There were, of course, a variety of traditional and other animals at the zoo as well.

As usual, more photos in my Houston Zoo Flickr Set.

At the risk of causing some trouble doing birds near cats…. The zoo has quite a selection of birds in the bird house, behind glass, and a walk through atrium with birds.

As usual, more photos in my Houston Zoo Flickr Set.

Back to the Houston Zoo…. I finally finished processing all the Zoo pictures, so the next few posts will be about the Zoo again. This time, Cats… The cat area is rather small, but has a nice variety. I managed to get some fairly nice pictures of the cats who were somewhat active.

As usual, more photos in my Houston Zoo Flickr Set.

Something rather notable about the Houston Zoo, to me, was the number of birds on display. Their collection seems to be considerably larger than most other zoos I have been to. Unfortunately, the cage design made it difficult to get good pictures.

More pictures in my Houston Zoo Flickr Set.

One of our visits in Houston was to the Zoo. The zoo is very nice and we arrived mid-afternoon and started in the Aquarium near the entrance. Other parts of the zoo to follow.

More photos in the Houston Zoo Flickr Set.

In addition to the mineral display, the Houston Science and Natural History Museum has a large butterfly atrium. They have a large variety of butterflies flying around, year round.

Many more butterfly pictures in the Houston Science and Natural History Museum flickr set.

The mineral collection at the Houston Science and Natural History Museum is by far the most impressive one I have ever seen. It is not only the quantity of the specimens, but the quality. It was very hard to shoot some of them, so while some of the pictures are beautiful, they still don’t do justice to the actual thing. Picking “favorites” for here was very difficult. I encourage you to go visit the set on this one, even if you do not usually (link at the end).

More at the Houston Science and Natural History Museum flickr set.

While in Houston the Wings over Houston Air Show was scheduled. We bought “Eagle Squadron” tickets (which meant food and shade through the day). It was worth the extra price for the shade, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky that day and we still got burned. There were a wide variety of events going on, including sky diving, an F/A-18 demo, an appache demo, Tora Tora Tora was there. There was also a C-17 demo and, the stars of the shop, the Thunderbirds.

Many more shots in the Wings Over Houston flickr set.

We took a route through San Antonio back from Austin to Houston. We stopped by the El Mercado and had lunch and walked around a bit before continuing on.

There’s a few more pictures in the El Mercado Flickr Set.

One of my visits was to Innerspace Caverns.  These are caverns that were discovered during a mjaor highway constructon project.  They’d been sealed for thousands of years until core samples found them.  There’s several tours avaialble through the day and they’re interesting.  I did the mid-level tour.

As usual, more pictures at the Innerspace Caverns Flickr Set.