A Tour, Art, Science and Everything Else

The morning began bright and early once more! Daniel was ready to get moving at about 6am which is actually fine with me since we end up sleeping fairly early because we are all in the same room.  Today’s plan was to see touristy things within walking distance of our hotel.  Michael’s conference began during the afternoon, so we did not venture too far from the hotel.  However, this does not mean we did nothing.

A tour of Chase Field, the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks, began the day’s activities.  The stadium was really cool.  There’s something eerie about walking around an empty baseball park.  We learned many things about the field such as it has a retractable roof that can close in about 4 minutes and people can rent out a swimming pool for a party to watch the game.  I had totally forgotten that the team had changed colors a few years ago, thus, I kept looking for the turquoise and purple which wasn’t there.  Silly mommy.  Daniel toured the field in the baby bjorn with Michael.  His head was a little swivel/bobble head as he was twisting and turning to take in everything around him.  I love watching him observe his little world.  After the tour, we truly embraced being tourists to eat lunch at the Hard Rock Café – Phoenix where I drank some wine and needed to nap.  Luckily, Daniel decided that a nap was in order for him too!

Post nap, Daniel and I set off for the Arizona Science Center where there was a traveling exhibit called Van Gogh Alive.  The hands-on science stuff was cool too, but the exhibit was awesome!  Talk about a new way of displaying his artwork.  The room was completely dark with gigantic screen set up around the perimeter of the room and up the columns and screen boxes on the floor.  His artwork was shown in movements that basically went chronologically through his life.  As the paintings were being shown, music was playing that fit the tone and mood of the paintings.  In addition, excerpts from his journals would narrate the paintings and music.  My description is not at all doing the exhibit justice.  It was such a unique way to look at his paintings.  The journal entries brought Van Gogh himself to life outside of his work.  Daniel thought the paintings were quite cool too as he kept looking every which way to see the new set of colors that would pop up on the screen.  Eventually, he began to fall asleep all nestled in my arms and then in his stroller.

Sightseeing with a baby is a new experience.  The day moves at a very slow pace, and I really have to adopt the attitude of, “Oh well, I will get to it tomorrow or later.”  In many ways, Daniel makes me really slow down and take in my surroundings.  He charms everyone we come across, naturally.  Tomorrow we are off to see something that I cannot remember the name too at the moment.