The Turner Five: Softball Tournament in Birmingham, AL

We just got back from a weekend trip to Birmingham to watch my daughter play softball. It's amazing to me how softball has changed when I was a girl. I can tell you right now that my family never traveled out of state to let me play in a tournament. I also didn't play in high school like my daughter does, but even if I did; I don't envision my parents loading up the car to drive us out of state.

Since the tournament was going to be spread over a few days and we wouldn't be playing all day, I decided to do a little research and find some sightseeing things we could do while there.

Note: I must warn you up front that this post contains LOTS of pictures. I will try to keep the "talking" to a minimum because of that.

I love to take pictures of the landscape while driving in the car.

I'm always amazed that the pictures come out and aren't all blurry.

Is that black clouds that I see in the distance?

Of course, and here comes the rain.

And even more rain.

It was at this point that we learned our game to be played on this day was cancelled. We were only about 30 minutes from the park. Well, we shall not let this day go to waste so we checked into the hotel and then went out for some sightseeing.

Coming into downtown Birmingham. I had never been to Birmingham before and I was surprised how small it seemed to me. Maybe because I'm used to the hugeness of Atlanta.

Our first stop was the Birmingham Art Museum. Admission was free and so was parking. Its was a win-win!

I would have thought that my kids would have been old enough and even mature enough to handle a museum. They were not. They were not interested in seeing anything and Victoria (the oldest on this trip) even set off one of the alarms to some artwork. I was thoroughly embarrassed.

Some of my girlfriends and I have been getting together and painting. Our last 2 projects have been of flowers. I wonder if we are ready for something like this? Also, I don't know why all my pictures appear to be so crooked. Must have been the floor!!

I thought this cow creamer was really neat.

This teapot was from the 1700's.

I took a picture of this painting of this church because it reminded me of the church I grew up in.

The Asian display was my favorite. I love all the colors and design. If only I could have gotten that plate out of the display. I love it!

Can you imagine seeing soldiers wearing these helmets today?

This is a boulder from China. It was so cool and smooth.

These 2 jars on the bottom shelf were from 2500 B.C. That is so fascinating to me.

I thought this lady teapot was really cute. You fill it from her head and it pours out of her hand.

My husband loved this piece of furniture. In fact, he was checking it out so much that he leaned too close and set off another alarm. I just can't do anything with these guys.

And this is where my kids were while we were on the 3rd floor. They had had enough after going through all the displays on the 2nd floor.

After our tour of the art museum. We headed back to the hotel and then were meeting up with the team for dinner.

These are a couple more pics of downtown Birmingham.

On Saturday, the rain stopped and the sun came out so we could focus on the real reason we were here.

I saw this tree next to our car. I had never seen one like it and thought the flowers were really pretty.

Sunday was another clear day and we got to play even more softball.

We had a game in the morning and one in the afternoon. Since we had checked out of our hotel that morning, we were able to go do a little more sightseeing between games.

One of the main things I wanted to see was Alabama's miniature version of The Statue of Liberty.

This wall is at the BSA headquarters. The wall has names of every boy scout who has earned their Eagle Scout in the state of Alabama. The names date all the way back to the 1960's.