X Marks the Spot!

Poor Fluffy--I couldn't resist. Construction paper, a pair of scissors, and a little time on my hands . . . More than once, this dangerous combination has produced all manner of silliness.

(A few years ago, it was a late-night attempt to fashion a stencil for the light on the front of our Amazon boat so that it would project the Bat Signal into the rainforest! In our defense, we were living on that boat for three weeks.)

Many of you may know of Mrs. D's love of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies (Read: her love of Johnny Depp in the Pirates movies--and I have to say, I can't disagree there). So I can only imagine Mrs. D's joy when she discovers that there is hidden treasure outside our very own science museum.

The museum--more specifically Dave--is offering a geocaching treasure hunt (a more high-tech version of letterboxing, with an actual take-away booty). Despite my false advertising, X will not mark the spot. After you visit the museum blog for clues, you'll need a GPS, a compass, and some internet sleuthing. Find the hidden treasure and you could be the proud holder of museum passes and admission to The Nature of Diamonds exhibit! What more could a rock-loving pirate want?

[UPDATE: A bit more info.]

And now for my brother's favorite "International Talk Like a Pirate Day" joke (Septemeber 19th, for those of you who are now pulling out your hair and frantically flipping the pages of your calendar, wondering how you've missed this opportunity all your life):

"Did you hear about the new pirate movie?

It's rated 'Aarrrr!'"

Yep, only the high-class, sophisticated humor for my family . . .

"Why does it take pirates so long to learn the alphabet?

Because they get stuck at C."

"How much does it cost a pirate to get his ear pierced?

A buccaneer!"

"Why couldn't the pirate play cards?

Because he was sitting on the deck."

"To err is human, but to 'Arrr' is Pirate!"

More swashbuckling humor that will make you groan, "Arrgh!"

Read more about it:

This month's KIDS DISCOVER features Buried Treasure

and the July/August Ask has an article about gems titled "Ask a Pirate"!

To the Bat Cave!

Another of my own additions to the 101 Places You Gotta See Before You're 12! list, this is not really so much about caves as it is about bats. Bats are found all over the world. Fluffy and I were excited to see this adorable fruit bat (or "flying fox") on our summer adventure--fascinating creatures!

Texas has the dubious distinction of being the battiest state with 32 species of bats living today, but there’s no reason to be afraid of them. Of the over one thousand species of bats that exist in the world, only three are vampire bats (drinking the blood of poultry rather than humans) and these are mostly limited to South America.

Texas is home to some of the largest Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) colonies in North America. In fact, they are a huge benefit to our city. The official "flying mammal" of the state of Texas, Mexican free-tailed bats eat insects--lots of them! Each one can eat up to 2/3 its body weight in insects. The colony at Bracken Cave (open to Bat Conservation International members only) consumes up to 250 tons of insects per night! Our smaller Houston colony does their fair share--up to 2 1/2 tons each night.

BAT VIEWING
A summer sunset is a great time to catch these nocturnal insect-eaters emerging from their roosts in awe-inspiring numbers.
The closest place to see this happen is the Waugh Drive Bridge in the heart of Houston.
Read the city's bat viewing tips & etiquette. Then park for free at Spotts Park (401 S. Heights Blvd. at Memorial Dr.) and walk across Buffalo Bayou to the observation deck along the Waugh Drive Bridge.
"Family Bat Night" is presented by Bat Team Volunteers every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evening through Labor Day weekend. Arrive at the bridge 20-30 minutes before sunset for a presentation and Q&A on our local bats.

More Bat Watching Sites by the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department:

Congress Avenue Bridge, Austin, TX
This bridge is located about one mile south of the Capitol and is the world’s largest urban bat colony consisting of 1.5 million bats. Read more about it and then check them out for yourself!
Directions (& map): Take either Mopac or IH-35 to downtown and exit on 1st Street. Proceed towards the center of town. Congress Avenue Bridge is the bridge located closest to I-35.

Old Tunnel Wildlife Management Area, Near Fredericksburg, TX
Covering 10.3 acres, including a wonderful nature trail, what really draws people here are the bats. Over the years, the "Old Tunnel" --an abandoned railroad tunnel-- has become the homestead for up to three million Brazilian Free-tailed Bats. Call 866-978-2287 for up-to-date estimated times of bat departure.
Directions (& map): Take Hwy. 290 east from the eastern edge of Fredericksburg, turn south on Old San Antonio Road, and drive another 10.5 miles.

