Moody Gardens

The Moody Foundation established this nonprofit complex on Galveston Island in 1986, and what grew from it is genuinely strange and worth seeing: three glass pyramids housing a rainforest, an aquarium, and rotating science and discovery exhibits. The Rainforest Pyramid opened in 1993, the Discovery Pyramid in 1997, the Aquarium in 1999. A golf course, redesigned under a city agreement, completed the footprint. Palm Beach — white sand imported from Florida — was actually the first thing here, opened in 1988.