We didn’t have a lot of time to hang out in Memphis during our whirlwind tour of nine states in nine days. We had a quick lunch, and then looked for a nearby park to let the kids blow off some steam before pressing on another 3 1/2 hours to Nashville.
I found a place called Memorial Park, which turned out to be a cemetery. Weirdly, it also turned out to have the Crystal Shrine Grotto.
Mexican artist Dionicio Rodriguez built the grotto in the 1930’s. It’s a man-made cave of concrete and embedded quartz crystals featuring scenes from the life of Christ. Scenes like this:
The artist seemed to be heavily influenced by GaudÃ.
The giant tree trunk is called “Abraham’s Oak”, after the father of the three Abrahamic religions. It also is made of concrete. It’s Disney before there was Disneyland.
There was a nice little pond.
Even a nearby bench got in on the action:
I stepped back across the street to get a shot of the whole grotto area, and found this memorial. Can you dig it?
And here’s the view of the grotto from across the street:
There’s my girl delighting in one bridge…
And my boy contemplating another.
They romped and ran and expended energy. It wasn’t what I expected when I declared that we needed to find a park, but it worked out well. And if you were in a mood to be contemplative, which I was, it fit the bill.
P.S. I found my camera cord. More vacation photos to come.
Categories: The Kids
Flabby Brain 