Additional Texas Bat Viewing Sites

Trivia for Bat Lovers

Go Batty over these Bat Books :
Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
The Bat in The Boot by Annie Cannon
Outside and Inside Bats by Sandra Markle
Zipping, Zapping, Zooming Bats by Ann Earle
Amazing Bats by Seymour Simon

Go Underground

This place is my own add-on to the 101 Places You Gotta See Before You're 12! list.

Caves were a regular feature of family vacations when I was a child. Cool(er) and moist, a cave can be a sweet retreat from the heat of summer.

Texas has some great ones to visit. Stalactites, stalagmites, flowstones, and more!:
Natural Bridge Caverns
Cave Without a Name
Longhorn Caverns

You don't have to be in a cave, though, to go underground.
Visit the downtown tunnels
or walk through the Turrell Tunnel at the Museum of Fine Arts (free on Thursdays and always a cool 68 degrees!).

Fluffy Clue #3

You would think that getting away from a Houston summer would be a great chance to go somewhere cooler, but somehow I have mostly managed to select places that involve less air-conditioning and more sweating than a Houston summer would . . .

This time, though, I had to pack a scarf, gloves, sweaters, and jackets because Fluffy and I will be celebrating the Winter Solstice in this place while you're celebrating the Summer Solstice back home.

Hint: Think about our lessons on the seasons and the tilt of Earth's axis as it revolves around the sun. If Fluffy and I are in a place that is celebrating the Winter Solstice while it is summer at home, what does that tell you about where we are on the globe?

Clue #1
Clue #2

A Folk or Junk Art Creation

Number 44 in 101 Places You Gotta See Before You’re 12!




“One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. Some really interesting people devote their whole lives to piecing together what others call junk to make indescribable artistic statements. They’re not trained artists: they use bits of whatever—bottles, cans, broken glass, scrap metal—for art supplies. It’s not the kind of stuff you usually see in a museum: a sky-piercing cathedral of bicycle parts, a painted concrete fantasy world, acres and acres of spinning whirligig contraptions. You won’t believe it until you see it, and you may even be inspired to create some amazing art of your own.”

Off the top of my head, I can think of some great examples in Houston:
The Orange Show Monument
The Beer Can House
The Flower Man's House (2305 Francis St.--Please be respectful of Cleveland Turner's private home.)
Inspirational Art (Glass) Garden (1134 Yale St.)

Some folks even turn their cars into art!








The Cathedral of Junk is in Austin, but if you're in the area check it out!
Visit one or a few of these places—or scout out your own!





Resources:
101 Places You Gotta See Before You're 12! by Joanne O'Sullivan
Hot Town, Cool City (If you get a chance, the movie is well worth seeing! and its creator is a Montessori mom!)

Fluffy Clue #2

Fluffy and I are enjoying the fact that all the hotel rooms here have electric kettles instead of coffee makers! We are in a land of tea drinkers! Coffee drinkers must be content with making instant coffee with the hot water from the kettle. My kind of place!

Hint: Think about what you know about the countries with tea drinking traditions. This mystery place is either one of those countries . . . OR has been influenced by one those countries.

Clue #1

A Place of Worship

(other than your own)



#55 in 101 Places You Gotta See Before You're 12!

"Most kids would agree that what the world needs now is a little more peace and understanding. But what can a kid do, and how can you start? Well, you can start by getting to know people who are different from you so you can better understand their culture or beliefs. Visit a place of worship that's different from your own to find out what it's all about. Attend a service or ask your host to explain the symbols, rituals, and beliefs to you. One of the most surprising things you'll probably learn is that we all have a lot more in common than we think."



A few places of worship:

Shri Swaminarayan (Hindu) Mandir (Additional visitor guidelines--You will be asked to remove your shoes; Tank tops, shorts, short skirts, cell phones, and photography are not permitted)

Chung Mei Buddhist Temple

Villa de Matel Convent (Arrange for a visit by contacting the Sisters of Charity of The Incarnate Word)

Our Lady of Walsingham Catholic Church

Chapel of St. Basil

Byzantine Fresco Chapel Museum

Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church

Antioch Missionary Baptist Church

Live Oak Friends (Quaker) Meeting House

The Painted Churches of Fayette County

Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue

Congregation Beth Yesherun Synagogue

Congregation Emanu El Temple

A mosque

Resources:
101 Places You Gotta See Before You're 12! by Joanne O'Sullivan
Orange Show Eyeopener "Places of Worship" Tours
Houston Historical Tours

Fluffy who?

Fluffy Justin Fernando.

