Touring in and around Columbia SC

We left Myrtle Beach and headed to Darlington March 23. We parked our rig in Lisa’s front yard and while there, I became Lisa’s personal chef, having dinner ready when she got home each day. She, of course loved it and I loved cooking and getting a chance to be somewhat creative.

Darlington is well known for the "Darlington 500" Raceway, but it is a quaint little town, with an old town square and a beautiful mural that dipicts what the town looked like back in the day.

Mural in old Darlington

Being the coffee lovers that we are, T and I set out to find a neat little coffee shop. The Clay Pot in Florence was perfect. Locals came and went and I had a chance to visit with a few of them. There is a great Farmers Market in Florence and it's open everyday. They have quite a variety of items and best of all I could buy some boiled peanuts. For those of you who are uninformed, boiled peanuts are a southern delight. You take green peanuts put them in a pot of water add salt and boil until soft. Wonderful things that we always look forward to having when in the south.

April 3, we headed over to Columbia, the capital of South Carolina. We grew up in South Carolina and have been to Columbia, or through it, more times than we can count. Amazingly we had never visited the State House. We camped at Wetson Army Recreation Center, a part of Fort Jackson and drove into Columbia to see the State House. We were duly impressed. We've seen a few state houses in our travels and this one is a cut above. The building itself is 107 years old, with the largest monolith columns in the US. After 3 months of rain and cold spring was finally in the air.

State House (107 years old)

Gardens around the capital

Liberty Bell Replica

After leaving the State House we went to visit the Riverbanks Zoo, which is ranked number 4 in the nation. There are so many animals there.  If you've never been, you should go.  We got caught in traffic on the Interstate and spent 1 1/2 hours waiting in traffic to get to the park. Though the wait was long and hot, we thoroughly enjoyed the zoo, especially T.  He has always been a sucker for the petting zoo. He can be such a curmudgeon sometimes, but if you get him in a zoo or near a pet store he turns to mush.

T petting a llama

T feeding parrot

Saturday we went to Congaree National Park, the only National Park in South Carolina. We asked ourselves why we had not heard of it. When we got there and learned about the history of the park, we felt a little less out of it. Congaree became a National Monument in1976, long after we left home in 1967. It became a National Park in 2003. That morning we got up to rain, but the weather promised to clear so we headed out and we were so glad we did. Congaree It is the largest underbrush area in the southeast. We packed water and food. I was hoping to get T to at least walk the short 2 1/2 mile Boardwalk trail. The Gods were looking out for me. T not only walked the B
oardwalk trail he also walked the Wetson trail. We walked a total of 6 1/2 miles! It was awesome. T didn't complain at all. He actually enjoyed it.

Molly enjoyed the walk too, though she got tired after about 4 miles, so she got to ride for part of the hike.

cyprus knees

Did you know that Cyprus trees have knees?  Take a look at those stump looking things in the picture.  Those are cyprus knees and have been used to make all kinds of things from lamps to chairs.

Holding hands. Even after 47 years of marriage and 3 1/2 years living together in a 5th wheel trailer (400 sq ft), we still hold hands, once in awhile. 

After Congaree we drove to Fort Jackson to see how it had changed. T was inducted into the Air Force there 48 years ago in April. The old induction center was torned down and replaced with a very modern structure. A little sad for T.  He does hate change so.  We didn't get to see much of Columbia because of the time stuck in the line to het into the zoo. No matter we had a wonderful time.