Pandas, Polar bears, and Racing pigs!

Dereck and I had a fun few days since he had a long weekend for Columbus day. We took off on Saturday morning to spend two days in Memphis. After a 2 hour drive, which seemed longer since we were passing so many semi-trucks (I've never seen so many trucks in such a small stretch of hiway!), we finally got to our first stop, The Memphis Zoo. The Zoo was in a really neat historic neighborhood so it was a fun drive to find it! It was a great zoo, lots of animals and it was really big. We went to the "northern experience" exhibit first to see the polar bears and the sea lion show. We then got to go to the new "Teton trek" exhibit that just opened up this month. It was so beautiful, if I was a grizzly bear I'd love to live there! After that we moved onto China where we got to see giant pandas. They were probably the first animals we saw that were passed out asleep! It was dissapointing not to see them awake but they were still cute. After seeing more animals we realized it was already 4:30 and we had spent 4 hours at the zoo and needed to get checked into the hotel.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Select in downtown Memphis. It was an old hotel but very updated. We really enjoyed our room, which had a view of the street and the historic Peobody Hotel that was across the street. I liked seeing all the horse drawn carraiges lined up! One even looked like Cinderella's. After checking in and getting ready for dinner at the hotel, we went to Texas de Brazil which is a Brazillian steakhouse. It was so amazing! We got an unlimited amount of premium meat served hot off skewers that are brought right to our table. I don't think I ever ate so much sirloin and filet minon in my life. We were so full but it was one of the best dinners I've ever had! After dinner we went to Beale Street, which is the popular night life neighborhood in downtown Memphis. The street was blocked off for a few city blocks so you could walk right in the street and go from bar to bar to store to bar and see what they had to offer. It was a cool night so almost all the bars had open windows/doors so you didn't have to go in to hear what type of music they had playing. We stopped in one for a drink and to listen to the music, but after a day of walking at the zoo and around Beale St we were tired to we decided to head back to the hotel to get rested for the next day of site seeing.

 

Sunday morning we woke up and were planning to go to Sun Studios to see where Elvis, Johnny Cash, and others have recorded, then go eat some local Memphis BBQ for lunch, check out the National Civil Rights Museum, which is in the hotel where MLK Jr got shot, then finish the day off by seeing Graceland before going back to Little Rock. However, our day got a bit shaken up when our friends called us and told us our dog Marty had gotten sick that morning. Considering his recent health scares this summer we thought it best to come home to make sure that our friends weren't stuck possibly taking him to the doggy ER while we were out having a good time. On our way out of town we stopped quickly at the Peabody across the street to watch the famous Peabody ducks do their morning march into the lobby fountain. It was crazy how many people came to see these ducks! After the ducks, we drove back to Little Rock. Luckily Marty turned out to be okay, and no vet visit was neccesary, but unfortunately we didn't get to finish our Memphis trip. Hopefully we will find the time to go back for a day-trip to finish up our tours.

On Monday we decided to go to the Arkansas State Fair since Dereck had the day off. We had low expectations, since we are used to the Minnesota stair fair, which is constantly rated as one of the top in the country. Those low expectations were met! Though it was a fun day full of corn dogs and people watching, we missed seeing all the exhibits that they would've had at the MN fair and had to settle with one exhibit about farming, and a few goats to see. No more animals where even in the barns,which was a bit of a dissapointment. The highlight of the day were the pig races though.We had a great time cheering for our pigs, who had names like "Hamma Montanna" and "Jeff Pigworthy" and stuff. I even won $2 while betting between Dereck and our friend Russ. We also really enjoyed the petting zoo where I got to feed a baby camel, some goats, and even an antelope. Another neat show was the Tigers of India show which demonstrated some neat Tiger training as well as showed their natural hunting movements. You could tell the tigers were well taken care of so it was a fun to watch.