Christmas Cruise

Here's a non-flashed, cell phone picture of Matt waiting to board the boat for the Christmas Cruise.

A couple of days before Christmas Matt, Bella and I met downtown near the Spaghetti Warehouse parking lot to get excited about going on a Buffalo Bayou boat tour called the Christmas Cruise. The part that made it Christmasy was that the pontoon boat was decked out with holiday lights. We made Bella wear her life jacket which she was happy about at first, but then announced to all that she "no want it!" anymore. We still wanted her to wear it and insisted upon it.

It was an interesting tour of downtown from the perspective of the bayou. We saw the jail that looks like a hotel...but all the windows were facades (which explains why no lights were on). We smelled bats from under the bridges & highways. It was dark but there was a fullish moon so we could see that there were things in the water and could feel a slight thunk as we ran over them which made for a very eery ride. Matt enjoyed the history lesson. I successfully prevented Bella from ripping off a holiday light, losing her balance and falling off the seat into either the hard bottom of the boat or the murky bayou. We saw the oldest piece of concrete...or brick (like I said, it was dark) in Houston and learn about the flooding of downtown. We also learned about the unsuccessful development of channels for the bayou. They didn't work because the water was channeled out leaving the bayou dry.

The weather was perfect and we enjoyed the ride. We recommend it as something a bit different to do in Houston. There was great people-watching too. Whether chatting with other pontoon passengers or observing the homeless people eating a prepared dinner on the dock, it will be a remarkable adventure!