2017 HOUSTON ART CAR PARADE WINNERS

Saturday, April 8 –  Houston Art Car Parade Weekend honors the DRIVE to CREATE and the ARTIST IN EVERYONE! It shows the creative, energetic and fun side of Houston, the Art Car Capital of the World! This year, the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art awarded $19,000, using these criteria: Overall theme, Craftsmanship, Design, Originality, Transformation. (Taken from the website.)

The crowd was huge. They estimate between 300,000-350,000 people watched. The parade was led off by the Soul Band of South Texas State, which pretty well set the mood with their great music and dancing routines. Everyone seems to be having a great time – even the Mayor was in a car and received shouts of support from the crowd.

 

Here are some but not all of the winners.

MAYOR'S CUP - Grand Trophy and $2,000
"Purple Reign" by Heights High School, Rebecca Bass teacher.

HALL OF FAME - Grand Trophy and $2,500
"Sashimi Tabernacle Choir" - Richard Carte
This one is a hoot. All the fish sing.

FIRST PLACE ART CARS: 
"Boney Whipman" by Andy Hazell
 

"Char Car" by Mark "Scrapdaddy" Bradford

BEST YOUTH GROUP:  FIRST PLACE (TIE) - GRAND TROPHY & $1,000 EACH
"Hyppalectryon's Candy Dreams" by Frank Black Middle School, teachers Julon Pinkston and Sarah Reavis

"Fins and Needles" by Shadow Creek High School, Courtney Werden teacher
They used needlepoint to make the entire cover. Must have taken days and days to complete.

BEST PAINTED CAR: FIRST PLACE - Grand Trophy and $500
"Homage to the artist Pedro Linares Lopez" by Mary Anne & Charles Fried

BEST CYCLE:  FIRST PLACE - Grand Trophy & $500
"The Mardi Craw - Crawfish Scooter" by William Workman

BEST POLITICAL STATEMENT:  FIRST PLACE - Grand Trophy and $500
"Tweet Tweet" by Shelly Buschur and The Birds
This one was great. Had all of Trump’s famous quotes.

BEST MUSIC:  FIRST PLACE - Grand Trophy and $500
"Green Goblet and the Tribal Lillies accompanied by the Rear Trailer Band" by Mitchell Clemons

  The following cars did not win, but we thought were pretty cool!

 

The water on the roof of this truck kept time to the different songs that were played.

It was a great way to enjoy a beautiful day in Houston. We capped it off with a happy hour at one of the nearby taverns with an outdoor patio. Thanks Carrie for spending the day with your parents and sharing your “life in the big city” with us! It was a blast!

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

30TH ANNUAL HOUSTON ART CAR PARADE

Saturday, April 8 – It seems like there is something interesting and unique going on in Houston, TX, just about every weekend. Today was no exception! The Art Car Parade fills the streets of downtown Houston. The history of the Art Car Parade is very interesting. You can read about it here. The cars are parked on display at 11 a.m. So after a quick breakfast at one of the many mid-town/downtown restaurants, we along with daughter, Carrie, headed over to the show.

Carrie works downtown, so we took advantage of her parking garage. There are over 250 cars in the show. Many are professionally done but that doesn't stop the local school art programs, elementary schools and just ordinary everyday people from entering their own creations. The following are entries that did not win in any categories. We will show you the winners of the parade in the next post.

Camera car.

Guess what this car was entirely made of.

That is right…Peeps.

Carrie just couldn’t pass up a Shock Top beer out of this car.

The Houston Opera sponsored this one.

This car was completely made out of wood. It was beautiful.

Their motto:  We are #1 in a #2 business.

We walked several miles taking in the sights. These crazy events bring out some people looking to party and have a good time, so the “people watching” is in full-swing as well.

Many of these decorated cars will end up in the Art Car Museum which is also located in Houston. That is a stop we've made in the past and is enjoyable and FREE. We planned on walking around viewing the cars, and then high tailing it before the parade started.  But we were having so much fun, we just headed back to the parking garage where we moved the car to the 2^nd floor railing and sat there to enjoy the parade. What a hoot!

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

HOUSTON RODEO

Wednesday, March 22 – After we visited many of the events going on at the Houston Livestock Show, we headed over to the rodeo. The Houston rodeo is held in the Reliant Football Stadium. It holds over 72,000 people, and it was nearly full. Amazing!

Presenting of the colors.

We enjoyed the steer roping, bucking bronco riding, bull riding, barrel races, and more. We particularly enjoy the girls barrel racing and the buckboard races.

The ladies could really ride! Several broke the record.

These kids get a chance to wrestle down a calf and keep it. It is a riot watching them.

After the rodeo is the concert. Tonight was Chris Young. We decided not to stay for the concert and beat the thousands and thousands of people to the exit. It was a very long day but well worth it. The rodeo is a blast!

The rides were packed when we left at 9:30.

We'll be staying at the Houston Elks Lodge until mid or late April. If you're in the area give us a shout!

Thanks to Mary and Marlene for sending Marsha the name of our mystery bird. It is a Loggerhead Shrike, also known as a "thorn bird". The Loggerhead Shrike skewers their kill on thorns or barbed wire or wedge them into tight places for easy eating. What a way to eat a meal.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!