Hermann Park, Houston

Wednesday
Our last day in Houston, and another day of culture. First Jen, Roger and I did the Gems of the Medici Exhibition at the Museum of Natural Science. For almost three hundred years,successive generations of the Medici family dominated Florence city affairs and steered the course of art history. Many celebrated artists, goldsmiths, silversmiths and engravers were attracted by the abundance of wealth in the city, and it was the Medici family who funded the workshops of these artists and artisans, and who commissioned and collected the masterpieces of art and antiquity. We were a bit puzzled as to why the exhibit was in the Museum of Natural Science - it seemed much more suitable for the Museum of Fine Arts.
The same ticket also provided admission to "Maya 2012: Prophecy becomes History" an exhibition on the Mayan Civilization, so we took a break for lunch and walked into Hermann Park to the Pinewoods Cafe, then returned to see the Mayan Exhibit. While we were waiting for our lunch we had a little excitement. We were sitting on bar stools at a counter by the windows overlooking the lake, when suddenly we saw a little dark mouse run by outside. The next thing we knew there was a hawk swooping through the trees. We're not certain that he got his prey, though he did alight on a branch and spend a few moments there, so he may have been having his lunch! After a tasty lunch (ours that is!) - their specialty is build your own grilled cheese sandwiches - we returned to the museum and took in the Mayan exhibit. Afterwards we met Jason for a coffee, then the four of us returned to the museum once more to see the excellent 3-D IMAX movie Flight of the Butterflies. The movie summarizes the 40 years it took Dr. Fred Urquhart to discover the monarch butterflies' secret hideaway and to prove the most incredible migration on Earth. "Following the year-long annual migration cycle of the butterflies, the award-winning production team filmed hundreds of millions of monarchs in their remote overwintering sanctuaries in Mexico in 2011 and again in 2012 and also along their migratory routes from Canada, across the U.S. and into Mexico." The 3-D experience was absolutely amazing - you felt as if they were flying all around you - as if they close enough to reach out and touch.