The saying everything is bigger in Texas is absolutely true when it comes to the food portions. Every meal that you get is 2x the size you would normally get in California. Nothing wrong with that, but as someone who has lost weight recently and is trying to keep it off — Texas poses a new unique challenge that I never previously cared about. Even the radio in Houston seemed to understand my concern —“if your pants don’t fit; just don’t wear them anymore.” Grant and I officially deemed Houston as a fat man’s paradise.
We flew United and besides the annoyance of having to prove we were flying with a backpack, it was a swell flight. Upon landing, we were starving and I was all sorts of turned around. Eventually, Grant found the car rental shuttle, but we took the long way for sure. He will vehemently disagree with me on that claim. Haha. The car rental had a long line, but they were super nice and even upgraded our cheap intermediate car to a mustang so that was a nice surprise.
Our first stop was to find food. It couldn’t be just any food but rather needed to be Tex-Mex. A combination of Mexican food meets unhealthy American food add cheese. One of my favorite things to eat is chips, salsa, and queso. Watch out because if you are not careful it will be gone before you even reach for your first chip. Grant has cookies; I have chips and salsa. With a Tex-Mex restaurant on every corner, the first one that came up on my search was Ninfas.
I hadn’t been in forever, but remember it being great. Of course, we had to verify that memory as being true and ordered queso, some weird baked chorizo queso, fajitas, enchiladas...we ordered so much that at the end I looked over and saw that Grant had rice and beans that were not even touched. We feel that we over ate, but the waiter thought we were lightweights and should order dessert. That’s technically a lie. It wasn’t the waiter, but rather me who wanted desert, but Grant talked me down from the sugar high.
Afterward, it was time to go see some Christmas lights. Grant had mapped out a few places to go so we hopped in the car and drove to them. We wanted to walk off what we ate but didn’t have a chance as nothing was that close. Houston is not very pedestrian-friendly because it is extremely spread out, which is great if you do not like to walk. We ended up heading to George R. Brown Convention Center where they had a lighted display of Christmas lights. They even had a tree decorated with cement ornaments. We could barely keep our tree upright this year with plastic ornaments (only fell once) so kiddos to those guys for figuring it out with cement.
Right next to the convention center was the Marriott Marquis. Grant had been talking about wanting to stay at this hotel for a while because they had a lazy river in the shape of Texas on their rooftop. With COVID being so prevalent, security isn’t as focused on strays entering their hotel, going up to the fifth floor, opening the exit door, and checking out the lazy river. The rooftop is grande size, but we could see the shape of Texas all around us. After dipping a toe in the “heated” pool and realizing it was December and not heated enough we left to check into our hotel.
Before we made it we made two last-minute detours. The first was Fiesta near Willowbrook to get some Blue Bell ice cream. The second was to wander around Prestonwood Forest. I grew up going to this neighborhood to see all the lights, but it’s beginning to fade a bit with age. After driving around and see the lights we turned on “drag mode” in the car and revved our engine to the hotel for the night.
The next morning, I was greeted by a wide-awake Grant who was ready to roll out. Usually being the early riser it was a change of pace I was not thrilled with. He convinced me to get up and go to HEB Central Market to try their orange juice. It was okay, but I want to try it during the summer to compare it to Whole Food’s OJ. The grocery store was mapped out like IKEA with “shortcuts” being provided to find the exit. The smell of bread instantly triggered a craving for kolaches and so we left the grocery store in search of the delicious pastry. Every intersection in Houston has a dry cleaner, nail shop, and donut shop so it did not take us long to find what we needed.
While running around and eating kolaches, we were making arrangements to meet up with my parents to eat lunch. They ended up choosing Frio Grill in Cypress and eating outside. It wasn’t long before my dad started grilling us about getting them a grandkid and I forgot to prep Grant so he spilled the beans.
“Oh yes...we are on our fourth in-person and we have done this and that...” Grant of course glanced over and thought the look of horror I was giving him was an indication what he was saying needed further clarity. So he continued and clarified. I had intentionally not told my parents as I wanted to surprise them when we actually had a kid...and he knew this...but completely forgot. Not a huge deal. They know. And if your reading this and didn’t know yourself— surprise. Blame Grant on ruining that one. Haha. We ate and hung out for a bit before the “frio” started getting to me and we said our goodbyes. Reminder: I need to mail out their Christmas packages when I get back to SD.
