We had, what felt like, a very long travel day to get to Memphis. In reality it wasn't, but it sure felt that way. We were on the way to the airport at 5am for our 7am flight, with a long layover in Dallas.
I coped with cute snapchat filters, as one does.
We finally arrived around 1:30pm and were ready for FOOD. There were a few breweries I wanted to visit, so we headed to Memphis Made Brewing Co. for some beers, with plans to order Aldo pizza from next door.
When we walked in the door, I was super excited to see pinball machines. My dad is a pinball master, and when I was in Kindergarten, he would pick me up every day at lunchtime (we had half day K), and take me to a little lunch spot where I had a grilled cheese sandwich and then we played a couple of dollars worth of pinball. And by that I mean, 5 year old Jerbear would get to shoot one or two of big Jerbear's pinballs and immediately lose the turn, because she was barely tall enough to see over the glass.
Starting at 4pm, it was $7 for all you can play pinball for 3 hours. SIGN. ME. UP. I had so much fun that I only got around to drinking one beer. ONE BEER! ME! AT A BREWERY! And Kyle had to go pick up our pizza because they wouldn't deliver and I didn't even notice he had left, because, PINBALL. I racked up two high scores before we left and have been subtly hinting to Kyle the rest of the trip how badly we need a machine at home.
Additional note: Monday afternoon I started having some horrific pain and soreness in my hands, forearms, wrists, etc. I assumed it was from carting around my carry on through the airport, etc. NOPE. It was from the hours of pinball. I was sore from playing pinball. I think I just hit the Mecca of nerd status.
One of Kyle's business associates took us out for dinner at Soul Fish Cafe, and it was probably the best meal I had the entire trip. Fried green tomatoes, fried catfish, mmmmmm.
Monday morning I woke up with a full day ahead of me as Kyle had convention stuff until supper time. I ran to target for some forgotten items, picked up a latte that was so terrible I threw it away, and then finally set out for my run. The plan: to end up at the local running store via a beautiful running path north of where we stayed. The actual run: I took a super beautiful road with no sidewalks, no shoulder, and some super steep ditches for 1.5 miles while traffic was zipping by me at 40+ mph. It was gorgeous, so I was fine with it. Then I reached the running path and I was psyched not to have to be dodging traffic and could finally shut down my google maps to conserve phone battery. Until I ended up at the end of the path, at a landfill which seemed like a really great place to ditch a dead runner's body. Somewhere along the way, I had taken a wrong term, and my phone battery was rapidly dwindling. I opted to turn around and hope that I could find my way back in the instance that my phone died completely.
The traffic was even heavier on my way back, but it was so beautiful I almost didn't care. Almost.
After the run I headed out for some sushi at Sakura. It was good, not great, and despite the website saying their hours were 11am-10pm, they greeted me at the door with "we close at 2m to get ready for dinner." So I felt super welcome and inhaled my food to get out of there.
My next stop was the Memphis Botanic Gardens, which was just a mile and a half from the sushi spot. Except that again, no sidewalks. So I took the loooooooong way and that helped contribute to my million step count for the day. Once I finally got to the gardens, the last thing I wanted to do was walk around some more. Eeps. I found some nice shade to sit in and cool off, until the sprinklers turned on to drench me. I'm starting to think that maybe Memphis doesn't love me so much.....
I was super excited to check out the Big Bugs traveling exhibit. I really love bugs, minus mosquitos, and the sculptures were just amazing. There were 7 in total.
Daddy long legs
praying mantis
Spider, which I couldn't get a good picture of for the life of me.
Ahhhhh another bench. No sprinklers this time!
grasshopper
assassin bug
dragonfly
damselfly (which looks just like a dragon fly to me, but I learned that they differ in how they hold their wings when they're at rest. Dragonfly = open, damselfly = wings together).
And the ant. One of 3. There was also a picnic basket. So clever.
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