Mississippi Riverwalk on Mud Island

I've always been a big fan of large scale models of geographic features.  This one came to my attention after reading about some of the recent Lower Mississippi River flooding -- the worst flooding on that part of the river since 1937.

The Mississippi Riverwalk is a sculpture located in Memphis's Mud Island River Park located just west of downtown Memphis in the Mississippi River.  (It should be noted that Mud Island is not actually an island. However, being from the Twin Cities, I know that these types of things happen.)




The model of Memphis on the Mississippi Riverwalk in Memphis. (photo: Thomas R. Machnitzki)

The sculpture is a half mile long with a horizontal scale of 30 inches to 1 mile. It captures the Lower Mississippi from Cairo, Illinois -- where the Ohio River meets the Mississippi -- to the Gulf of Mexico.  It has a vertical scale of 1 inch to 8 feet, so you can see the channel that has been carved over the years. An average of 1.2 million gallons of water flows through the system. Parts of the sculpture are deep enough to double as a wading pool.

My favorite part of this section of the sculpture is that you can see little scale models of the I-40 and I-55 bridges over the river. The detail in the cities and bridges is amazing.

As if the sculpture wasn't reason enough to go, one of the ways you can get to the park is by monorail.

Either way, it is very, very cool. However, I do need to say that though that I'm just a bit disappointed that the Upper Mississippi River isn't represented.

Regardless, I need to go see it.  And have some barbecue while I'm there.