Things to Do in Channelview

Each year, the Houston Beer Festival attracts fans of libations, music, and merriment with an extensive lineup of breweries, food vendors, and bands. In years past, the gathering has attracted craft brewers such as Stone and New Belgium alongside such worldwide heavyweights as Anheuser-Busch and Guinness, whose creations flow from kegs into a variety of vessels, from 2-ounce samplers to 24-ounce glasses. On multiple stages, bands from Houston and abroad lay down a live festival soundtrack, as karaoke singers replace classic hits with lyrics from the Cheers theme song.

After retiring from his upholstering job at the Southern Pacific Railroad, John Milkovisch spent his free time building structures around his house and drinking beers with his wife Mary. But when he ran out of space for building, he decided to use up his extra beer cans to create a shiny siding for his structures and his house. He began in 1968, and within 20 years he had completely covered his property with an estimated 50,000 aluminum and glass cans. The result was both fashionable and functional, with swaying garlands tinkling in the breeze, strings of cans adding a luster to all surfaces of the house, and the protective weight of the cans even helping cut the house’s energy costs. But you can’t have a house this striking and not get noticed. So pretty soon people began making trips to see this can-covered house, and in 2007, it was moved into the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art. Now guests can peer inside the house and examine the structures without getting chased by the owner's beer can-covered dog. The house’s guided tours also feature a documentary that covers the history of the project since its inception forty years ago.

To keep the spirit of its musical roots ever near, House of Blues Houston keeps a metal box of mud from the Delta Mississippi beneath its stage and proudly displays the traditional crazy quilt. As the only venue in the revered chain to be built vertically rather than free floating, House of Blues Houston stands as a pillar of entertainment in the Houston Pavilions complex. The hot spot’s Bronze Peacock Room commemorates Houston's rich history and the blues clubs where Lightnin' Hopkins and Big Mama Thornton held sway, and features an enormous hand-painted mural depicting other local legends such as Albert Collins and Johnny "Guitar" Watson.

The Houston Museum of Natural Science at Sugar Land—an offshoot of the Hermann Park location—makes science accessible and kid-friendly. General admission opens up a world of exhibits that bring kids face to face with everything from the enormous geodes and fossils found beneath the surface to the stars and planets that hang literally hundreds of feet above the earth. The museum's frog habitat rings out with the croaks of frogs and toads from far-flung locales, such as Vietnam and the Amazon. Multicolored fish dart through live coral and around anemones and starfish in the 2,000-gallon saltwater aquarium. Meanwhile, more stationary beasts stand sentinel in the Hall of Paleontology, all arranged in chronological order to give kids a sense of the types of dinosaurs that roamed the earth during the Jurassic, Paleozoic, and Nixon eras.

Art can foster a sense of community and inspire social change. It is this belief that drives artists Reginald and Rhonda Adams, who founded Museum of Cultural Arts, Houston in 1999 when they noticed a lack of community participation in the arts. Using their vibrant center as a springboard, the couple and their staff have brought art programs to more than 30 public schools and 15,000 underserved youth, helping the youngsters unleash their innate creativity and heighten their social awareness. Within the museum, rotating exhibits, such as May’s Queens of Creativity Mother Earth Exhibition, carry pertinent social messages such as the importance of calling Earth’s core on Mother’s Day. Community projects such as a recent mural painting for a school and collaborations with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society help carry out the museum’s mission as a vehicle for expression.

Come February, thousands of runners and spectators will migrate to Sam Houston Park for the Houston Rhythm and Blues Half Marathon and 5K. Like many marathons and 5K races, this event raises money for local charities and entertains runners with postrace festivities. What distinguishes this particular race from other races, however, is the route: it's lined with R & B bands from throughout Texas. Whether you're running for fun or shooting for a PR, dressing up is encouraged, and prizes will be awarded to participants with the best R & B costumes.