December 2-4, 2009. Days 137-138 Columbia SC.

On December 2 we left Valdosta to drive to and through Griffin and Jonesboro GA to see two more of Kevin’s old houses and then on to a city just east of Atlanta since we would be going on to Columbia SC the next day. After being on the road for only an hour it started to rain. Then it kept raining all day sometimes very hard. The forecast was for heavy rain all day throughout the SE. Just North of Macon GA Kevin decided not to go to Griffin and Jonesboro because it would be too hard to get out in the rain to actually see anything or to take any good pictures. Kevin had also been to both those houses just recently so it wasn’t as important to him to see those two. He made a new route and turned toward South Carolina, and in a short time, 3 hours, we arrived in Columbia, at 4:30. This would be our 36th Capitol to visit and only 1 of the 8 we would see on this second leg of the trip.
On December 3rd we got up early and did a day of school. The kids have been doing real well and have adjusted to having school Monday thru Friday from 9-12:30 instead of school only on days we were traveling. They are doing a better job too with remembering things from one day to another. After lunch we headed downtown. Our campsite was only 5 miles from the Capitol so it didn’t take us long. It seemed like it had been a while since we had been on a Capitol tour and we had been missing it. SC has guided tours of the building and a nice young lady did a good job of describing all the special features. This Capitol had quite some history to it since it had been started to be built right before the Civil War. They had to stop for a while and when General Sherman marched through town he actually shot some cannon balls at it. There are still 6 marks on the walls were it was hit. That was cool to see.
On Friday the 4th we did a day of school then went and looked around Columbia some more. We had some grocery shopping to do also. Later that night we had a very special visitor come have dinner with us. Kevin’s nephew Kyle goes to the University of South Carolina. He came over at 6 and ate and visited with us. It was a great visit, hearing all about his first semester as a freshman at USC. He also is so grown up now. It had only been a couple years since we had seen him but now he was so big and handsome. Seeing Kyle made our trip to SC really special.