That's the kind of name you get when it is chosen by process of consensus . . . with children ages 6 to 9. Fluffy doesn't seem to mind. Fernando (which I've discovered sounds best with a Brazilian Portuguese accent) was chosen because it means "explorer" or "adventurer" (our first graders were deep into name research at the time).

Fluffy and I got started because I needed a way to make geography more real for my students (many of whom have never left Houston, much less the United States) and more fun for me (unlike my father, pulling the atlas off the shelf is not one of my favorite ways to party). I had recently seen "Amelie" when I discovered a book in the Museum of Fine Arts gift shop (I love museum gift shops!): Letters from Felix. Serendipity and synergy at their best!

Mostly, Fluffy travels with good-natured friends and family members. Occasionally, I'll get a phone call that's not really for me at all but instead for my alter ego who serves as Fluffy's volunteer travel agent. "We're going to _____ on _____! Is Fluffy available?" In fact, sometimes Fluffy is in such high demand that he has to turn down such invitations because of other conflicting engagements. The thing about Fluffy is that he doesn't eat much, he takes up very little space (he's been known to squeeze into a fanny pack!), and he never complains. Who could ask for more from a travel companion?

One of my favorite photos from Fluffy's travels was courtesy of some high school friends. One of them had been working as an investment banker and (several years ago) took a sweet lay-off deal. So he decided to spend a year living in a villa in Italy, learning Italian (I know--this is a life just slightly beyond the edges of my wildest imagination). Three other high school friends went to visit him, and they had a high old time cavorting around Europe together. The kicker was that Fluffy was invited to go along (not me, you'll notice).

This trip was one of my more impressive feats as Fluffy's travel agent. You see, Fluffy is not big enough (or ambulatory enough) to travel unaccompanied. So after returning from Japan with a high school friend who was attending business school at MIT, Fluffy joined a college friend living in Boston who took him with her to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Fluffy then returned to Boston to be handed off to one of the high school friends who was flying off to join the boys in Europe.

The guys did a fabulous job of taking Fluffy around with them wherever they went. (I suspect that perhaps Fluffy turned out to be something of a "chick-magnet" on this particular trip--a conversation starter, if you will . . .) Anyway, they took Fluffy with them to a certain museum where they photographed him with a famous painting of a reclining nude. One of the fine gents kindly used a hand to shield Fluffy's eyes from indecent exposure. The resulting photo (which, I'm sorry to say, was taken before digital cameras were in everyone's pockets) makes me laugh out loud.

Frankly, I'm a little jealous of Fluffy. He's more well-traveled than anyone else I know. He's been to castles in Scotland, the Great Wall of China, the mountains of Tibet, a wedding in India, the beaches of Hawaii, the Greek islands . . . At first, my skeptical and tech-savvy children accused me of having Photoshopped Fluffy into these scenes. This, when Fluffy's travel agent was working so hard to secure travel companions and connecting flights to his exciting destinations!

On rare occasions, I get to go along with Fluffy. Mostly in the summer because I've got this pesky job. :) As the promise of summer looms large on the horizon, the questions begin. “Are you going anywhere this summer?” “So, do you have a trip planned?” “Where are you going this summer?” “Are you taking your rabbit?” “Will you show us pictures when you come back?”

Together, Fluffy and I have had some wild adventures.

We've climbed to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan (in addition to the ruins of Monte Alban, Palenque, Uxmal, and Chichen Itza and the Olmec heads) in Mexico.



(the steep steps of a pyramid at Uxmal)

He's chatted nervously with a baby black caiman,






sat upon a water lily,





and swung on vines in the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil.

We've traveled to our country's Colonial past, where Fluffy quickly nabbed a job as kitchen help






while I tried my hand (I mean, foot) at brick-making.

At Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, we watched women weaving on backstrap looms.





We explored the Mayan ruins of Tikal




and Copan (in Honduras).






On Eleuthera (a long, skinny island in the Bahamas), Fluffy watched the waves










while I snorkeled (a somewhat soggy Amazon experience taught us that Fluffy should keep his distance from the water).





Fluffy and I spent a couple weeks last summer digging for Dimetrodon in the Red Beds of North Texas.

I love to learn about the world, and travel is a way to be in someone else's place.

Well, I've packed my Amazon hat, and Fluffy and I are off on another adventure!
The first hint is that we are traveling to a place that is surrounded by water . . .
One of my first graders--thinking locally--spread a rumor that the mystery place is San Antonio, which does have a very nice river . . . but is not surrounded by water. Others have suggested Hawaii or Puerto Rico.

(Note: The photograph is from a different place we've traveled, also surrounded by water.)

