Mud Island River Park

Today we had a full day in Memphis. Our campsite is on the Arkansas side of Memphis. Memphis consists of areas of Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi. As we learned last night, heading into Beale st, we are about 15 min from downtown Memphis in Tennessee.

We started our day checking out Mud Island River Park. Mud river consist of a miniature size Mississippi river where the kids can play in the river. Every 1 mile of the river is a foot and this miniature river goes on for over half a mile. It has depth, speed and even areas where it has dried up, just like the real Mississippi. It's really impressive and the kids enjoyed it, as well as the adults. The Mississippi river was very important for many years for expansion and cultural exchange.

To get to and from the park/museum you could either walk the 1/3 of the mile on the pedestrian bridge across the Mississippi river or take the monorail. As we crossed 4 times, we did it both ways twice.

We headed back to the car to make lunch and while Inara slept in the carrier, Brandon had a rest in the stroller, we were able to walk some of the museum in piece and quiet.

The musueum gave information on the native Americans, the settlers , the advancement of boats and significance on the river, as well into jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll.

We are supposed to have the next week full of rain, so we headed to Shelby farm park before the storm came. Shelby farm park was another 25 min east, out of the city. Shelby Farm Park has a playground which was named in the top 16 play grounds in the world. We have kids so we had to check it out.

We probably spent an hour at Shelby farm and it was pretty cool. There was 4 areas, and all the areas were surrounded by arboros and plants growing up them. Everything in the park is sustainable and not bad for the environment. There was swings, slides, sand and a whole climbing ropes course which looked awesome. We were secretly happy it was closed as Inara is becoming a monkey and would love it.

The kids were exhausted but we didn't have any food to cool for dinner so we found a brewery on the way back to the campsite from the farm. Boscos had good beer, great food and we had a very relaxing dinner and a great waiter. We tried fried green tomatoes for the first time and the kids had their first Shirley temple.

We are now back at the campsite, kids are in bed and we are awaiting for the storm to come. The lightning has been going on for a while, the wind is picking up and you can smell it in the air.

Memphis has been hot though, and didn't cool down over the night last night. Hoping tonight with the rain it will be a bit cooler.Read more