2004-11-29 - 2:44 p.m.
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We head out after saying our goodbyes and make our way to a layover in Mobile, Alabama. Mike guides us to fantastic seafood restaurant in the old part of town called Wentzells. Mike spent a lot of time in this town with the band he worked with before Railroad Earth so he knows his way around pretty good. Our waitress was a young and very pregnant black woman who was sharp as a tack and very gregarious. She overheard us talking about the upcoming election and jumped right into the conversation. To say she was concerned about W being re-elected/appointed would be an understatement. I pointed out to her that Alabama would almost certainly be voting Red. She said everyone she knew was voting for Kerry and what else could they do. Indeed! We made Houston on Monday night; the night before the show with New Monsoon at the Last Concert Café. On the way we were seeing signs for the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Houston Museum of Science. We had some time the following day and I decided I would try and see it. The Monsoon boys were playing across town at the Jellyfish Lounge; essentially a “house concert” in a nice sized, converted workshop in an otherwise quiet neighborhood. Mike, Grubb and I (should have went to bed, being sick) stopped by after getting some dinner. The band had already finished by the time we got there but we jammed a little acoustically and got a little game plan together for the following nights show. Jeff kept saying, “It has to be epic man”. Expectations are apparently high. I said, “Well then we should make it epoch for good measure”. So that was the plan. Andy and I made plans to head down to the Houston Museum of Science to see two exhibits for not only were they have the Dead Sea Scrolls but an exhibit of Tibetan antiquities as well. I had noticed that the light rail system in Houston had a stop just in front of our hotel. I asked the women at the desk if the train had a stop in the museum district. Yes indeed it did and it was only five or six stops away. We made our way down and planned to have a bite to eat in the museum café before we entered the exhibits. Much to our shock and relative horror the museum cafe was a McDonalds!! I had a salad (really the only half edible thing!) and a cup of coffee. Coffee is the only thing consistently good at McDonalds. We made our way to the exhibit at our appointed time. The tour is audio guided. For the first half you are lead through a series of artifacts with descriptions that give you a feel for what it must have been like to live in those times. Let me tell you folks, we have it easy. It took about an hour to get through this portion, which left me wondering if we had been mislead and the scrolls really weren’t here at all. As it turned out the exhibit was in two long galleries laid out side by side like a Scottish links course in golf. All at once you are led into the second gallery and the entire mood is changed. The lights are kept low and as I entered the gallery, the temperature fell at least 15 degrees to help preserve the scrolls I suppose. There was soft choral music playing; shape note singing or Gregorian chanting. As I approached the first scroll I found it hard to catch my breath. I could hardly believe what I was about to gaze upon. The three major religions of the world come to a nexus in these, hand written pages before me. The scrolls were hardly scrolls at all as what were left were mere fragments, painstakingly pieced together. Each book of the Hebrew Bible, with the exception of the Book of Esther, was included among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Thirteen of the scrolls were included in the exhibit. The most fascinating one I saw was one that simply told the name of God; Yahweh. They used paleo-Hebrew just for that word in the scroll so you could plainly see it more that twenty times in this scroll. Here’s the museums web page. You’ll have to cut and paste it into you’re browser. http://deadseascrolls.hmns.org The scrolls will be there until January 2nd. I highly recommend it! After a quick cup of coffee outside, we went in to the Tibetan exhibit. It was quite amazing! Mostly Buddhist artifacts including some of the most amazing Tsonkas and ornate statues of deities and Bodhisattvas. Afterwards we spent some time gazing in at the huge butterfly house they have. Hundreds, if not thousands, of different butterflies from all over the world flying all around you. Just beautiful! Next: The Monsoon Railroad chugs into Houston!
