Day 5 (2018) - Fun and Games

Today was supposed to be an educational day, with a trip to the George HW Bush Presidential Library in College Station. But the government shutdown put the kibosh on that so we had to improvise. I'm not sure that missing the library was the worst thing in the world, since I have learned in the 8 years that we have done road trips that the kids really aren't all that excited, or interested in, museums where you have to look at things and read about them. They have always been way more of a hands-on group, and nothing has really changed since 2010 when we did our first trip. Yesterday's NASA expedition was no exception. So when plans changed yesterday and we started talking about other things to do, they were not all that keen on my idea to go to the National Museum of Funeral History, despite the overwhelmingly positive reviews it received.

So I told them last night to find something else to do, and Brian suggested a place called Top Golf, and we planned our day around that. First things first though - we had to eat a ridiculously good, high-calorie breakfast. To achieve that lofty goal, we headed to The Breakfast Klub. This is another one of those simple, local places, where you order at the counter and find a table. The line had already formed around the building when we arrived there around 10:00, but it moved relatively quickly, and as soon as we knew it we were ordering. And order we did. For the table we got orders of wings-n-waffles and biscuits and gravy because, well, why not? We all ordered some version of eggs for ourselves and the food came out pretty quickly and was eaten just as fast.

It's biscuits, it's gravy, how can this be bad?

Not exactly sure why these go together, but glad they do

After breakfast, we headed to the golf place. Just as we were finishing breakfast I made a reservation for noon, but we actually arrived closer to 11:15. Since we had a reservation they moved us way up in the waiting list for a driving bay, and we were called around 11:30. So, Top Golf is an interesting concept. At its core it's a driving range, but the difference is that on the ground are circles around pins at varying distances. You get points for both accuracy and distance, so if you get it in a circle (on the fly or on a roll) you get points, and you get more points for the closer you get to the pins and even more points the further away those pins are. Got it?

First thing you have to do is buy a lifetime membership for $5. Not only are we members of NASA, we are now also all members of Top Golf. That's a very exclusive club. To play you first decide how long you want to play, so we selected an hour. Then you choose the game. The basic game is where every player gets 20 balls to amass the most amount of points. The other games are more about accuracy and hitting certain targets. Considering the wide range (pun intended) of golf ability in our group, we opted for the basic game.

I went first, and started by trying to chip into the closest circle. But after a few chips that just missed, and got no points, I started to ramp up the swings, first going to an iron, then to a 3-wood. That proved to be a better strategy since I was getting points for distance, and even the ones that didn't immediately hit their target ended up rolling into the next one. I hit all 20 of my shots, then everyone else took turns.

As I mentioned, there was a gap in golf skill in the group, but that really didn't matter since even rolled shots often ended up in a circle and got points. So playing "hero ball" and just wailing away with a driver (not gonna say who took this approach, but congrats on his upcoming college graduation) was not necessarily the optimal plan, especially when said driver did not always produce accurate shots.

We all hit our 20 shots each, and the winner was not exactly a surprise. Again, not going to name names, but a small clue is that this person is the one typing this clue.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner

But everyone had fun and since we had already used up 45 minutes of our hour on the first round we extended it another hour. The second time around we changed things up and decided to hit 5 balls at a time, to rotate more and allow for less just waiting around. Some of us (most of us) liked this plan, some (one) didn't. Anyway, everyone came up with their own strategies as to how they wanted to play it, and we again crowned a winner (same as the first winner).

Just sayin'

But really, we were all winners (but one won more than the others). We extended play another 15 minutes so we could get one more turn through, and finally wrapped up around 2:00.

Again passing on the funeral museum idea, Debbie found another escape the room place not too far way that had availability at 2:30, so we headed there. We got there right before 2:30, quickly signed up and headed into the Sherlock Holmes room to try and escape. This time it was just us in the room, and we all added some help to get us through, although we did utilize more than a few clues. With minimal infighting, we successfully escaped with about 8 minutes to spare.

It was almost 3:30 when we left, so we headed back to the hotel to rest a little before our early dinner. The Rockets-Celtics game was at 7:00 CT. I had made a reservation at a restaurant in the hotel at 5:15 because the Toyota Center, where the Rockets play, is literally around the corner from the hotel, and I wanted someplace where we could just walk to the game. The meal was fine, nothing special, and we headed to the game around 6:30 (and got there at 6:35). The Flash Seats app that I needed to use to get us into the game was acting strange (turns out it wasn't just me, others were having problems also) but it ended up fine and we found our seats.

The game started a little after 7:00 CT, and the Rockets built an early big lead but the Celtics made a run in the 2nd quarter to get it close at halftime. However, the Rockets hit about 549 three-point shots and eventually pulled away to win by double digits.

Boooooooo

James Harden had 45 points, but it was definitely not your father's style of basketball. He hit 9 three-pointers and made 14 free throws (with at least 5 or 6 of them coming after being fouled while taking three-pointers), so if you do the math that means he only made two 2-point shots.

Fun was had by all, except the Celtics and their fans

Despite the loss, the game was fun, and Debbie particularly enjoyed the Rockets' announcer. He was VERY animated with any announcements that had to do with the Rockets, but channeled Eyeore when announcing positive things for the Celtics. It's hard to do it justice in text, but the difference was dramatic and funny. After the game ended we walked back to the hotel. Tomorrow is our last full day and it will be a long, busy day, starting with a drive to Dallas, with some funky stops along the way. The plan for Dallas is to see the JFK stuff in the afternoon and take a tour of Jerry's World (aka AT&T Stadium) at 6.