Unlike the traditional images of Texas as rangeland, Houston is a huge sprawling city covered with highways and whole districts of upscale museums, theaters, and shopping. It is also one of the busiest harbor and oil refinery sites in the world. Of course, Houston is also known as the home of NASA and stretches all the way to Galveston Bay just off the Gulf of Mexico. My brother and family live there, so I have been often. (2009, 2012, 2016, 2017, 2021)

A statue of Texas founder and city namesake Sam Houston at Hermann Park in the museum district.


Some views of downtown buildings in the heart of the city

Ships and oil refineries along the Houston harbor as seen from the San Jacinto monument.


One impressive public artwork tucked away in Houston is the huge Water Wall fountain.

Houston recently upgraded its natural history musuem and it’s quite good with striking and impressively displayed fossils, Egyptian cultural artifacts, and much more .

Posing beneath the huge rocket engines of an original Saturn V rocket on display at NASA.

At the edge of the city lies Galveston Bay seen here from the Kemah Boardwalk.
