Early in the month, we took the family to Columbia for a mini-vacation. I had Monday off as a holiday, so I took Friday as a vacation day and made it a four day weekend. This was our first time traveling with Little Man, and part of the reason we took the trip, other than needing a change of scenery, was to see how he traveled. We have some longer trips planned for 2012 and we need to know just how he does.
We were late getting started each day, and never got into our itinerary until after noon. Friday we drove up, checked into our hotel and then headed over to the State Museum. We had brought Princess up here on a trip last summer, in part to tell her about the impending birth of her brother. She had a blast at the museum then, and she was excited about seeing it again. We had to take a slower pace because of Little Man, and Princess was constantly trying to run ahead of us to the next thing.
We got to spend some time on the 4th floor which we hadn’t seen last summer. This floor is a history of South Carolina through the years, starting with the aboriginal peoples and going all the way up to the modern day. My favorite part was learning about a fight on the floor of the House of Representatives in the 19th century, led by the contingent from South Carolina. Of course it had to be South Carolina. I just chuckled to myself at how little has changed over the years.
We also saw a lot about the mill towns that once dominated the upstate. When I read about how the companies treated their workers, the unions made much more sense. These companies essentially owned these people and everything in town. Unionizing was the only way for these people to get what we think of as basic human rights.
After the museum we stopped at a local Moe’s for dinner and ran into the Wofford football team on their way to the Charleston to play the Citadel on Saturday. We wished them well, and went back to the hotel for a swim.
Saturday, we got another late start and were caught in that strange time where it’s too late for breakfast and too early for lunch. We thought about a Waffle House, they have one about every exit in Columbia, but we worried that they weren’t terribly kid friendly, so we ended up at an IHOP and everyone got breakfast, before heading over to the zoo.
Princess has always loved the zoo and this trip was no exception. We checked out the new Kangaroo exhibit where you actually walk through the exhibit with nothing between you and the kangaroos. Their handlers were close by, and you have to stay on a prescribed path. It was cool to be so close, but also a little disappointing because they really didn’t do much. After that we headed over to the reptile house. Sarah wanted to see if she could actually see the king cobra this time, but he was still hiding in the little pot they have in his cage. I took a picture of the gecko and made bad jokes about car insurance. We finished the day with the penguin feeding. They put live minnows in the pool and the penguins go diving in after them. Princess had a blast watching it all.
After the zoo, we went back to the hotel to change before heading to dinner at our favorite place in Columbia, Macaroni Grill. Every time we’ve gone there the food, service and atmosphere had been fantastic. I guess we went to the well one too many times, because everything was a let down this time. The service was slow, and the food passable. We were put off in a little corner and after a while noticed everyone else around us had children, but there were none other in the restaurant. We felt a subtle message being sent, but it’s odd because they use paper tablecloths so the kids can draw on them. So do you want us to bring kids or not? We will think long and hard about where to go on our next trip.
We went back to the hotel for a swim and then started packing up. We had another slow start on Sunday, and after brunch at Cracker Barrel headed home. Princess and I played a game of checkers, and she’s getting quite good. She’s probably going to beat her old man one day soon.
It was a pretty good trip. Little Man did really well, but it was just a two hour drive. After getting back home, we discovered that Princess had lost her camera. She was always asking to take pictures with ours, so a couple of Christmases ago, we got her one of her own. She’s enjoyed and when she realized it was gone, she was quite upset. We called the museum and found someone had turned it in, so they mailed it back to us. The memory card had been erased, but at least she had her camera back, and hopefully learned a lesson in keeping better track of her things.
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