Around three miles south from the Museum District, down Kirby Drive, Houston's legendary Reliant Astrodome was the first domed, climatized stadium in the world when it was built in 1965, and lends its name to astroturf which was first laid down here. It was home to the NFL's Oilers before they relocated to Nashville a few years ago and, with the Astros having played their last baseball season here in 1999, its sparse usage is now restricted to big-wheel truck racing, trade shows and, in March, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo - predictably, the world's largest. Pro sports is set to return to the area in 2002, upon completion of a football stadium for the Houston Texans. A few hundred yards beyond, on the far side of the Loop, the big attraction at the Six Flags Astro World theme park is yet another mighty roller coaster, the suspended-looping "megacoaster" Serial Thriller (opening hours vary; $37.99; tel 713/799-8404, ).

Despite the dreams of its creator, The Orange Show , five miles east at 2401 Munger Ave, just off I-45 at the Telephone Road exit, is an altogether lower-key affair (March-Dec Sat & Sun noon-5pm; summer also Wed-Fri 9am-1pm; $1). Promoted as Houston's most original piece of folk art, it's not really a show, but a suburban house transformed by the monomania of former salesman and would-be inventor Jeff McKissack into a paean to the orange. With one simple purpose - "to get more people to eat more oranges" - McKissack spent twenty years covering his home with celebratory tiles, ironwork and slogans, with placards displayed by such oddball mannequins as the son of Santa Claus. The fabric of the place is solid ("weak construction would make the orange look weak"), but much of the mosaic work is surprisingly delicate, and it's not quite as garish as it might sound. When he finally opened it to the public in May 1979, McKissack confidently predicted that eight out of every ten Americans would visit. Depressed at the lack of crowds, the author of How You Can Live 100 Years … And Still Be Spry (in which oranges played a starring role) died in June 1980 aged 77.

Reliant Astrodome and the Orange Show

• Reliant Astrodome and the Orange Show

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