Spring Break, Part 3

After Battleship Park closed, we headed back across downtown Mobile, towards the Botanical Gardens. There were so many cool buildings and trees to look at, we could've just wandered downtown and filled up the rest of the day.

 Pulling into the Botanical Gardens. I LOVE the azaleas!

Erik and I waiting for Ethan to catch up. He thought these bright red snapdragons looked like the yummiest things he'd seen all day. I was sooo mean and wouldn't let him eat them.

We wandered around in the gardens for an hour or so, but by that time Erik had had just about enough and really needed a nap. So we jumped back in the car, went back through Mobile, and headed out on possibly the longest bridge I've ever been on to cross the Mobile Bay and get to our next and last stop for the day. I've been telling Ethan of the magic fairytale land of Bass Pro shop ever since he tried to impress me by taking me to a Cabella's. I'm not even into hunting and fishing and all that stuff, but I love the Bass Pro Shop, it's sooo cool. Needless to say, Ethan was suitably impressed.

Notice those little deer up there near the ceiling? Those are real deer (stuffed of course). That gives you and idea of the size of this place.

 As soon as Ethan saw this he was hooked. He loves corral reef aquariums, and this one was huge! I think it was somewhere around 15 feet tall, and formed one of the walls in the in-store restaurant. We stood there and drooled over it until the people in the restaurant around us started to give us funny looks. 

Our next stop nearly sucked Ethan into its vortex permanently. It was all I could do to drag him away. Actually, to be fair, he reached a point where he knew if he stayed another minute in here he'd lose all self control and blow every last penny we own and leave us homeless and stranded on the sidewalk outside. So he forced himself to leave and tried really hard not to look back, except to take this picture.

 Seriously, what could be better than a huge room filled with fancy shmancy fly fishing gear. I think this is what heaven's going to look like for Ethan. Erik thought pretty highly of it too...

This is standing at the top of the water fall (yes, there's a huge waterfall in the back of the store that you can climb to the top of) looking back towards the entrance. So much fun stuff here!

 After Bass Pro, we went and found a hotel and crawled into bed for the night. Erik was asleep before he even hit the bed, and didn't twitch 'til morning. As long as he's got his afghan he can sleep anywhere.