakespeare, now I will have to figure out exactly what he meant?




Louis Comfort Tiffany lamp










These two elephant pictures are for Michelle!!
















Bishop's home, white glass area is an conservatory in the side of the house.

The second home was the Bishops residence Galveston’s grandest and best known building, a Victorian castle. It had been owned by the Gresham family and sold to the dioceses for the Bishop. He lived in it from the age of around 50 and died in his 80’s. He did change the house by adding a chapel where the little girl’s room had been now has statuary and pictures of blessed events. Again the woods were exotic the one most liked was the curly pine, no longer a harvested tree; you have to find it in another house and use it in yours. The house didn’t have many original furnishings but the structure had colored stone, intricately carved ornaments, rare woods, stain glass windows. What was interesting is that they had like fifteen fireplaces. It was funny because he had a grand balcony staircase made, took 3 guys a year to make it. Then he found a fireplace he wanted and put it underneath this staircase and had no chimney area. This fireplace became the first gas fired fireplace in Galveston. The house even had air conditioning and the rooms were situated so that the gulf breezes would draft through. The structure is one the 100 most important buildings in America. Both these structures are worth the visit to hear their history.




Neat rock work!












Entry into the Bishops home.








A tug boat passing a head portion of a platform rig being overhauled.

At noon we ate at Fishermen’s Warf Shirleen had a fine spinach salad with grilled shrimp, I a Poor Bo with crawfish.
We then went for walk at Moody Garden’s, of which they were not; it was flowers that decorated the area. Nice walk.







John, this is one for you. A model at the Museum.

We headed downtown to go to the Railroad Museum. This was a nice place to look at old trains, cars and memorabilia. There was a large display of silverware and place setting. The train station had plaster cast statues by Schwartz of New York, done in the mid 80’s. The people breathed through their noses with straws and then had the clothes layered with plaster. When dried they cut them off and plastered them back together.



I could not hitch my hip the way I used to be able to do, much like this young sailor.



We ate at The Steakhouse in the San Luis resort. It is a nice layout, to be different it is in a curved layout with nice room between tables three deep wide all done in rich dark woods. We split a Kobe rib eye steak, a massaged, beer feed animal. It was tasty, a little gristly for Shirleen, but a real delight. The only accompaniment was peeled asparagus with a smooth white sauce. We followed it a dessert, eruption, a freshly baked chocolate cake with warm chocolate inside, accompanied with raspberries and vanilla ice cream. We walked bake the two long blocks to wear this off. jerr