Houston — Oct. 2022

Link to more photos. (View the photos individually to see the captions.)

In February 2020, I booked flights for a trip to Houston a few months later. When COVID shut things down, that was the first of five trips I had to cancel. Now it's the last of them to finally happen. Rice's "Golden Reunion" weekend, my 50-year reunion, was the obvious time to go.

The trip included family, Rice, and several Houston sights, some new to me. We stayed with cousins Joel and Joan in Fulshear, 35 miles west of Houston. Victor particularly loved taking their dogs for walks.

We had dinner one night with more family: Warren, Lisa, Lauryn, Jason, Spencer and Ryan.

Around Houston, I first showed Victor the Rothko Chapel and Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk sculpture in front, which I've always liked. We continued to the Menil Collection. I was surprised by how much they continue to acquire. I had not previously seen their Flavin Installation. (See the photos.)

Because we had recently been to Hobbiton in New Zealand, we had to stop at the Hobbit Cafe. 

The rest of the day was at Rice. I particularly wanted to see Duncan Hall and the Turrell Skyspace. Duncan Hall did not disappoint, but there's really not much to see at the Turrell work unless you're there at dawn or dusk, which we did not manage to do.

The next day, we started at the WaterWall. I showed Victor the Galleria, including the ice rink. The mall has expanded over the years; it is much larger than I remembered. After lunch, there was heavy rain, so I abandoned plans for other sights, and we went directly to the Rice reunion dinner location. As the rain let up, we saw large rainbows over downtown Houston. 

In the weeks before the reunion, I asked several of my classmates whether they were going, and all but one said no. So I only knew a handful of the reunion attendees, but the reception and dinner were fine.

All around the region, when you tell someone that you go to Rice, the most common response is, "You go to Rice? You must be smart!" While I was attending Rice, someone made this T-shirt, which I still have, and which I brought to the reunion:

(I read that someone later made a bumpersticker of that, and Rice students often put it on their cars upside-down!)