South Carolina

The Greenville Zoo

~ shelli ~ Leave a comment

It’s autumn, and the weather is just right for day trips! Yesterday we decided to take a trip to the Greenville Zoo.

Greenville, South Carolina is about an hour and a half from our home, and on our previous day trip there, we decided we’d like to go back more than once. It’s a beautiful, small city.

The zoo is small, but it was beautiful and just the right size for us. It’s nice to check out different zoos because you’ll always find some animals you have never seen before. We loved the spider monkeys and this beautiful vulture from Africa. Who says vultures are ugly? They are such cool birds.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about zoos because I hate to see animals in cages. Still, I know zoos do a lot of good conservation and research, so I want to support them too. It’s important for people, especially children, to have a chance to view live animals so that they will learn and care about them.

The Greenville Zoo is next to a beautiful park (with a very big playground right next to the zoo entrance) that winds its way through the city. We also had time to go downtown for lunch and check out a couple of the shops. I didn’t take any photos of the city, but you can find a bunch of images online if you google “greenville, sc downtown.”

Greenville County Museum of Art

~ shelli ~ Leave a comment

On one spontaneous morning, we decided to drive to Greenville, South Carolina and visit their Children’s Museum. We didn’t know much about Greenville at the time or how much we’d love it. (We’re definitely going back!) Right next to the Children’s Museum was the county’s art museum, and it was open one hour later than the children’s museum. It was also free admission. How could we not go in?!

We all enjoyed the Children’s Museum, but the Greenville Country Museum of Art was the most memorable part of the trip for my husband and me. It was a beautiful, small museum, and it happened to have the biggest collection of artwork by Andrew Wyeth in the country. I fell in love with his work, and I’m planning to read some books about him. (He was homeschooled!) He is one of the most well-known artists of our time, so you have probably seen some of his work even if you are not familiar with his name.

This museum also let me take photographs of their permanent collection, but I’m not going to post many because I’m not sure they’d like that. My boys really enjoyed this sculpture of the hawks killing a snake, though. Most of the other artwork was paintings on the wall. I will share these little quotes they posted on the wall next to some work by Jasper Johns because I had to agree with him.

This happens to me all the time!

 

Day Trip to Greenville’s Children’s Museum

~ shelli ~ 2 Comments

Note: This column was published in the Barrow Journal on Wednesday, August 12, 2015.

We are having a short “staycation” of sorts while my husband has some time off from work. In order to make the best of it, we thought we’d explore some places we have never been to before, and since it’s too hot to do anything outside, we searched for indoor locations that might be fun. The first place we headed to was Greenville, South Carolina’s Children’s Museum of the Upstate. The drive took about three hours, but it was beautiful, and we were able to see various small towns along the way, including the quaint Anderson, SC.

Once we got to the Children’s Museum of the Upstate in Greenville, my boys had a blast. The museum is 80,000 square feet with three floors and 18 interactive exhibits. The first one I found that I liked was the air tunnel. After coming in from the heat, that felt good! But my five-year-old’s favorite was called “3-2-1 Blast Off,” which consisted of a series of tubes with air blowing through them, and when he put a ball into it, he could watch the ball whoosh through all the tubes and then come back out through another tube. We had to visit that one twice. He also loved climbing on the multi-story climbing structure in the middle of the building, and he did that all by himself since his brother wasn’t interested.

My eight-year-old says he liked the race car driving simulator and the Reedy River Bend – the water exhibit – the best. He liked being able to move some pipes around in the water exhibit so that he could manipulate where the water flowed. My five-year-old loved putting his hands in the water fountains and waterfalls, turning wheels and even going under the water and coming up inside a big, plastic bubble.

Anyone from my generation could probably appreciate the gigantic Lite-Brite, which they called Light Waves Ahead. Remember that toy where you could make pictures by placing different colored pegs on a light board? My five-year-old sorted all the pegs into different colors and made a pretty cool hexagon.

My boys also enjoyed the music room, which was called Garage Rock. They were able to play music on instruments made out of tools, plastic pipe, pinball machines and other fun materials. We spent so long in our favorite places that we didn’t even try out all the exhibits, such as the construction zone, the grocery store, hospital, or the T.V. studio where children can produce their own show from beginning to end and then watch it.