Stay tuned for more Adventures of Fluffy and Crazy Hat Lady!


***For those of you who now have a hankering to host Fluffy on an adventure of your own, there are a few guidelines (because when we started, I was not wise enough to realize Fluffy might need a doppelganger):
1) Fluffy doesn't travel with students' families.
2) Fluffy only travels with those responsible enough to bring him home.
3) You may have to take me with you!

A Sculpture Park

Number 36 in 101 Places You Gotta See Before You’re 12!


“It’s like a museum without walls and without the try-to-keep-your-voice-down rule. No walls means nothing’s too big to fit, so you’ll see the most gigantic sculptures, and sometimes you can touch them or even climb on them (check the park’s rules before you do, please). No walls also means the weather and the sculpture can interact: the wind blows movable parts, the sculpture casts cool shadows on the ground, snow rests on top of it, and rain makes its surfaces slick. The sculpture becomes part of the landscape, like a tree or a rock. And if the sculpture makes you want to do a cartwheel, go right ahead—try doing that in a museum!”

There are several fun outdoor art places in Houston, but Saturday, June 6, AIA will host its 23rd Annual Sandcastle Competition, temporarily transforming Galveston’s East Beach into a surf-side sculpture park!


(Obviously, not all of the sand sculptures are castles. You gotta love a sand sculpture of worms!)



Here are a few more outdoor art places to get your hunt started!
The Eclectic Menagerie Park (awarded “Best Menagerie” by Houston Press readers in 2006)
The MFAH Cullen Sculpture Garden
David Adickes's SculpturWorx Studio
Buffalo Bayou Art Park
The Artery (best viewed from within the walls of “the garden” at night--attend an event there)

Or discover an outdoor art place that’s not on the list!

Even the streets of downtown could be considered a sculpture park!





Resources:
101 Places You Gotta See Before You're 12! by Joanne O'Sullivan
Hot Town, Cool City (If you get a chance, the movie is well worth seeing, and its creator is a Montessori mom!)

The Spirit of Adventure

Note: I had this entry all written and ready to go, just waiting for a photo or two, but when I saw Pixar's "UP", I knew had to change the title in its honor.

Last week on the METRO, one of the young adults who asked me about what we were doing spoke wistfully about how much he enjoyed field trips as a child and how that was all over once you grew up—no more field trips. I wanted to tell him that doesn’t have to be true. As an adult, you can still go on field trips! You just have to plan them yourself—and then GO!

A few months back, I ordered a book from one of the Scholastic book clubs: 101 Places You Gotta See Before You’re 12! by Joanne O’Sullivan. As I am wont to do when I've discovered something cool, I immediately began carting it around to show to everyone. They tease me for bringing “show-and-tell” when I come over for play dates, but all of my adult friends were jealous of this great little book! I won't share all 101 places, but I couldn't resist sharing a little of it with you this summer—and adding some Houston hints and a few "places" of my own to the list!

The book opens with: “Get Up & Go!
LONG AGO, THE EARLY EXPLORERS SET OFF ON THEIR JOURNEYS with nothing more than a spirit of adventure and the stars to guide them. Sometimes the only information they had about their destination was an ominous phrase written on the edge of a map: Here there be dragons. Today, we have global positioning satellites to tell us where we are all the time, and guidebooks that tell us exactly what we should see and will see when we get to a certain place at a certain time. True, people don’t get lost in jungles or eaten by sea monsters much these days, but sometimes, having too much information can make exploring a little less exciting.

That’s where this book comes in. It isn’t a book, really. It’s more like a scavenger hunt. Instead of hunting for things, you’ll be hunting for cool places and amazing experiences. . . . We’ll give you some clues . . . The rest is up to you. No two kids are exactly the same, so no two journeys will be the same—which makes your discoveries truly your own. You may not live in the Age of Explorers, but you’re definitely the right age for exploring. Before you’re 12 is the perfect time to get out and see the world.

So, what’s your reward at the end of this scavenger hunt? A collection of incredible experiences, a lot of fun new discoveries, amazing memories, and a lot of great stories to tell your friends. Even if you don’t see all these places before you’re 12, you’ll have made a great start to a lifetime of exploration.”

Yes! Get out there and see the world! "Touch it. Smell it. Taste it!"

But you don't have to go far or spend a lot of money to have a great adventure. Houston offers so many fun finds (many of them free!), right here in your own backyard!
Dig into the Summer Homework, and plan a field trip for your family and yourself!
I'll help you out with some challenges and clues along the way. "Adventure is out there!"