Texas

We were off to the Witte Museum today. It advertised learning about Texas’ history, so we thought that would be interesting. Several of our Lyft drivers recommended it, as well as hotel staff.

My favorite part was right inside the door – an absolutely giant skeleton of a flying dinosaur – Quetzalcoatlus. Scientists believe that it used its very powerful wings as front legs, which was new and cool to me. I sat in the entryway under the “more realistic” one and watched some of his friends fly by on the ceiling screen for quite a while and really enjoyed it.

We looked at tons of displays of native Texan animals. Let’ s face it. Texas is huge. It has lots of animals. They have javelinas, which are a kind of pig sort of deal. I have never heard of them before EXCEPT that on the day we got to Texas my phone showed me a story about one that got into someone’s car and wrecked it. I like a new animal, so that is cool. I guess it’s not weird that my phone knew I was in Texas, but it’s weird that my phone knew I was in Texas.

We met a woman who works in a school district curriculum office. She was making a scavenger hunt for 4th graders who are visiting next week. We talked school talk, then she recommended stuff for us to do while we were here. It was great fun and she predicted that we would run into each other again someday. I think that will be fun.

When we got there about noon, there were lots of kids, including at least two large school groups. Within the hour, they left, as did the families with small kids, leaving us basically alone. There was a dad and his 4-year-old. The curriculum lady. An even older than us couple. A not-old couple. A family with two kids in a stroller. Private museum. Nice.

We learned about Texas. A lot of the starting of Texas mirrored what we learned at the Alamo. Mexico got independentized from Spain in 1821. Texas got away from Mexico in 1836. Then in 1845 it became a United State. For some reason people wanted to move to a very dry, very empty piece of land. Comanche was the biggest culture going on here before all the new American, German, and Irish folks moved in. There were a lot of black cowboys that never got talked about or got in the movies. There is another flour company other than Pillsbury. I forgot the guy’s/company’s name, because let’s face it – it’s not going to show up in the grocery store in Minnesota.

There was an 8-step body activity that is really for kids, but there were no kids, so we did it. We learned about nutrition, and I scooped up vegetables at the buffet tonight because of that. (To be clear, I did already know about nutrition.) We pulled a rope to lift our own body weight. Keith got all the way to top. I got off the ground, yelled, “I don’t like this,” and gave up. I rode the bike faster than he did, though. We practiced doing CPR on a very cool machine. Chest compressions should be at the same tempo as the song “Stayin’ Alive.” Oh my goodness, I am just getting that pun right now. When I was there, I was just so engrossed in keeping the guy alive (or winning my test on the machine!)

Fiesta ended last week. It is a big deal, with parades and parties and lots of happiness. The Lyft drivers are just glad all of the streets are open again. There was a display of coronation gowns through the decades. They were sparkly. I liked them a lot.