As I was taking my first round of meds this morning, I noticed that one of my bottles was feeling pretty light. So I counted the pills and found to my horror that I DIDN’T BRING ENOUGH PRAMIPEXOLE for the whole trip! So it’s a … Continue reading Texas Trip Report (Day 6)
The dawn of Day 4 found me in the “NASA suburbs” southeast of Houston. Way back in 2007, I spent five non-contiguous weeks in this area when my employer at the time had a contract with NASA. This is the first time I’ve been here in the 15 years since. I only got about three hours of sleep overnight. That combined with a weather forecast calling for “the hottest day of the year so far” (over 90 degrees Fahrenheit) led me to decide that this would be my “day off” from this vacation. So I spent most of the day inside my air-conditioned hotel room, writing for this very blog, then just drove around checking out some of my old haunts. Nothing exciting or compelling, so let’s move on.
I am a museum geek. That’s not exciting or compelling either, but that won’t stop me from writing about the Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS). I spent the whole day there, and I could easily go back and spend more time! The Hall of Paleontology is the star of the show. Most natural science museums I’ve visited had one or two complete dinosaur skeletons, and lots of individual bones. HMNS has probably a dozen complete dinosaur skeletons, as well as fossilized dinosaur skin on display. And it doesn’t end with dinosaurs. They also have skeletons of mastodons, huge extinct sloths and armadillos, saber-toothed cats, and much more!
There’s also a Hall of African Wildlife (current species, not dinosaur-age beasties). Unlike many similar museums where the visitor is in the middle of the room looking into dioramas, the displays at HMNS intrude in the visitor space, allowing you to see the dead animals up close, and from several angles. This is the best natural science museum I’ve seen, hands down. No, wait! Keep your hands where I can see ’em! Now wave ’em in the air like you just don’t care. OK, stop it!
I’ve been experiencing some strange vision-related phenomena lately. I’ll try to remember to write about them in detail once I get home from this trip. In the meantime, it’s a patty melt and onion rings from Whataburger for dinner.
If you’ve been following my ThrowBack Thursday posts, you probably already know that I love walking around downtown areas, photographing the ornate architecture of old buildings. If you do already know that, then it would seem you know me better than I know myself. Y’see, … Continue reading Texas Trip Report (Day 3)
I actually got an acceptable amount (six hours) of sleep last night. This would be remarkable on its own, but it’s flat out amazing when you consider that I didn’t get to sleep until 1 AM – i.e., I slept until 7 AM. Central time. … Continue reading Texas Trip Report (Day 2)
My airline-related fears have been confirmed. You may recall (or you may click here) that during my previous trip, I shared my experiences with Spirit airlines. During that trip, I also learned that Spirit will soon be merging with Frontier airlines. I used to love Frontier. Denver used to be their only hub, and I flew Frontier frequently when I lived in Colorado. But since I’ve lived in North Carolina for the last several years, I haven’t had much chance to fly Frontier…until now. For my flight to Texas (San Antonio, specifically) I managed to get a great price for a one-way ticket, with the caveat that there would be a 7.5-hour layover in Denver. So I decided to give Frontier another try. Today, I was disappointed to learn that they have already implemented several of the things that I didn’t like about Spirit: the uncomfortable seats, charges for both checked AND carry-on luggage, having to pay extra to choose your own seat, the tiny tray tables…the list possibly goes on.
As for the 7.5-hour layover, I still have family near Denver. They came to the Denver International Airport (DIA) to pick me up; we had lunch and generally roamed around the northern suburbs for a few hours, before they deposited me back at DIA. But wait, isn’t this a Parkinson’s blog? Why, yes. Yes it is.
Long-time readers of this blog (if such beasts actually exist) know that the single aspect of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) I’ve given the most attention, is insomnia. A few weeks ago, my PD Specialist prescribed me another sleep aid to try. There have been more than a few cases where I posted great news about a specific treatment, only to have it stop working within a few weeks. Therefore, I am waiting this one out. I will discuss this latest prescription once I am more certain as to its long-term efficacy. For the moment, I’ll just say that I woke up too early on Day 1 of my Texas trip, and that I think it was due to me actually being afraid of oversleeping since this was an early flight, rather than being due to any failure on the medication’s part. Regardless of the cause, the effect of this lack of sleep was that I did some pertty decent sleepin’ on both flights. But I also fuzzed out a couple of times – both of which were right when the flight attendants had the beverage cart next to me. “Fuzzed out” is the term I just now made up for this experience. The experience is like a kind of detachment…my senses are still functional, but I feel as if I’m observing (dimly) from a distance; like I’m not really there. Or maybe this would be more accurate: it feels like my conscious mind has unexpectedly stepped aside, forcing my subconscious mind to take over for it. Each time it happened today, it lasted only a few seconds. But it lasted a full morning once. In that instance, I was perfectly functional – drove my car, went for a hike, took photos – I just felt like I wasn’t consciously in control of my actions. Like I was being operated remotely.
