<– Day 30 – Mon. May 11th: Three-nap Kind of Day | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 32 – Wed. May 13th: No Raining on Murphy’s Parade –>

Jason Monday and I next to his M-677.

Our goal for Tuesday was to stay dry. It wasn’t easy to achieve, because it rained hard at times!

As planned, we began the day with Tacos at Titas Taco House in Humble. Once again, they were awesome. This time I got to watch them make the corn tortillas. Their dough station sat just behind their serving station. They were pretty much rolling and cooking them as they served them. You can’t get any fresher than that!

Front doors of the Texas Prison Museum.

With breakfast finished, we headed for the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville. Apparently, Huntsville is the prison city and for more than a half century hosted the prison rodeo. It was a big hit for the city economically and people from all over came to spectate. Even some stars arrived to participate. One of the more odd events was the Monday Grab. A bag of cash was strapped to the neck of a bull. The prisoner who could grab the money and hand it to an official won the money. We saw some video and it was a wild event! The rodeo ended in 1986.

Inside the museum.

Ann seemed to enjoy seeing me inside a cell.

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<– Day 29 – Sun. May 10th: Breaking up the Beatles?? Not again!! | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 31 – Tue. May 12th: A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall –>

Titas Taco House in Humble, Texas

Apparently, we needed some rest. We woke up early, checked emails, Facebook, etc, then fell back asleep for a nap. I blame the rain (seems as good excuse as any and it rained all day).

When we awoke, I was hungry. I found a place I wanted to try called Titas Taco House that had a five start YELP rating with 145 reviews. So off we went.

It was 11am when we arrived at the Humble, Texas, location to find a house converted into a small restaurant. We could see much of the dirt parking lot because it was already filled with cars. This bode well for our food adventure.

Inside the restaurant there was no list of prices and no menu. There was a series of poles and ropes, suggesting that long lines were not unusual.

Poles to help direct customer traffic.

However, we must have timed it right, because we walked right up to the order station. In front of us were about 20 different options for filling our tacos.

Lots of taco filling options

Again, no names on anything. We had to ask what was what. Ann decided on three corn tortillas filled with egg & sausage, potatoes and polish sausage, and poblanos and cheese. To make the tortillas, the server laid a thin layer of refried beans onto the tortilla and then added a small amount of filling.

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<– Day 28 – Sat. May 9th: A Big Boat (Ship) | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 30 – Mon. May 11th: Three-nap Kind of Day –>

New friends of ours. Brian is on the left, Melodie is in the middle, and Lauren (Melodie’s mother) is on the right. Melodie and Brian are a very happily engaged couple. It seems Lauren approves, for she was all smiles, too. Ann told them I’d be publishing their photo here. We wish you all the best of luck!!

We thought Sunday morning would be a good time to explore Houston, due to the lack of traffic.

Since I’d had my eye on a French bakery & Cafe just around the corner from the hotel, we didn’t drive far Sunday morning before we stopped at La Madeleine’s for a pastry. Well, one of us stopped for a pasty, because  Ann can’t enjoy flour based pastries any more. So, I ran inside and ordered an apple turnover and a mini chocolate croissant (both crunchy and excellent). I also found a fresh fruit tart that Ann could eat. So, I gave it to her as a Mother’s Day surprise.

After we consumed our respective breakfasts, we drove towards the Art Car Museum. Along the way, fate intervened. As we exited the freeway near downtown, we looked off to our right and spotted three people posing in front of a Love Houston sign. Naturally, we knew that spot was made for us to photograph, so we spun around the block and found a place to park.

We arrived at the sign and met Brian Kozel, Melodie Smith, and Melodie’s mother Lauren Moore, who were just finishing up with their photos. Ann quickly volunteered to take the photo of all three, but the iPhone camera couldn’t capture the whole scene. So, Ann handed it to me. I bravely leaped (okay meekly backed) into the three lane road to get a better shot, but dodging oncoming cars racing at 55mph was a stretch for my poor camera skills. Of course, there was no way I was sending Ann into traffic. With her bum knee, she doesn’t play live Frogger so well.

It was at this point that my wise wife spared me from certain doom and volunteered to use our Nikon to take the photo and send them the resulting image via text. For some reason, they agreed to have a couple of crazy Washingtonian’s send them a text, which is how we got to know them. We also learned that Brian and Melodie are getting married, so congrats to them!

We did eventually get our own photo:

The building behind us was just built. I suspect this sign was much cooler when the building was there.

With our love for Houston documented, we jetted on down the road for our next destination.

I’m pretty sure I’d first learned about Houston’s Art Car Parades from a Smithsonian Magazine article, probably in the 1990s. The event is held annually on the second Saturday in April and has become a big deal. One of the spinoffs of the parade is the free Art Car Museum.

We pulled up to the museum. Expectedly, it was not your average building. What really surprised us was to see a vehicle parked under the front carport that we’d seen before. It took us a little while, but we finally figured out it had been on loan to the Studebaker Museum in 2013 when we stopped in there. Small world!

Art Car Museum entrance

This is the art car we saw at the Studebaker Museum. The eyes in the front light up blue.

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<– Day 27 – Fri. May 8th: The King Ranch | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 29 – Sun. May 10th: Breaking up the Beatles?? Not again!! –>

The clouds looked menacing, but it was a fine day for touring the USS Lexington — though the wind was a pain on the Flight deck.

On Friday night in Corpus Christy I was hungry, so after searching through YELP, I finally found a place to go eat some food that was highly rated AND open after 9pm (best hidden food gem in Corpus Christi was one review). It was a small ‘Asian Street Food (my description)’ place called Z Counter. The reviews were great and the photos of the food made me feel optimistic. So, off we went.

Click on the photo and you’ll be able to see the whole menu. They also had photos of all the items on a separate wall.

They only have this one location. I wish they had one near us in Pasco! I don’t quite get the name, but I sure like the food.

I’ll just cut to the chase and say the reviews were right on the money. I had a simple pork bowl, yet they turned that into delicious contrast of fresh, sweet, hot, and smokey (from the charbroiled pork) that made it delightful. We also had some Spam Musubi, which was also surprisingly good. In fact, I only had one problem with the Z Counter: I was too full to order and try some of their other dishes. So, Ann and I agreed that on Friday we’d return for lunch.

On Friday morning, we tackled our biggest planned event of the day, a trip to the USS Lexington (CV-16) Museum. The USS Lexington is an Aircraft Carrier ‘parked’ just off the shore in Corpus Christi. One of the things I learned is that some folks call the Carrier a ship (I’m told that is correct Navy-speak for a vessel of that size), while other folks gleefully call them boats (I’m told that was one way certain Air Force personnel would needle Navy personnel). So, call it what you want, but for me it was my first opportunity to explore an aircraft carrier.

The carrier is nearly moored on the beach. There’s a ramp to walk up to the museum entrance or visitors can wait for the shuttle.

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<– Day 26 – Thu. May 7th: Rainbow Flight & Texas Border Towns | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 28 – Sat. May 9th: A Big Boat (Ship) –>

Of course, we had to take this photo. Had we shot it last night, the sun would have been perfect. As it was this morning, we had to play with the light quite to make this work.

We woke up early Friday morning with plans to drive north.

But, before we left South Padre, Ann wanted to walk in the surf. So, we drove to the beach. Despite the red-flag-beware-of-the-water warning, we walked into the water. I had to deliver a reminder to my wife that she shouldn’t be playing in the surf at all, because I didn’t want to have to carry her back to the car. So, despite her inner-child, she behaved.

As we left the beach we encountered the South Padre Convention Center and these large upside down head sculptures.

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