Our Hurrication: South Carolina State Museum

For our second day of our hurrication in Columbia, we spent the day exploring the state museum.  First, we saw a show at the planetarium about ancient sea monsters...nice and scary for the kids.  Haha!  Then, we immersed ourselves in good southern history exploring the museum.  The SC museum building is actually as historically impressive as the content within as it exists in a refurbished beautiful old factory building on the Congaree River.  Although this museum was a fun experience, I will say that it is not as impressive as North Carolina's museums.  For one, it is not free as both large NC state museums are...I do think that is quite a rarity though.  North Carolina has large and impressive separate history and science museums, but I know North Carolina also has a larger population with a higher tax revenue.  North Carolina's museums also boast some pretty spectacular exhibits like the real dinosaur fossil specimens.  Most museums just have casts of dinosaur bones because exhibiting the real ones is very costly.  North Carolina also has several other museums spread across the state while South Carolina's is all in one building.  Besides that, I think this museum is well worth the visit if you are ever in the area and want to immerse yourself in some good southern history and culture.

Evan with the map of South Carolina and Brody checking out the center of the earth.  Apparently, South Carolina had a volcanic history. 

Evan has a true fascination with sharks and loves the idea of megalodon, the ancient monster of the sea.  Petrified wood is a pretty interesting process of naturally converting wood into stone. 

Evan and Brody loved the replica of the wooly mammoth.  One of their favorite movie series are the Ice Age movie so I imagine they think every mammoth has the voice of Ray Romano.  There is also a history of a major earthquake in the Charleston area, and since we live pretty close to that area, I am a little concerned. 

I guess giant beavers used to live in the state.  Grayson thought the big bear was funny. 

Although these dinosaur bones were only casts of other bones, the boys still love seeing dinosaurs. 

Albertosaurus is a smaller version of a T-Rex that used to live in the area. 

They all wanted to be paleontologists cleaning bones and fossils. 

I enjoyed the more recent history sections of the museum.  

We have been to Fort Moultrie, and Eddie and I saw the Hunley in Charleston.  The real one was still submerged in a solution to keep it from further deteriorating, but Eddie sat in the replica that was used in a movie.  It was so small inside even though it was larger than the real one.  It is pretty cool to think of all those men inside underwater. 

A little Civil War history. 

Evan checked out some scenes from modern day South Carolina.  We definitely love SC beaches.  Brody liked the older rural South Carolina structures like this old house. 

The old schoolhouse was pretty neat, and the boys got to go inside and pretend to be in school. 

The old general store was pretty neat too.  It was well stocked with everything a family could need.  The old men at the back were playing a game by the fire and talking.  You could hear their conversation.  They reminded me of some little old country stores that still existed in the town where I grew up.  My dad would take me to see friends and get a treat. 

Brody was fascinated with the old outhouse.  Haha! 

The early days of automobile travel and gasoline. 

Some World War I history reminded us just how ridiculous the causes of the war were and so many lives lost for basically nothing. 

I loved the Old South architecture, and Brody enjoyed sitting on a park bench taking in the sights. 

Inside the Southern plantation building was a whole area about SC's first astronaut from the Apollo Missions.  The remake of the moon with the astronaut footprints on it had a photograph that the astronaut took with him to the moon and photographed the picture of his family on the moon since they couldn't go with him. 

Of course, Brody and Mattox really loved the old train.  

Taking a ride on the South Carolina Railroad. 

We also liked the old town and vehicles and buildings. 

But our favorite part and the most impressive to us was a huge section dedicated to forestry.  NC's museums in Raleigh don't have a forestry section which I had hoped Eddie's work with the NC Forestry Association would eventually change.  NC did have a separate forestry museum, but it was so far away from where most people live and visit in a very rural area of Southeastern NC so it rarely got many visitors.  Forestry is a huge industry for states like NC, SC, and Georgia.  I thought SC did a great job of recognizing this in their museum.  Foresters really do so many things that most people don't even realize. 

Eddie has done almost all of these things in his work with the Forest Service and with the NCFA.  Urban Forestry was so important in Charlotte, and he even surveyed major tree damage after hurricanes in northeastern NC.  His specialty though was the highly technical area of GIS mapping.  He had become an expert at using GIS mapping software to create extensive maps of entire regions of NC for everyone in the state to use.  These maps are important for many other industries and agencies in the state such as fire control and first responders.  He had wanted to get his masters in this area and still may do so to pursue future professional opportunities. He will need to utilize this expertise in his current job as well because they have no up-to-date maps of the 50,000 plus acres under their management.  He is just waiting for them to buy the expensive software and GIS equipment.  

Education of students and loggers, controlled burning, thinning trees, and procurement forestry were also important aspects of his job.  He hopes to one day become more of a private consulting forester when he retires from government work. 

So many products that we use daily come from trees.  And remember, trees are a "renewable" resource if used and replanted responsibly.  They are also a clean biodegradeable resource unlike products like plastic made from fossil fuels.

This section of the museum was really beautiful with wood everywhere. 

The wood floors were original to the factory building.  

After the beautiful forestry section, the kids really liked the model train replica of a South Carolina town.  I can't remember what town it was though.