If you can't find something in Houston to stimulate your mind, entertain you or fill your stomach, maybe it's time to close the lid on your coffin. Houston's fine arts, cultural facilities, sports venues, dining establishments and recreational activities will spoil you for choice. Houston's official nickname, "Space City" is in honor of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center where America's Mission Control Center for the exploration of outer space is headquartered. The Johnson Space Center is open for tours, and is located 25 miles south of downtown on NASA Parkway. It is one of the city's leading tourist destinations.

Every February the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo rides into the Bayou City with trail rides, concerts, carnival rides and the world's largest rodeo. Begun in 1932, the show runs 20 days and draws more than a million attendees. Other events include Houston Pride Parade, Houston Greek Festival, Art Car Parade and the Houston International Festival.

Houston's performing arts and theater district is second only to New York City in the number of theatre seats with seating for more than 14,400. Located in the heart of downtown, the 17-block area is home to nine Houston performing arts organizations and six performance halls. Houston is one of only five cities in the U.S.; with permanent professional resident companies in all major performing arts. They include Houston Grand Opera, Houston Ballet, Houston Symphony Orchestra, and the world-renowned Alley Theatre, a 50-year-old institution that stages some of the world's best-known plays, featuring widely-recognized professional performers. And Houston is considered to be the third most important city outside New York and Los Angeles for touring companies of Broadway plays and musicals, concerts, shows and exhibitions.

Near the Texas Medical Center is the Houston Museum District where no fewer than nine museums are located, including The Museum of Fine Arts, the Contemporary Arts Museum, the Houston Museum of Natural Science, and the Houston Zoo.
Others include the Cullen Sculpture Garden, Holocaust Museum, Children's Museum, Lawndale Art Center and John P. McGovern Museum of Health and Medical Science. More than 4 million people visit the Museum District annually.

Houston's nightlife includes some 11,000 restaurants, cafes and bistros, bars for live music and theaters for art films. Houston also has more than 500 parks and greenspaces totaling some 19,600 acres, and Texas' largest shopping mall, the Galleria, located in the Uptown District. In nearby Deer Park, Texas, east of downtown, is the site of the San Jacinto Battlefield and 570-foot tall monument column (world's tallest), where Texans won their independence from Mexico in 1836. Adjacent is the mooring for the Battleship Texas, the oldest U.S. Navy battleship still afloat. Both the Battlefield and Battleship are open for tours. An hour's drive south of Houston is Galveston, Texas, a beach city of more than 57,000, that is famous for its sandy dunes, fishing, boating and watersports, and the restored Victorian architecture of many of its homes and buildings. Galveston was the site in 1900 of the U.S.' most deadly natural disaster, an unnamed hurricane that killed an estimated 9,000 people.

Houston's professional sports teams and the venues they play in have seen many major sporting events, including the 2004 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, the 2005 World Series, Super Bowl XXXVIII, the 2005 Big 12 Conference championship football game, the 2006 NBA All-Star Game and the U.S. Men's Clay Court Tennis Championships. The premiere professional teams include MLB's Houston Astros, the Houston Texans of the NFL, the NBA Houston Rockets and the WNBA Houston Aeros. Also playing pro sports in Houston are the American Hockey League Houston Havoc and the Major League Soccer Houston Dynamo. Minute Maid Park, home of the Astros and Toyota Center, home to the Rockets, are located in downtown. The old Astrodome was the first domed stadium in the U.S., and Reliant Stadium has the NFL's first retractable roof. The Houston Texans play at Reliant Stadium.

Recently, the leading open-wheel professional racing series in the U.S., the Champ Car Circuit, returned to Houston for yearly racing on the streets of the Reliant Park complex, and every March the Professional Golfer's Association (PGA) and the Greater Houston Golf Association stage the Shell Houston Open at Redstone Golf Club near the northern suburb of Humble, Texas. The City of Houston has eight municipal courses and within the Greater Houston Metropolitan Area there are more than 160 public and private golf courses.

So, there's plenty to see, do and enjoy in Houston. If you can't find something, well, you've passed on.