Mud Island, and the Miniature Mississippi

One of the most amazing things that I've ever seen while traveling is the Mud Island River Walk. It's a five-block-long scale model of the Mississippi River, made with reference to topographical maps, where 30" equals one mile and granite ridges measure depth in 5' increments.

Oh, and you can wade in it:

A few of the biggest cities along the Mississippi are also mapped to scale, including New Orleans, and looking at New Orleans topographically and the Gulf of Mexico, which is represented by a paddle-boat pond...yeah, it seems obvious in hindsight. The girls didn't care about New Orleans, but they did really enjoy that the representations of all the biggest cities along the Mississippi also included the city bridges across the Mississippi: 

It was the perfect weather for running and jumping and playing and exploring, and I'm pretty sure that some geography got mixed in there somewhere, too:

VERY IMPORTANT: When you go wading, don't forget to hold your dress up out of the water: 

Otherwise it might get wet, and then you'd be embarrassed.