2016 East Coast "Tour" - Part Two

So today, I got up pretty early (8am here, but my "internal clock" still being on California time, it felt like 5am to me), and went to church.  A nice little Catholic church - Our Lady of the Hills.  Plenty of Baptist "Big Box" churches around here, all of them with completely full parking lots, that I saw on the way to and from Our Lady.  It was a good Mass, with plenty of singing and "participation."  I kinda thought it was serendipitous that the first song that we sang was titled "In Christ There is No East or West."

Anyway, after church I tried to find Michael's gym, but got a bit lost. Couldn't find it, but found my way back to Mikey's by 12:30.  Mike hadn't had lunch yet, and Millie was working on hers:

I went with Michael to the Firehouse Subs shop in town for lunch, after which we went to Riverside Park in the city. . .

I posed as "Rocky Raccoon". . .

The river looked very inviting. There were lots of folks boating and "inner tubing". . .

I suggested to Michael that someday this week after he gets home from work we should get some inner tubes and float down the river ourselves. He thought going on his raft would be better, but I convinced him that inner tubes would be a lot less complicated and probably more fun. We'll see.

Out behind one house near the park:

Gamecock fans are very obsessed. Football season will be starting soon!

On the way home we came across this gas station. It is a chain. There's a lot of cheap things here in South Carolina, gas being only ONE of them.

After that we went to the local Minor League team's game. Columbia Fireflies (a NY Mets franchise) versus the Augusta GreenJackets.  (Southerners must love to name their teams after bugs because they're always swatting them away, is all I can figure.)

We had the best seats in the place, directly behind home plate.  We moved back a few rows at the 7th inning stretch, tho, where there were tables for us to eat some chicken burgers while we watched the rest of the game.  Columbia won 5 to 2.  It was a great game.

The ballpark is very new:

The stuff on the "Jumbo-Tron" reminded me of the two times we got Charlie and Teddy on the one at A's games last summer: 

The "Simba Cam" was cute.  Anyone who had brought along a baby held him or her aloft hoping to get the baby on-camera. 

SOME folks don't want to let their "babies" EVER grow up, it seems. . . .

When Mikey and I moved up a few rows to dine at the tabled area, we had a nice overall view of the whole stadium, too!

So it was a good day.  Lots of fun.  

Tomorrow Mikey goes to work.  I'm going to go to his gym and then "explore" downtown on my own awhile.  Maybe I will hang out at their public library awhile and just read some of the books I've brought along.  I'm planning to go to the Art Museum in town, but that'll have to wait until Tuesday because they're closed tomorrow.  Then there's the State Museum. . . If that's open tomorrow I might go there.

To be continued. . .