What we didn’t know when we ventured to Greenville was how beautiful that city is or that it’s such a mecca for the arts. The Children’s Museum is located on the Heritage Green, which also boasts the Greenville County Library, Museum of Art, Little Theatre, Museum and Gallery at Bob Jones University, and the Upcountry History Museum. You can learn more about each of these at http://www.heritagegreen.org

Since the Greenville County Museum of Art was right next to the Children’s Museum, and the admission was free, we popped in there for an hour before it closed. It has the largest collection of Andrew Wyeth’s paintings in the country, and my husband and I loved his work. The boys found paintings they enjoyed too, as well as a stunning sculpture of two hawks fighting over their prey in mid-air. It was so life-like we first thought the birds were real ones that had been stuffed.

Downtown Greenville was big, but not so big that it didn’t have that small-town charm. It was full of restaurants, shops, art galleries, and theatres. There are also attractions for those who love sports and the outdoors. We are planning to go back to Greenville sometime and explore this lovely city further.

Admission to the Children’s museum was $10 for adults and $9 for children ages 1 – 15. The website is http://www.tcmupstate.org.

Nature Watch: Botany Bay Plantation, Edisto Island, SC

~ shelli ~ Leave a comment

Botany Bay Plantation was private land until 2008 when it was acquired by the South Carolina Budget and Control Board.  They have a cooperative partnership with The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, who manages this property. Now it’s a preserve and wildlife management area, so no one is allowed to remove anything from the land, including shells. As a result, the beach area is full of large, beautiful shells that people have collected and placed on all the beautiful dead trees. It’s really amazing to see. Botany Bay has 3,363 acres, and there’s a beautiful driving tour that will take you by the ruins of some old plantations.

The pelicans flew so close to the tips of the trees.

The road in and out of Botany Bay Plantation.

Nature Watch: Wildlife on Edisto Island

~ shelli ~ Leave a comment

In May we took a trip to Edisto Island, SC, and I’m just now getting around to sharing some of my wildlife photos with you from that trip. I have so many, I will be dividing them into two posts. I don’t have a long lens, so some of my photos are not very good, but you can see the fun we had viewing these amazing creatures!

horseshoe crab

We saw several pairs of horseshoe crabs mating.

This one had lots of barnacles on it.

We adored these tiny fiddler crabs with their one big arm. I spent a long time hunched over waiting for this little fellow to pop out of his hole!

I love the sea birds, but I don’t know all their names.

What ever kind of bird that is, it’s hunting the fiddler crabs.

It was always exciting to see the dolphins pop up out of the water!

There was also a pretty exciting lagoon right outside our condo.

This guy would just glide back and forth across that lagoon looking so cool and calm. He owned the place.

There were hundreds of turtles in the lagoon.

I almost stepped on this beautiful, glass lizard. Nope, it’s not a snake! We saw two while we were there.

I couldn’t get enough of the baby egret nests. There were three or four nests. We also saw green heron babies almost ready to fledge their nests.

We took the seven-year-old’s microscope, and on the last day I pulled it out! We looked at drops of water from the lagoon, and we saw lots of cool microscopic animals! How I wish I could take photos of them for you!

 

 

Visiting Edisto Island Again

~ shelli ~ 2 Comments

Note: This column was published in the Barrow Journal on June 4, 2014.

About three weeks ago my family was lucky enough to spend a week on beautiful Edisto Island, South Carolina thanks to my aunt who gave us a week in her timeshare. Unfortunately, right before we went, my family was suffering from a virus, and the weather forecast predicted a whole week of thunderstorms.

What could we do but laugh at our situation? This was the very first time we were ever going away on vacation with just the four of us – we decided we’d have to make the best of it. As my husband said, he would rather be sick at the beach than sick at home.

Despite feeling a little poorly, we had a good time and the weather turned out to be beautiful most of the time. Everyone felt well enough to enjoy the beach and other sights.

