Knoxify

We expe­ri­enced another rainy week­end in Knoxville. That meant no trip with the fam­ily to our favorite park, no walk­ing through Ijams, no hang­ing out at World’s Fair Park and no mak­ing jokes about the Sun­sphere.

What is a fam­ily on a bud­get to do?

The Knoxville Zoo. For the past few years we have used money we receive at Christ­mas to buy a sea­son pass.

If the weather is decent, then we pack a lunch, load up the van, and head out to the Zoo. The boys love it. There is a great chil­drens area, and any amount of time there helps them run off a lot of energy.

Since it was rain­ing this past Sat­ur­day, we packed a lunch and headed to the indoor exhibit, Wee Play Zoo.
This part of the Zoo is awe­some (even on a sunny day). It is full of fun, inter­ac­tive exhibits, a few ani­mals, and a tun­nel to crawl through. And since we have a fam­ily membership…all this fun was had at no addi­tional cost to us.

If you’re not up for the Zoo, try The East Ten­nessee Dis­cov­ery Cen­ter. It is a sci­ence cen­ter near the zoo and is great for rainy days. The mem­ber­ship is rel­a­tively inex­pen­sive ($50).There are some great perks to mem­ber­ship. You get one free birth­day party– which was great for a bug birth­day last year! You also get free admis­sion to the Adven­ture Sci­ence Cen­ter in Nashville- which we LOVE, and the Hands On! Regional Museum in John­son City.

There is also the Knoxville Museum of Art, which has extended their free admis­sion. Frank H McClung Museum on UT’s cam­pus has always been free, and of course, Knox County has sev­eral great libraries to visit. Check out a book or a rainy day DVD.

Who said fam­ily enter­tain­ment couldn’t fit into a tight budget?

Photo by: pshut­ter­bug