Monday, September 4, 2017

Sesquicentennial State Park - Columbia, SC


Sunday Sep 3

Our first stop of the day was breakfast at The Devine Cinnamon Roll Deli.
We got one original cinnamon roll and one bananas foster cinnamon roll. Both were good, but a slight edge to the original. Both were fresh, gooey and warm. In fact, I dug right in and again neglected to take photos of the beauties, but these are from their website:

 The Original

Bananas Foster Cinnamon Roll

We visited Sesquicentennial State Park. It’s a state park in the Sandhills region of South Carolina and located in the suburbs of Columbia. It’s 1,419 acres and includes a 30-acre lake. It had a lot of hiking trails and many families were there having picnics and taking in the trails.



 Visitor's Center

 American Robin
  American Robin
  American Robin - immature
 Mallard Ducks
 Black-capped Chickadee
 Chipping Sparrow
 Chipping Sparrow
pine cones
 the lake was full of water lillies









 Black-capped Chickadee
 Yellow-throated Vireo
 Yellow-throated Vireo
 Pine Warbler

 lake full of water lilies & reflection of the trees




 Titmouse
 Summer Tanager immature female
 Summer Tanager immature female
 Summer Tanager - female
 one of the trails
 Eastern Bluebird
Eastern Bluebird
 Robin
 Chipping Sparrow





 Coal Skink
 Coal Skink
 Coal Skink


 Pine Warbler
 Pine Warbler
Chipping Sparrow

We hiked almost all of the different trails. We saw quite a few birds (3 new ones for us), but photos were tough. Lots of families and people walking dogs. Being Labor Day weekend, I’m sure it was busier than usual. It is a lovely park and I’m sure all the walking didn’t put a dent in the calories from those cinnamon rolls.

We hiked until around 2:00 in the afternoon and went for a late lunch. We headed to the Five Points area which is near the college and has a lot of trendy restaurants and shops. Our lunch today was at Southern Belly, a BBQ place. They only serve smoked pulled pork belly and you can choose the sauce. We split an Original which is just pork on grilled Texas Toast. I ordered the Rebel Red sauce which was heavenly. The meat itself wasn’t as smoky as most we have had, but it was very good and the sauce really made the sandwich. Greg ordered the Grilled Cheese. Which is the original with a slice of cheese and bacon on it with the same sauce. We split so we could each taste both. It comes with a bit of fresh cut coleslaw and a bag of chips.
 Southern Belly
 The Original 
 Grilled Cheese

 Five Points mural

another mural

Needless to say, we didn’t eat dinner since our day was full of really filling food.

Tomorrow, we are off to what is considered “a hidden gem” here….Congaree National Park. Despite being a National Park, it is the least visited National Park in the country.

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