Category Archives: Houston area

A Tale of Two Museums in Houston: Menil Collection & Museum of Natural Science

  By Anne Patrone | December 4, 2010 - 3:44 pm | , , , , , , , ,
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A Christmas tree 

On a recent visit to Houston, the kids and I had a chance to visit two very different museums – the Museum of Natural Science (for a National Geographic Pirate exhibit) and the Menil Collection (which used to be on Frommer’s 500 Places to Take Your Kids).

Talk about apples and oranges.  These two museums, located within a few miles of each other, couldn’t have been more different.

I’ll start with the Museum of Natural Science, which we decided to visit because the boys had seen an advertisement for the Real Pirates exhibit in the airline magazine as we flew down.  Before we entered the exhibit, we wandered around the Energy Hall.

Sponsored by several oil companies, the hall focuses primarily on what made Texas (and Texans) so wealthy – oil.  With hands-on exhibits, a “simulator” down a well shaft, and loads of computer models, the boys and I learned about Christmas trees (no, not the ones that are wood and pine needles), how a well is drilled, and the science of geology.

Do you know what “fracking” is?

I didn’t until I spent some time in the Geovator and learned about this technique to get oil to the surface.

And then we went to the fabulous Real Pirates exhibit (at Houston until Feb. 6, 2011) to see the treasures from a real pirate ship, the Whydah.


As weak as the King Tut exhibit was (see my post on November 26), this exhibit was unbelievably amazing.  With kid-friendly dioramas that showed what a pirate’s life was really like, an overflowing chest of glittering pieces of eight, and a story that goes from Cape Cod to Africa to the Caribbean and back to Massachusetts, the exhibit was a huge hit with my guys.

Which brings me to the second half of our museum day – the Menil Collection.

To be fair, my mom kept telling me “Don’t do it, Anne.  It’s not really a place for kids.”

But hey, it made the original 500 Places to Take Your Kids Before They Grow Up - so how bad could it be?

Ummm, let’s just say that it cost me a trip to an Academy store to buy sports gear as payback for the “torture,” as my boys called it.

To be fair, we only saw half of the collection, heading to the right when we entered to start off in the Surrealist rooms filled with Magrittes and Dalis.

Here are my guys’ comments:  ”So what exactly is art, Mom?”(this from a kid who went to the Met at age 3).

“Wait a minute.  You mean all I have to do is flatten out a box, slap it on a wall, and it’s art?” (said in front of a modern piece)

“Hmm, that’s interesting . . .” (said in front of “The Rape” by Rene Magritte – an oil painting of a woman’s nude torso where her breasts are the eyes, the navel is the nose, and her mouth is. . . well, you know).

Sigh.

I hate it when my mother is right.  Still, 33 down, 467 to go.

Space Center Houston: Rockets & Boys

  By Anne Patrone | December 17, 2009 - 10:00 am | , , , , , ,
1 Comment

 

Future Astronauts at Johnson Space Center Houston

Johnson Space Center

Sometimes when you visit relatives, there’s only so much sitting-around-splashing-in-the-pool time you can stand. Combine that with the oppressive heat and humidity of Houston, TX, in the summer and you need an air-conditioned diversion. In the summer of 2005, when M was almost 6 and P was 3 1/2, we needed such a diversion.

M was attending a rocket day camp later in the summer and he was fascinated with all things space. So we packed up the kids, and with grandparents in tow, drove to Clear Lake, TX – home of the Johnson Space Center.

It had been quite a while since I had visited as a teenager and I wasn’t sure it would appeal to young children, even my rocket-crazed son. The Space Center I remembered was like a fusty museum with lots of artifacts and exhibits encased in plexiglass containers. But wow! what a difference a couple of decades (ahem . . .) makes.

The first thing that captured my son’s attention (and this was P, the younger one) was a two (maybe three??) story play area with slides and chutes and all sorts of bouncy things. Promising they would have plenty of time to play later, we walked around with our jaws hanging open. The exhibits were still present, but they had a lot more zing and pizzazz than the old plexiglass containers.

It seems like within the past few decades, science museums have decided to make themselves more approachable with hands-on exhibits and models. This is definitely what happened here. Thank goodness.

Future astronaut at Johnson Space Center

Future Astronaut

And lest you think the adults were short-changed by an emphasis on future space travelers, hubby got so engrossed in the more conventional area of the center, that we had to drag him away to go on our tram tour of the facility. (With a thankfully short wait in the Texas heat). In hindsight, I think the adults got more out of the tour than the kids did – you get to see the historic mission control center – but the kids found the archaic computers with all their switches and buttons humorous.

After our return, we let the kids play for almost an hour in the Kids Space Place (site of P’s huge tower) before we enjoyed a quiet ride (they slept the entire time) home.

The 500 book recommends the Space Center for ages 6 & up. They’re probably right.

I agree that my older son got more out of the day than did my younger one. But P enjoyed his day, even though he may not remember it. The details of our visit are also fuzzy for M, but sometimes you go to a place because it works for that time of their life. That summer, M was into rockets. Because of his visit, he made a connection between the rockets NASA sent into space and the one he shot off in a football field.

Isn’t that what traveling supposed to do? Make connections?

Two places visited, 498 to go.