The Pink Palace

On the last day of Spring Break we took the boys to the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis (http://www.memphismuseums.org/). We had originally planned to go to the zoo but it was so windy and cool that day that it wouldn't have been much fun to be outdoors for long. So we talked the boys into doing something else. The Pink Palace was originally built to be a private home for Clarence Saunders... the founder of Piggly Wiggly... but it was never completed. Eventually, it was turned into the museum that it is today. The museum is now host to hundreds of exhibit displays, a gift shop, a planetarium, and an IMAX theater. Below you'll find a description of these theatres... they are so cool!

IMAX is the ultimate movie experience. With crystal clear images up to eight stories high, and wrap-around digital surround sound, IMAX takes you to places you only imagined. Forty-five hundred times larger than an average TV screen, IMAX and IMAX 3D giant flat screens soar up to eight stories high and have a slight curvature that extends beyond the field of geometric recognition. Because these screens fill your peripheral vision, you feel like you’re right in the action.

One of the features of the day was Hurricane On the Bayou... a history of Louisiana's wetlands and the effects of Hurricane Katrina and others on the area. It was really neat. Great soundtrack, too. :) After the movie, we explored the museum for a little while. It's not necessarily a children's museum, per se, but the boys are old enough now to appreciate the exhibits that are on display.

Don't look now but there's a triceratops right behind you!!

The skeleton of some cool dinosaur... a mastodon, perhaps? I can't remember...

The entrance to a replica of one of the first self-serve Piggly Wiggly stores

A replica of a camp setting in Africa

A typical 1950's kitchen... aren't we glad for the conveniences that we have today??

This was one of my favorite displays... I love the "Little House On the Prairie" type of stuff...

This says "Patterson Transfer Company... Established 1856... Memphis and Nashville... Mail Coach"

Grant loves to collect crystals and was fascinated by this one

An old-timey dentist office

A Civil War cannon

You can see the diversity of the exhibits that are on display. These are just a sample of hundreds that are available for viewing. You could easily spend hours in the museum but it's well worth the time. We enjoyed our Spring Break visit! :)