Tuesday 5-2-23 Site Seeing in Little Rock

 

 Awesome Day

We had an awesome day in Little Rock. We woke up to temperature in the 50s and the high was 78 degrees. The wind blew all day.

We had cinnamon french toast sticks for breakfast. There is a lot to see in downtown Little Rock. We have been here multiple times and have done some of the sites so we decided to do few we haven't.

We walked to the bridge and walked to town. First stop was at the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden. It is located along the banks of the Arkansas River. There are over 90 outstanding sculptures from talented artists all over Arkansas. We thought it would take about 10 minutes but ended up taking over an hour. While walking the trails of the sculpture garden we saw beautiful views of the river and walked part of the Wellness mile trail and a couple of splash pads. Margaret Clark had a nice adventure park for the kids to play in. The sculptures are bronze and are terrific. We were impressed by Jane DeDecker because of how she expressed her art. We had a great time.

Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden

 

Over the Moon by Craig Campbell

Elwood by Herb Mignery

The Ties That Bind by Jane DeDecker

 

Patty Cake by Jane DeDecker

Lord Featherwick by Herb Mignery

Retro Trees by Dale Rogers

Open Window by Ted Schaal

Next stop was the Old State House Museum. It was self-guided tour that told you the history of Arkansas and the people. The tour was on two floors and it took you through the old rooms, that the Senate, House of Representatives and the Superior Court used. Other rooms was on the history of Arkansas: the first ladies, the Barton Coliseum, the governors of the state and entertainment rooms. It had a beautiful staircase that took you to the second floor. It took about an hour to walk through. The room for the House of Representatives had some of the original desks. The Barton Coliseum was built for the state fairs and rodeos. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was a big time venue. It attracted the biggest bands from country, rock n roll, blues, and other genres. The first ladies room had many of the inauguration dresses. One dress that impressed me was Anne McMath, it had a hand painted portrait of her husband Sid and her children on it. During the tour you learned about the restoration of the building and how many times it was done. It was very interesting to learn about Arkansas's history.

Old State House

 

Outfits worn by Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty and Charlie Rich

Outfits worn by Dale Evans

One of the chandlers in the Senate 

 

House of Representatives

 

Anne McMath dress

 

One of the entertaining rooms

 

The spiral staircase

Next stop was lunch at Iranna's Pizza. Iranna is pronounced Erie from Lake Erie and Anna from the girl's name. We shared an Italian grinder with chips. The grinder was very good especially the roll. The service was excellent. While eating the trolley came by so Larry took a pictures of it. They have a couple of different trolleys routes (blue line and red line) but only the blue line is running right now because of the construction. The trolleys go through downtown Little Rock. We didn't ride it but it was cool to see. It is guided by tracks in the street and electric cables from above. 

Iranna's Pizza

 

The Italian grinder 

 

The trolley

For dessert we went to Hurts Donut. Hurts Donut never closes. Larry had an old fashion donut and I had an Oreo mint donut. They were good. 

Hurts Donut

Our donuts

Last stop was Museum of Discovery. We have been here before but it was many years ago. Some of the exhibits changed but we had a super time. It's a children museum, kids of all ages learn about science, math, technology, arts and engineering through hands on experiences. We played with a lot of the exhibits. We played the pulley exhibit, where you try to lift yourself by pulling on a rope using one, two and three pulleys to see which one is easiest. This was fun. Next one we did was strength, where you squeeze a bar to see how strong you are. I'm very weak I only got the number 49 while Larry got 100. Next was balance, I could only hold my balance 1 second. We did a maze made out of cardboard boxes, it was fun. The new exhibit we saw was about archeology, where you learn about archeology. I got to play pinball. There was so many exhibits and we had fun trying them out.

The maze

Archeology exhibit

 

Pulley exhibit

 

Ferrets Jinx and Billy

Tortuga, an albino Red-Ear Slider 

Playing pinball

 

Testing my strength

Trying to balance myself

After visiting the Museum of Discovery we were tired so we went back to the Minnie. On the way back we stopped on the bridge and watched the construction tug boat move a barge with workers and equipment to the work site. It always amazing how easy the pilot makes it look. This was cool.

 

Delivering workers and equipment to site

Picking up workers and equipment

By the time we got home we had walked 4.5 miles and had 10,227 steps. We were tired.

We spent the rest of the day resting. Larry read and I played my games. I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. I did the event, which was Event: Pyramid Adventure of 20 games. It took me 1 hour, 17 minutes and 42 seconds, which put me in 8th place in my group.

LIFE IS GOOD!!!