Bugs: A Houston Visit

As the long distance marriage continues so do my monthly trips to Houston. Since I've come home from the Bahamas in July I've managed a weekly visit once a month. Joseph has also kept good on his plan to come home to Tennessee once a month.

I continue to enjoy my trips to Houston. We go on dates and I get to hang out with my brother in law and his fiance. While Joseph is at work I usually go to a yoga class, do some homework, and try to do something touristy. Houston is a big ass city with a lot to offer and as I am still living the student lifestyle it makes sense to try and take advantage of these two circumstances. On Friday I decided to visit the butterfly garden at the Houston Natural History Museum. The Natural History Museum is in Houston's museum district which surrounds a very nice park. I walked through the surprisingly beautiful park on my way to the museum.

I found the entrance to the park very dramatic

This is the center of the park. On either side are gardens. 

This is part of the rose garden.

This is a rando waterwall walking path

View of the waterfall from the bottom

View of the park from on top of the waterfall mountain. The layout reminds me of the national mall in D.C.

Beautiful live oaks outside the Natural History Museum.

The butterfly garden from the outside.

Identifying cards

Mr. iguana in the butterfly garden. There was a sign that said he goes on walks which made me happy. 

The white and black butterfly in the center is called a "rice paper". It was my favorite. 

After exiting the butterfly garden you come to a room with a cabinet of bugs. I particularly liked this title.

I opened every drawer. Amazing bugs!

The next day however, we had some not so positive bug experiences. It was Saturday so Joseph had the day off. We went to a yoga class at the local yoga studio and then decided to look at new cars for funsies. Joseph's car is getting up there in years. Prior to hitting the car lots we had a delicious lunch at a salad chain place under beautiful old trees.

Enjoying lunch while unbeknowingstly being targeted by a bad hombre.

After lunch we arrived at the first car lot and Joseph noticed that his right arm was burning. As he examined his arm he noticed some weird red spots. Then we looked at his shirt where his right arm would brush up against it  and noticed that a white, furry, caterpillar insect looked to be stuck to his shirt. With shock and disgust Joseph removed the bug from his shirt. The feeling of violation persisted. The redness on his arm progressed to an allergic reaction. We wanted to learn more about the white fuzzy bug so I googled and found that something called a "flannel moth" is common in Texas and stings people. The description of the sting and the picture matched up to our bad hombre. Google provided that the flannel moth likes to hang in shade trees which we had recently visited during our lunch. A local advised the use of duct tape after being stung to remove the stingers. Google recommended ice and Benadryl.

This is what he looks like

The previous day at work, Joseph was stung by fire ants. So between the butterfly garden, showy Texas insects, the flannel moth, and fire ants, the theme of this visit was bugs. That said it was an otherwise nice visit to the big H.

Book of the week: Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

Album of the week: Pushin' Against a Stone, Valerie June