Columbia, SC daytrip

SC Museum of Art in Columbia, a daytrip with the Beasley-Forrests	Brenda and Stuart hatched a great idea that we should meet in Columbia, SC for an interesting lunch and catch the last day of the Dale Chihuly exibit at the South Carolina Museam of Art.
A tentative plan turned into a solid one when we realized that we would not have house guests on the Friday night after Thanksgiving. A few emails on Friday night with Brenda confirmed the schedule: meet at the Old San Juan restaurant for lunch, then go to the Chihuly exhibit. We added to the excursion a visit to the Columbia location of Flying Saucer for a libation before heading home.
I have not been to Columbia, SC in decades and Jim was again in new territory, so we cranked up the GPS and plotted our course. A quick stop for road latte/mocha and Bojangles biscuits and we were on our way by 8 a.m.
http://www.oldsanjuanrestaurant.net/	By 11:30 a.m. we were all four assembled in this Puerto Rican restaurant looking over a menu of unfamiliar, but delicious-looking choices for lunch. The fried plantains were awsome and salads made with cilantro dressing were crisp and refreshing. The cubanos and other empanadillas were huge and yummy.
We lingered over lunch and caught up on Thanksgiving stories. Our last visit with them was in Myrtle Beach - Litchfield Beach in September when we enjoyed another, slightly longer visit that included time with my family during their annual beach week.
	By 12:30 p.m. we were off to find the museum in downtown Columbia. This turned out to be a cheap date because the museum has no admission fees on Saturdays. It was a rainy, blusery day, just perfect for museum adventure.
This Chihuly exhibit is a collection that the artisit calls "Seaforms" which came out of his fasination for antique Native American baskets and marine animals like sponges, urchins, and jelly fish. Jim watched the video of Chihuly at work to see if he could find friend Kevin Cedar. But the video was made too recently to include Kevin.
	This is a nice museum with award-winning architecture and a diverse permanent collection. We also spent some time in the gift shop and scored our traditional cloisinee souvenier pin for our collection.
We had heard there was a Flying Saucer in Columbia and a quick check of Jim's Blackberry got us the address. Then plugged into GPS and 15 minutes later we are grabbing a booth in the establishment. This Flying Saucer is designed as a sports bar and since it was rivalries weekend, college football from around the south beaming from wall to wall.	http://www.beerknurd.com/stores/columbia
	We had our beers, Jim and Stuart talked tech trash, Brenda and Kelley looked at recent photos from our trip to Reno and the Saucer began to fill up with UGA and Georgia Tech fans. It was time to go by 5:00 p.m. since the McCarters had a 3.5 hour drive to make that night. All afternoon we made our mental list of the places in Columbia we would have to come back and enjoy.
Thank you to our good friends from Beaufort for inviting us to join them on this daytrip to Columbia. Let's try again next spring and maybe do an overnight!