Don't Mess with Texas!

Houston, TX.  Fourth largest city in the United State of America.  The Bayou City.  Home to what might be the largest urban bat colony that doesn't migrate in the winter.  And now it is home to the Beckers.  We are the Tex Becks.

Houston has been good to us.  We came here for work and have found plenty of opportunities.  When we were struggling to find a diagnosis for Isaac's disease, we found the Texas Medical Center.  We have made friends and found a great church community.  Diversity and friendliness are just a couple of things that we love about Houston.

As all things, with the good comes the bad.  We really dislike the traffic here.  It's a concrete jungle where people rely to heavily on their cars and not enough on public transportation (which is lacking and probably the reason that people don't rely on it).  It's a dirty and sometimes violent city.  Open spaces with green grass and fresh air are hard to come by here.  

So today we hopped on over to Fort Bend County.  A neighboring county, Fort Bend is home of the George Ranch.  Here, a piece of Texas history has been preserved so that future generations can get an up close look at what life was like for early settlers of this land.  The historical park sits on 500 acres of a 23,000 acre ranch.  Wide open spaces are easy to come by here. 

The 1890's Victorian Mansion

Walking with the sun on our backs, we explored homes from the 1830's, 1860's, 1890's, and 1930's.  That's 100 years of preserved family history.  We saw cowboys on horses roping cattle and longhorns.  We caught a glimpse of the bulky dresses the women wore and felt the heat they would have had to endure.  While the majority of the park focuses on generations of wealthy families that were not the norm of the time, we still managed to learn about what the majority of folks probably went through during the times of sharecropping.  

The park also has blacksmith demonstrations and historical re-enactments.  Many common farm animals live on the grounds, as well as common (to the South) reptiles that like to prey upon them.   We had a wonderful time learning more about Texas history and the cowboy lifestyle.  The boys had open spaces (although due to drought, they weren't technically green) to get their wiggles out.  I can see a stick pony in our future, as well as a couple of cowboy hats.  I heard a "yee haw" or two in the gift shop.  

"Beware of Alligators and Snakes"

I hope that no matter where our path takes us, our kids will develop a sense of state pride for whatever state they end up calling "home".  I certainly have a strange love for Louisiana.  Troy loves his home state of Idaho.  For now we will work on loving Texas.  Learning about its rich history and culture.