May 29, 2016
No Boat Travel
Weather for today was predicted to be worse than yesterday. We decided we needed an indoor activity. Given the presence of a two-year old and the fact that we had all seen one-too-many historic house tours, we figured we had two good options. We could either go to the aquarium or to the children's museum. Jeff suggested and I agreed that with the weather forecast everyone and their mother would be in line at the aquarium. We decided to take our chances on the children's museum.
Jeff found a buy one get one free coupon to reduce the entry fee. However, even though we had two such coupons, we could not make use of the second one - all adults are required to have at least one child with them, so Clark and I had to be part of Jeff's group for entry. Of course they had the restriction of only one coupon per group.
I have only ever been to children's science museums in the past, so that is what I expected. What I found when I got there was more like an indoor children's play area. Sierra immediately fell in love with it. The first room we entered contained building blocks of all shapes and sizes. Sierra ran to the over-sized building blocks where Clark helped her make a ramp, There, she rolled a ball down the "road" they made for what seemed like forever. I began to think that the only part of the museum we would see was the first room!
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| Sierra and Jeff playing in the "building" room |
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| Jeff's new glasses! |
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| Sierra working with Lego's |
Jeff finally managed to maneuver Sierra into the next room by promising her she could play in the water. In this room they had a "canoe race" table as well as a "river system" complete with a lock. Sierra played with that a while but found she could avoid the crowds at the other table by working on her own project.
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| Sierra at her own private water play using a water wheel and boats. |
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| Fire Chief Sierra in her Fire Truck |
While we watched Sierra playing on the fire truck and then with a ramp where a golf ball could be rolled down with hopes of the ball landing in a set of buckets at the end of the ramp, it started to drizzle. We decided it might be a good time to go for lunch.
We walked a short distance to a local pub for lunch. Sierra's play must have exhausted her because almost as soon as we were seated she fell asleep in Jeff's arms. He had a lot of fun trying to eat his entire lunch one-handed.
After lunch we walked back to the children's museum to see the other rooms we had yet to explore. We found a two-level castle in the first room complete with costumes for the children.
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| Princess Sierra at the Castle |
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| Sierra checking out the slide. |
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| Seriously enjoying the story book with fold-out pictures |
We stayed until 5:00 when they closed and they all but threw us out. Obviously, Sierra enjoyed her time there because when we got outside she laid down in the street and threw a full-blown temper tantrum with wildly kicking feet and the whole bit. How do you tell a two-year old that her playground closed for the day! Devon picked her up watching out for the flying feet and carried her away.
The weatherman lied about the weather. Today was much better than yesterday in terms of rain force and amounts. If we had but known we could have reversed our activities and been a whole lot dryer the day before. Ah well. We decided to walk around town a bit and headed for Marion Park where we could see tents set up. When we got there, we found a Fine Arts Exhibition.
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| Fine Arts Exhibition tents |
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| Fountain in Marion Square (No wading allowed in this one) |
Day 324
May 30, 2016
Memorial Day
No Boat Travel
With the weather showing definite signs of improvement, we decided to start moving the boat northward. We had one dilemma however - what to do about the car. Finally the decision was made to rent a car for a day, drive two cars to Georgetown, South Carolina, and leave Jeff's car there to greet us when we arrived by boat.
Given that today was Memorial Day, most of the Enterprise Rental places were closed. After a false start of going to one that Jeff thought was open but was not, they managed to acquire a rental car at the Charleston airport.
The round trip would take about three hours plus whatever time was involved in picking up and dropping off the one-day rental. I volunteered to stay on the boat with Sierra and let the others go do the car-drop exercise. That arrangement worked quite well. Devon and Jeff got a chance to get away without a two-year old demanding their attention. I got to spend quality time with my cutie.
When the troops returned late afternoon from the car drop, we decided to go to the grocery store for some provisions and then out to dinner before returning the one-day rental car. Devon found a good restaurant near a Publix which was perfect.
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