We took a family weekend to Memphis, TN. We started early Saturday morning and took our new ’07 Camry Hybrid. The kids love this car because of the sun roof and maybe the leather seats. We had a few ideas of what we wanted to see. During the drive, Danelle used the Internet on her phone to do some research. Our first location was “The Fire Museum”. Most of the research pointed this to being a small kids museum, so we passed. We redirected to the “Metal Museum.
The Metal Museum was a huge hit. Here are some of our memories. At first glance, its just social media, but the logos below are made with metal.
Details like this make the museum very cool.
Not all of the museum was great. The photo below is of some metal needles in somebody’s butt. The kids were not impressed!
Ok, back to reasonable and interesting metal art.
More creative art. And it speaks to me as the Ant is eating a tiny donut.
Interesting old handcuffs.
I can’t imagine making this door. There is a huge amount of detailed work put into this.
I can almost hear the kids saying “Finally”. They expected and wanted to see how the metal work was made. This blacksmith shop did not disappoint. The displays were detailed and a class was going on. This gave us something interesting to watch.
After the blacksmith, we went over and got to see the forge. The lady seen here was pouring brass.
Overlooking the flooded Mississippi river.
Nice family photo.
Corvin
Danelle
When we finished up, we left on a high after having a fantastic time. It was time for lunch and we were close to downtown. We forgot that it was St. Patrick’s day. Downtown had a parade and was crazy busy. Eventual, we found “Happy Mexican” restaurant. Everything was good till we got the bill. They added gratuity to the total on the check for a party of 4 and still had a tip line. Its a very deceptive practice that we didn’t appreciate.
After lunch, we decided to go to the “Pink Palace”. It sounded great in the reviews, but was just average to us. Basically a history museum attached to a large pink stone building.
It depends on the light and direction, but it can look pink.
Look, a t-Rex. It was animated and made lots of noise.
Not sure what this is, but the rest of the family liked it.
Some people would say that is enough for one day. Danelle might even agree with you.
With a power nap, we were ready to go again, yep, we’re still on Saturday! We made id back downtown and showed the kids Beal street and the festivities.
Its hard to keep your eyes open when the sun is in them.
We found our way to Old Dominick Distillery and took a tour. While waiting for the tour, we went to the rooftop bar.
Sonora found a friend during the tour…
The brewing vats were interesting.
Fun pipes to make it all happen.
Eventually the taste test. I ended up giving most of my drinks to the couple next to me. I just wasn’t feeling it and I needed to drive.
With the distillery tour over, we raced to the riverfront to see the illuminated bridge. There are supposed to be 100,000 LED lights and you can walk across it. I was grumpy cause I was getting hungry and wanted to see the bridge. I parked where I thought it was and we didn’t find it, but we still had memories.
The lights are on the bridge and it looks good, but we’re not there.
Love these family shots.
Corvin is on top!
We ddn’t give up and eventually found the bridge!
Yep, its a HUGE bridge, and tons of lights!
We walked half way across the bridge. Corvin and I each decided to take a different state.
Not to be outdone, the girls did the same thing, but got the other lighted bridge in their photo!
Seriously, its still Saturday. We picked a pizza place for dinner that was near our hotel. We ordered an appetizer to eat there and two pizzas to go. The appetizer was ok, but we were still hungry. It took over an hour to finally get our pizza and we were so done for the day. Eventually we got back to the hotel and ate our pizza. Sonora and I found the pizza below average. Corvin and Danelle liked theirs.
Sunday was our last day in Memphis before coming home. Our plan was to go to Mud Island. We were under the impression that they were open at 9 am, giving us time to sleep in. We got there about 8:45 and found prime parking. We had the whole place to ourselves.
Mud Island is a model of the Mississippi river starting at the headwaters and going to the ocean.
The kids are removing sticks and leaves that are blocking the flow of the river.
This is supposed to be the headwaters, but it isn’t full yet, seems like its the first weekend it was really open.
Danelle and Sonora were splashing water into the back pools.
More splashing.
I climbed up high and got this overhead shot.
Looking downstream.
We left the kids to do whatever they wanted and walked some distance away. It made it us happy to see the kids playing together and having a good time separate from us. We loved our time there, but after almost 4 hours playing, it was time to back to St. Louis.
Of an interesting note, Corvin drive the first leg home. We learned that the A/C doesn’t work in the new car. Also as he was going north on I-55, I noticed traffic stopped and yelled stop 3 times before he really started to stop. There was construction that had traffic stopped. He’s still a new [permit] driver and would not have noticed until it was too late. I’m glad that I was still paying attention.
A perfect weekend to be together as a family.
Hogan Haake