Grant had never been to Galveston before always opting for Port Aransas and wanted to check it out. Along the way, we kept seeing signs for Space Center Houston so we veered off and made our way over. Note to anyone going: they don’t allow selfie sticks and it’s $30 for each adult. Unless your Grant and I who decided I don’t want to spend that...instead took turns asking to go to the bathroom, which is oddly at the back of the museum, and got to take a quick tour for free. The people collecting tickets did not care at all and even commented “they don’t pay me enough to care.” Pro-tip: try the bathroom excuse to potentially get free admission.
Space isn’t really our thing so just seeing a spaceship was all we needed. The next stop was Moody Gardens. Most of it was closed as they were gearing up for their Christmas light walk, but we were able to walk around and check out the grounds and see most of the lights. After snapping a few photos of the aquarium and rainforest housed in pyramids - we departed for Pleasure Pier. Having done no prior research on this trip this by far was the biggest letdown. The pier itself seemed nice and had standard amusement park rides, but the problem was that to even step onto the pier you had to pay an admission fee. Riding a single ride that probably lasted no more than 2 minutes for two people was approximately $32. Hard pass from us. In California, we have Belmont Park and the Santa Monica Pier all of which are free to enter with each attraction costing a fee.
To make up for the dud that was the pier we signed up for a ghost tour in Galveston’s Historic Strand area. Our tour guide was a bit “unique,” but I guess you kind of have to be to give these types of tours. He was highly animated as he was describing the 20 bedroom boarding house that is considered Galveston’s Vortex to Hell. This stop is allegedly frequented by many satanic cult members, multiple animal sacrifices have taken place, and has a sorted history of missing children. I am not saying he was...but if you had to imagine a guy who would do something like that and then looked at our tour guide...you probably get a match. The whole walking tour was 4 blocks and somehow filled an hour.
All that walking got our stomachs activated again and so we went to Grant’s favorite— Carrabba's. It was yummy. On the way back Grant had a great idea to try and get a picture of the skyline. I did some quick research and found that Buffalo Bayou Park had a spot where this could happen. The problem was that the police had blocked off the main entrance as it was so late.
So instead of calling it quits we decided to try and get photos in the middle of the street when we saw a turnout. Not a smart idea, but I am writing this so no harm befell us. We kept moving closer and closer to downtown and the pictures kept getting worse and worse. Eventually, we decided to call it. On our way out— one of the streets we needed to take was closed. This got us all turned around and eventually had us backtracking to where we started. By sheer happenstance, we stumbled on a road that ran parallel to the park that had a perfect shot of the skyline. So we found a spot, took out our selfie stick, and got the photo we had risked our lives for.
The next morning I got up and again Grant was wide awake. He had mapped the entire day out. First, was finding a candy for his co-worker and us eating more kolaches. Followed by eating at Salt Grass and then sweating everything out at a Korean spa.
Salt Grass was good. I remember loving their ranch dressing and even once eating it like a soup. Who am I kidding... I eat ranch like a soup all the time, but this was my first memory of eating ranch in this fashion. I didn’t eat it like soup this time, but that was probably because I had already eaten so many kolaches beforehand and was full before I even sat down.
We had found a Groupon for the Gangnam Spa and Grant was all excited about trying Houston’s version of a Korean spa. This one was a bit different than the ones we had been to previously, but it was very relaxing. My favorite was the furnace that cooked me at 150 degrees. I could smell the ranch and kolaches pouring out of me with each bead of sweat that fell. Fortunately, I got out before I overcooked. Grant said his favorite things were the belly jiggler (a vibrating machine that jiggles your belly fat), the footbath that looked like a coy pond, and the oxygen room that looked like we had been transported to a scene from Alice and Wonderland.
My phone was buzzing that our flight was soon so we left and headed to the airport. Of course, we made a pit stop at Great American Cookie before we headed to the airport to leave. I am realizing as I write this and have so much to say about food that I should not be generalizing Houston as a fat man’s paradise, but rather Houston is my internal fat man’s paradise. Anything I can think of food-wise I can find there...maybe next time I’ll pace myself instead of trying to eat it all in one weekend. Nah...bring me some more queso, please!