On campus and off

This morning I went with Andrew to the University of South Carolina. School is out except for summer classes, so the campus was empty, but it gave us a chance to walk/jog around and have a look at the buildings. Some date back to 1801 - a mere 13 years after Australia was founded. Lots of beautiful old buildings wind their way through the streets, and the total distance covered was 4.3kms. A nice warm up before hitting the Strom Thurmond gym.

Gym is possibly the wrong word for this place. It's more like a dedication to all things fitness. There's an inside running track around the building, pools, a weight floor, racquet and squash courts and a 3 storey high rock climbing wall. My eyes practically bugged out of my head as I took it all in.

We hit the weights floor and there was more machines than I have seen in my life, and of every kind - pulley, hydraulic, pin loaded and of course free weights. I was in gym junkie heaven! We tried a few out before having a hit on the punching bag, and headed back up to have a go at more weights. Since it was getting on for time, we decided to postpone our planned game of racquet ball until the next day.

On returning to the hotel, we were just in time to have the smoke alarm go off, twice. But it was all ok. However, a tornado warning was issued for SC, including the district we are staying in, Lexington. The weather has been overcast and rainy the last few days, but a tornado was not on the list of things to experience in America.

We were picked up and taken shopping, and discussed the whole tornado thing with Doc. Apparently as soon as winds reach 35mph, SC goes on alert. As Doc said, in SC when winds get strong they close down schools, in Texas you just you a little more hair spray. It seems the motto for SC should be 'The Overly Cautious State'.

As part of our days shopping, we went to Walmart again. This time in search of the mythical beast, Baconaise, which we found. We decided to buy some cheese sticks and dip them in the Baconaise, and it was yummy!! We must have fit the Walmartians code, as there we were, wandering around eating Baconaise dipped cheese sticks!!!

Dinner was a delicious home cooked spaghetti and we set to planning our DC side trip. Doc had researched a number of things to see on the way there, as we are driving. We decided to give the biggest frypan a miss, but will stop off to see a couple of historical and military sited before our arrival in the nations capital.

Tomorrow is another visit to gym and some sightseeing Downtown, then off to a kids museum in the afternoon, EdVenture. It includes a giant boy who is a playground, so it ought to keep Miss Doob happy. 

The folk around these parts are pretty darn friendly. You can't be in the elevator without someone having a chat, although I'll try and avoid the 'God loves you' woman. I know we're in the Bible Belt, but I never know how to respond. 'You too' seems to work but just once I'd like to throw back 'if he loves me, can he give me the lotto numbers' or 'if he really loved me he'd send flowers every now and then'.