Joe Bliven

Find a gallery of additional photos from our trip here.

Two days before our spring break trip Elena started to have cold symptoms. I started to worry we would have a repeat of last year's spring break trip where a cold passed from one of us to the next for nearly the entire trip. Thankfully by the time we made it to Texas, Elena's symptoms had subsided and everyone else had been spared the contagion. This was the second consecutive trip that Elena's classmate Mya joined us for our spring break outing, which makes it infinitely easier to keep Elena occupied. For this trip we hit a bunch of major cities in Texas in only 9 days.


Our short stay in Houston included a delicious vegan dinner at Mo Better Brews (highly recommended). We had a lovely walk through Hermann Park and their free Japanese garden. We visited the Houston Museum of Natural Science, which was the latest museum we've visited that has illustrated just how lame the Saint Paul Science Museum really is. This museum had a very impressive butterfly house, they also had a dome theater that was playing a movie that took you on a journey through our solar system, to neighboring star systems and out of our galaxy. They had so many interesting, fun, and educational exhibits for all ages. Each of us had a lot of fun. While Maya and Clara napped, Amelia read and I took the teenagers to the Houston Space Center. It was a cool museum that really piqued the interest of Elena and Mya, they really engaged with the content and asked lots of questions. After leaving the space center, we drove to the Kemah Boardwalk. We found a great restaurant right on the water that had a playground. We enjoyed the sunset with live music and a beautiful walk on the lively boardwalk.




The next day we departed from Houston bound for San Antonio. During the drive Maya got upset, we asked what was wrong and she started crying that dad left her ball in Texas. We had let her pack a rainbow playground ball, but upon arriving at the hotel she put the ball into a drawer and we forgot to take it with us when we left. We told her we would get a new ball while we were on the trip but she was still pretty sad about her cool rainbow ball. On our way into San Antonio we stopped at a number of old missions. We then parked in San Antonio and took the Riverwalk to the Alamo. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find the basement of the Alamo. After exploring the Alamo, we spent some more time on the Riverwalk, and ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant on the river. We ended the day with ice cream.



The next morning we went to the Witte museum, which had some great natural history, native history, and early settler history exhibits regarding the area. Next we went to Breckenridge Park and their Japanese garden, which was really unique. We went to lunch at Tower of the Americas. We took a meandering drive to Austin, stopping many places along the way. It was very hot and our AC was not working. We took a nice slow walk around the Texas State Capitol building as the air cooled off with the setting sun. We explored the interior of the gorgeous building and then left to pick up pizza to eat at our hotel. After pizza Amelia took Maya to Walmart to look for a new ball. Initially she wanted this huge red ball because it was "big and fat like Dad" but then they found an Easter basket that had 3 playground balls in it, including the very same ball that she had lost. She's very happy to have another rainbow ball.



Amelia always aims to get a hotel with continental breakfast, particularly one with a waffle iron. The deciding factor in our hotel in Austin was that their waffle iron made Texas shaped waffles! After eating a few Texas shaped waffles we went to the LBJ presidential library. We've gone to several presidential libraries and this one falls somewhere in the middle for me. It wasn't too impressive although there was a really neat gallery on American music history. It gives a crash course in American music and showcases an impressive collection of accoutrements and relics from iconic American musicians. Next we had way too much barbecue at County Line BBQ. It was on a river and there were lots of turtles, fish, and birds for the kids to feed. Aparently every evening when the sun goes down hoardes of bats pour out into the sky from their dwelling under the Congress Ave. Bridge. We went to see them and it was super cool. Our walk back through Butler Metro Park was a blast too. They had a big unique playground, the view of the Austin skyline was top notch, some fire spinners showed up to spin on top of a hill, and they had a fun lightup fountain that the kids played in for a while.



The next morning we dropped the van off at an auto shop to get the AC fixed, because if we hadn't the drive to Dallas/Fort Worth would have been hell. We took a single bus from the auto shop to the Austin Central Library (the bus in Austin is free for kids 18 and under). This was probably the coolest library I've ever been in. The children's wing was huge, they have storytimes in several different languages throughout the week, we attended one of the english ones. They have a teen room that has so much cool media. They have lego sets, an electronic drum kit that Elena spent at least an hour on, other instruments, tons of computers with all sorts of accessories for music production and graphic design. In an all ages area they have multiple 3D printers and interactive exhibitions of locally developed video games. They had an impressive independent zine collection for in-library use. There was a cool machine that would instantly print you a random short story on thermal paper. We spent hours at this library and will definitely go back to spend many more hours there if I ever get the chance again.



After recovering our van we drove to Waco, Texas to visit the Doctor Pepper museum at the original Dr. Pepper manufacturing plant. Next we went to the Fort Worth water gardens and ended the night at a drive-in theater in Fort Worth.




The next day we decided we were only up for a pretty relaxed day so we went to Old City Park in Dallas to walk around and then spent the next couple hours playing video games at Cidercade. That was the last very notable thing we did on the trip. Then it was just the long drive back to MN. It was a fun trip, but was pretty exhausting because we packed it really tight. Amelia initially planned a trip that was a couple days longer, but we had to condense it down to get home in time for the Saints home opener (which ended up being delayed anyway) and also a surprise birthday party for our friend. I still think it was a good way to dip our toes into the Lone Star State. If we ever move to Texas we're pretty sure it will be Austin, that was a very impressive city.