Sunday, October 08, 2006

HOUSTON - The Beer Can House


Our first true destination... The Beer Can House. Here is a little background on this cool place!

In 1968, John Milkovisch was just another retired employee of Southern Pacific railroad. He lived in an undistinguished house in an undistinguished suburban neighborhood of Houston. Then John got antsy. He began decorating his patio with pieces of brass, marbles, rocks and buttons. Then he tore up the lawn and replaced it with similar glittery debris. The house itself was next. John took beer cans and flattened them into aluminum siding
Beer cans quickly became John's exclusive medium -- a convenient one, since John drank a lot of beer. He worked on the house for the next 18 years, incorporating a six-pack a day into its adornment -- roughly 39,000 cans. He linked pull-tabs into long streamers to make curtains that chimed when the wind blew. "This curtain idea is just one of those dreams in the back of my noodle," he explained at the time.
"John thought beer cured everything," explained Mary, his wife, after John had died.
John passed away several years ago but his Beer Can House is still intact. Mary is still here, too, and welcomes visitors. The cans are a record of John's imbibing preferences -- Coors cylinders are sculpted into whirligigs, while long rows of Texas Pride and various Lite beers make up the walls. Pull tabs tinkle lightly in the breeze, but the only belches you'll hear are your own.

In March of 2005, The Orange Show Foundation landed a $125,000 Houston Endowment grant to repair and restore the Beer Can home of John Milkovisch. - http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/TXHOUbeer.html

Ok... so we went and had a lot of fun! It was interesting just finding it... but we were so excited just to go to our first desitnation! We may have to go back and see it after it has been restored... Kara did look in the mailbox... and YES!... there was mail in there. Yeah... I was not that brave... I stayed back and took pictures... yes... that was my job!

HOUSTON - Jesus Christ is the Man Church


On our way to our true destination, we passed by a church... and the name of the church was JesuChristo es el Senor...Inglesia Universal Del Reino De Dios! We thought that JESUS IS THE MAN!... that's just grout!... Now... we know that that's not how it really translates... but us Texan girls... that's how we read it... and we just thought that was halarious! So... I'll let you leave it at that!

HOUSTON - Mystery McDonalds

So our first trip was to a McDonald's with 2 drive thrus... the mystery you ask?... eventually the 2 lanes converge into 1 lane... but... how do they know what you ordered? How do they know what the price was? It is a mystery only few will ever know about!