May 9 – Calgary to Houston, USA

Weather – 25º, sunny

Astros game

Steps – 13,835

Humidity – 75%, doesn’t feel all that humid

Travel days are long, some longer than others. As far as travel days go, today was good.

The flight from Calgary to Houston was just under 4 hours. Just enough time for a drink, breakfast, a bit of reading, and “The 2 Popes”. It seems like we landed in a ‘secondary’ airport terminal…small, dingy, few services. Not that we were looking for anything other than our luggage and the exit sign. The ride-share area was easy to find and only a handful of people.

approx 1 millions kids

Google Maps had the ride to the hotel at about 40 minutes, but we made it in under 30. That wasn’t because there wasn’t any traffic – the freeway was busy, but our Uber driver took routes it seemed only he knew for avoiding traffic. At one point we seemed to be driving parallel to the freeway. This alternate route also exposed us to a bit of Houston tourists don’t likely see.

A very friendly front desk clerk checked us into The C. Baldwin Hotel (named after the 'Mother of Houston’, Charlotte Baldwin.) We have an interesting corner room

with a view of a park and freeway. We’re only here for 2 nights, so didn’t unpack much, took a quick shower, and relaxed in the hotel bar. Chris has Hilton status which upgraded us to the corner and gave us a food and beverage credit of $30 each day. We arrived at happy hour, so our
drinks were $5! The last thing we’d ever do is let money go to waste, so we just had to have a second drink to spend the $30. The hotel bar has an outside area which should have been busier than it was given how charming it was – maybe it wasn’t warm enough for most, but to us it was perfect at around 25º.

fireworks

The Houston Astros were playing the Cincinnati Reds at Daikin (formerly Minute Maid) Park, a 30 min walk from the hotel, so we got ourselves some second-row tickets along right field. One thing about the location of these seats is that for some reason this is EXACTLY where players give autographs. Before and after

street art

the game a few players signed autographs for approximately 1 million swarming kids.

We both got Astros t-shirts. Food and drink at the game were exactly as
expected. The prices were exactly as expected too. I can’t believe the size of the gigantic cans of beer…I think they were 24 ounces (700mLs.) We opted for smaller margaritas and a bag of peanuts in the shell. I can’t remember the last time I ate peanuts in the shell. Later in the game we tried to get chicken fingers, but bailed after waiting in a line that didn’t move.

Friday nights are fireworks night at the

street art

ballpark, so after watching that we headed home.

We considered stopping for a drink on the way home, but I was way too tired so we headed straight for the hotel.

We are going on a walking tour tomorrow that is supposed to include some of Houston’s Many pieces of street art, we had a preview of some on the way to the game.

street art