Anyway…got my rental car, drove to my hotel, had an EXCELLENT dinner at a local restaurant called, I think, La Torta, ready for bed.
…and on the 11th day, Cedric rested…and tried the new nachos at Chili’s…and he saw that they were good. After seeing loads of wildlife inside amusement parks, I decided it was time to see wildlife in the wild. So on Day Twelve, I made the … Continue reading Florida Trip Report (the final four days)
Let me just start by saying, this trip has had the worst traffic of any vacation I’ve ever been on. During my previous trip to Florida, where I went all the way down the Atlantic coast and out to Key West, traffic was hardly a concern at all. But central and southwestern Florida have been a COMPLETELY different story. From Orlando down through Tampa to Sarasota: Massive traffic jams somewhere along my route EVERY DAY so far. So today, when I had planned to leave early enough to get to Sea World at opening time…I didn’t leave nearly early enough. But that’s OK; I didn’t stay all day, anyway.
I found Sea World to be similar to Busch Gardens, and not just because they’re the same company. They both have animal displays scattered amongst thrill rides. The difference being that Busch Gardens seems to be a little more about the rides, while Sea World is a little more about the animals…which seems to make sense. Officially, I came here for the coasters, but I quickly converted to the marine life side of things. I only rode three coasters (one of them twice). They were good, especially Mako, which felt like a cross between Intimidator and Fury 325 (both of which are at my home park, Carowinds). But I spent much more time at the shows and the walk-through animal exhibits.
I went to the orca show, the sea lion / otter / walrus show, and the dolphin show. Due to the show times, I did them all back-to-back-to-back, which led to my afternoon dose of Parkinson’s meds being taken an hour late, right before the dolphin show. So I headed into the dolphin show feeling tired and weak, and thinking that I would leave the park right after the show. But the meds kicked in during the show, re-energizing me. I stayed for another couple hours, and considered staying even longer. But it was dark by then, and I was ready to find some dinner. Some dinner that wasn’t worth blogging about.
I leave you with a quick video of a ride I didn’t fully notice until just before I left Sea World. In all my amusement park travels, I have seen and ridden many a river rafting ride and many a flume ride, but this is the first time I’ve seen the two concepts merged into a single ride…
Do you remember the Ringling Brothers? Of course not, you never met ’em! But do you remember the NAME Ringling Brothers? In 1870, five brothers from McGregor, Iowa founded what later became the biggest circus in history. John Ringling lived until 1936; by then, he … Continue reading Florida Trip Report (Days 8 and 9)
Way back in 1990, I started to build a list of Must Ride roller coasters. This list has waxed and waned since then, but I’ve always kept it short enough that it could be maintained in my noggin; never has it been written down. I … Continue reading Florida Trip Report (Day 7)
…and on the 5th day, Cedric rested…and had German food for lunch…and watched the Rams win the Super Bowl…and saw that it was good.
I set aside the entirety of Day Six for the Salvador Dali museum, not really knowing what to expect. Dali had a wider variety of work than I had anticipated. While he is widely known for his surreal paintings, his early works were largely impressionist, and he did some sculpting, as well. Late in his career, he did some HUGE paintings – like 12 feet high, and loaded with the activity and detail one would expect from Dali. But most of the paintings they have on display are quite small. My favorite, if only for the title, was “Atmospheric Skull Sodomizing a Grand Piano”. Do a Google image search…it’s out there.
The Dali collection was quite broad and very enjoyable (though the place was crowded), yet I was done within a couple of hours. The museum also had a temporary exhibit on Picasso’s sources of influence. Not on his actual art, so much as his home land and life experiences. There were more photos of Picasso than there were paintings by Picasso. It was interesting, but I didn’t spend a lot of time on this exhibit.
So now it was only lunch time, and I had nothing else planned for the day. So I hopped into the car and wandered blindly around the greater Tampa Bay area, doing some random shopping along the way. BTW, my rental car is tiny (a Chevy Spark). I shouldn’t have tried to ‘hop into’ it. Ouch.
