The Magic City

Birmingham, Alabama probably isn't the first place that comes to mind when you think of a vacation destination. Frankly, it didn't for me either, but my nonsensical decision to come here just means that my time here will be about discovery.

Last night I went to Regions Park to see the Birmingham Barons play minor league baseball. The ballpark is tucked about a mile into a subdivision, which struck me as a slightly strange location. Then again, I'm amazed at how much commerce and traffic piles up out here in the greater metro area

Regions Park is pretty familiar by minor league baseball standards. There's not really a bad seat in the place.

Sports franchises have decided that the games don't just sell themselves. You have to deliver a bunch of other in-game "entertainment", whether in the almost nonstop playing of music and sound effects/movie drops except for during play. Inevitably the songs and other stuff are the same among ballparks and across sports. Birmingham displayed some local quirks--more country music made the playlist--but what surprised me was that they weren't obnoxious with the things that are done to keep non-baseball fans interested.

Such extras didn't seem to take away attention from the game. In keeping with the team's honoring of National Mustard Day, a hot dog eating contest and a mustard trivia quiz were held between innings. There was also a frozen t-shirt contest. Never fear, it's family-friendly. Two t-shirts were frozen in ice. The winner was the first to get it out and put on the shirt.

As for today's doings, I didn't have a set plan. I was having a difficult time deciding what to do. The Birmingham Museum of Art won out. What a good selection it turned out to be. I spent about three and a half hours looking at what they had on display. (I think I overhead an employee mention that about 80% of their collection is in storage.) I'm partial to the European art, of which they had a nice sampling, such as a small Degas sculpture and a painting each from Monet and Pissarro.

I was kind of stunned by the size of this vase from Wedgwood pottery. It's enormous, somewhere between five and six feet tall. Alexander the Great is depicted on it. In the next picture you can see that the story on the vase continues on the other side, and you can see how big this thing is.

The museum also had an entire gallery for other work from Wedgwood.

Their Asian art galleries reopened this year and had some impressive stuff, such as this Japanese drawing or painting of waterfalls. The BMA also has Native American, African, and contemporary art, including some outsider art. I thought I'd seen it all, but there were sculptures outside.

In the foreground is a Salvador Dali sculpture. A Rodin is in the background.

This work's artist, whose name was unfamiliar to me, had his own little space for his mixed materials pieces. It looked a lot more interesting than I thought at first glance.

From there I went to Vulcan Park to see the largest cast iron statue in the world. The Vulcan statue represented Birmingham (and Alabama) at the 1904 World's Fair.

As big as the statue is, it can be a little difficult to put the size into perspective because of how high up he is. The observation deck at the bottom of the photo is as high as one can go, so your only real look at him is on the ground far below. Still, it was a neat thing to see, and the visitor's center provided some background on the city and the area that I found very informative.

I had considered going out to see some live music tonight, but I'd been out and about and on my feet all day, so I didn't feel up to it. I have no familiarity with the band, although I've read some good things. It probably would have been worthwhile, but with approximately six and a half hours of driving to do on Friday, taking it easy (and composing this post) have been perfectly fine for the evening.