SNAG

Firstly, let me apologize for how long this one is. But at least it has pictures. It's not all just reading. :)

So yeah, I know I should have posted this a couple of days ago, but I just felt like slackin' a little. On the 13th I got up around 5:15am and got ready to drive to Memphis for the SNAG conference. (If you can't remember what SNAG stands for look in the previous post.) I met everyone and we were on the road by 6. Needless to say, I packed the night before! Thant first day was pretty boring; mostly just driving and riding. We did stop in St. Louis at the zoo and saw this really huge piece. I don't remember what it was called or who made it, but here are some pictures!

This is only half of it. The rest are close ups.

I like this guy. I should have sat on him and had someone take my picture, but I didn't think about it until I got home. Oh well, next time.

This is the other half. I told you it was huge!

These are ants! They're a little bigger than my hand.

So after 12 1/2 hours of driving we finally made it to Memphis. The conference was held in the Peabody Hotel and on the first night they had a welcoming thing up on the roof. You could see the Mississippi River from up there and since I can't actually remember seeing the Mississippi River before I took a few pictures while I was up there. (At the time I didn't think I'd ever seen the Mississippi, but apparently I saw it when I was 4. Um . . . yeah. The only thing I remember about that trip is that Mom and Dad left me with Aunt Linda so they could go to Nashville and my cousin and I did NOT get along. And when they finally came back I was ready to go home and they made me stay for another whole day. Parents are mean! ;) Don't they know that when a 4-year-old is ready to hit the road they should take advantage of that.)

I thought the bridge was pretty.

I liked the city lights too! At least from up there; I felt relatively safe from all the scary city people. (I'm such a country girl!)

This is Tom! He's the guy that taught me how to do Damascene - "the direct application of nonferrous metals onto articles of iron using the chisel overlay process." (I got the definition out of my 2007 SNAG conference booklet.) I made a necklace pendent with my damascene piece. I wish I had a better picture of him but after the demo he was surrounded by people.

I saw this while I was riding around in Natalie's car. I don't even know for sure what street we were on but on the inside there are all these little faces. If you blow the picture up you can see one of the faces by the green light pole.

Iron Flower!

Another Iron Flower, but this one is part of a gate at the Metal Museum.

This Necklace was part of the student exhibit at the Metal Museum.

I love this Iron candle stick. I love the way it curves and twists, just like a vine.

Ha! Ha! My friend Travis got these (crawdads) when we went out to lunch one day. When he brought them to the table he was just kinda looking at them and Elloitt (our teacher) asked him if he knew how to eat them. Well, No! So Elloitt showed him how and then Travis offered to let us all try them. The other two girls said no thanks. But I wasn't about to play the wussy girl roll so I tried one. They were really good! They taste like shrimp, but they are a major pain to get into. And these had some kind of spice on them so they were super hot! Natalie eventually tried one, but she made Travis clean it all for her. She didn't like those itty bitty eyes or something. :)

Travis was gettin' just a little silly here!

Ok, the Ducks! Apparently the Peabody Hotel is famous for the Ducks that they have swimming around in their indoor fountain. The Ducks have a little "Pent House" on the roof where they stay at night, but at 11am the come down the elevator and march across the lobby to the fountain where they stay until 5pm and then they march back across the lobby to the elevator and back up to their little "Pent House" on the roof. I have the story of how the ducks came to live at the Peabody and just so you know I'm gonna copy it straight from the napkin that I . . . well, lets face it . . . I stole it. But honestly I don't think anyone is really gonna care.

THE LEGEND OF THE DUCKS

Back in the 1930's Frank Schutt, General Manager of the Peabody, and a friend, Chip Barwick, returned from a weekend hunting trip to Arkansas. The men had a little too much Tennessee sippin' whiskey and thought it would be funny to place some of their live decoy ducks (it was legal then for hunters to use live decoys) in the beautiful Peabody fountain.

Three small English call ducks were selected as "guinea pigs," and the reaction was nothing short of enthusiastic. Thus began a Peabody tradition which was to become internationally famous.

THE END

What the napkin doesn't tell you is that when Schutt and Barwick came down the next day the Ducks were still in the fountain and there was a large crowd around the ducks.

This is the only picture of Beale street that I was able to get. We ate down on this street a couple of night and the food was amazing! If you ever get to go to Memphis you have to eat at The Kings Palace Cafe on Beale street. The food was a little pricey but it was definitely worth it. There is live music in every "eating establishment" (ok the whole street is basically a bunch of bars, but they will give you water or soda too.) At night they block off the street because it is so crowded and crazy. Just on the street I saw a guy playing the trumpet, a guy doing these crazy back flip and stuff, and a guy that had all these pots, pans, and buckets that he was playing like drums.

I wont bore you all with the details of the conference. I found it very interesting, especially the lecture on Women in Iron, but they made me really mad when they just cut her off. They were very rude about it, and she looked upset afterward.

The vendor room was my favorite. there was a bunch of different stone, tool, and book vendors. I'll take some pictures of the stones I bought and post them next time. This post is already super long and I've been working on it for almost 3 hours now. I blame that on the pictures they took a while to load. That and it took me a while to figure out what I was doing.

Anyway, the last picture is what Travis did pretty much to whole way home. I don't know why he was so tired. It's not like he stayed out every night or anything ;)

Ok so next time. Pretty stones from SNAG and maybe some projects.