It has become my great joy in life to discover all the treasures of this earth with my little boys. On our very first walk on the beach that first night we arrived, we found jellyfish, a little squid, beautiful shells and two pairs of horseshoe crabs mating. We watched as the female almost buried herself in the sand, no doubt depositing eggs that were being fertilized.

On other walks on the beach, my son found a large whelk, and in a tidal pool that was almost dried up, he found thousands of fiddler crabs. (Fiddler crabs are tiny and have one long arm and one short.) On the last day when he was out with his dad, they even found a small, dead shark washed up on the beach.

We saw dozens of dolphins breaching the water about 150 yards away from the shore. They seemed to be entertaining the family who were kayaking in the bay. I also took photos of a hermit crab creeping out of its shell onto my son’s hand just before he freaked out and dropped it into the water!

We collected dozens of shells – the picking was tremendous. We found more horseshoe crabs, fiddler crabs, pelicans, and countless other birds I can’t identify.

The beach wasn’t the only place we were able to watch wildlife. Right outside our condo, there was a lagoon surrounded by large, gnarly oaks and palms draped with Spanish moss. On a tiny island inside the lagoon, there were two snowy egret nests, and with binoculars, we could watch the parents feeding the babies. One nest had very young chicks that were gray and wiggly. Another nest had larger offspring whose feathers had already turned white. They practiced stretching their wings, but they still cried for their mother to feed them.

We observed several nests of green herons in the lagoon too. The offspring were big enough to start fending on their own, but they stayed close to mama and practiced hunting in the shallow water near their nests.

We also saw hundreds of turtles, fish, a magnificent blue heron and one small alligator. He remained hidden the first few days we were there, but then almost everyday we watched him from our window as he would glide down the center of the lagoon.

The last time I got to visit the beach was on our visit to Botany Bay Plantation Heritage Preserve and Wildlife Management Area. It’s well worth a visit, and we hope to explore it more in depth someday. What is unique about this place is that it has only been open to the public since 2008, and no one is allowed to take anything from it, including shells. Because of this, we were able to find a beautiful collection of large unspoiled shells on the beach. The remains of dead trees that once grew along the shoreline were fascinating and wonderful to photograph too.

I especially enjoyed walking on the path through the marsh to get to the beach on Botany Bay, and we took a driving tour through the rest of the 3,363 acres, reading about the old plantations and viewing some of the ruins on the site.

We returned home a day early, but despite some little challenges this trip contained, we still collected a lot of good memories from it too. My family’s general health seems to be improving, and you know what they say: there’s no place like home.

Are you taking any trips this summer? Please tell me about it.

The Ultimate Field Trip: Edisto Island, South Carolina

~ shelli ~ 4 Comments

I usually don’t share so many photos, but I can’t help myself.  Recently I had the opportunity to take my boys to Edisto Island, South Carolina for a few days.  I think vacations can be the best learning opportunities of all.  This trip was no exception: from learning patience (the first day was stormy) to getting to touch real, live ocean animals. Anyone who follows my blog will know that my five-year-old has always been crazy about ocean animals, so this trip to the beach was extra exciting.

We’ve been to Edisto Island once before when he was one-year-old, but I’m so glad we got to go back now that he’s five.  And it was my 2-year-old’s first trip the ocean too, so that was really exciting too!  If you’d like to learn more about the island and our visit, please click over to my newspaper column at the Barrow Journal.  Below I’m going to share some of our photos and discoveries.  Thanks for taking a peek!

One lucky thing about the storm was all the shells and critters that were washed ashore!  Above is a horseshoe crab. (It was not alive.)

We found so many shells.

The starfish were so cool.

The condo we stayed in overlooked a lagoon complete with an alligator (we only saw him once), beautiful white egrets, blue herons, fish, turtles and mosquitoes!

We also went to Charleston, South Carolina (my birthplace).  Above is a photo at the Children’s Museum in Charleston.  A wonderful, inexpensive place, if you visit Charleston with your kids.

We saw lots of boats on our trip too! (Since my father loved boating, I felt right at home.)

Where are some places that you have taken your children on vacation?  What kinds of discoveries did you make?