A 40-foot kid lured my family to Columbia.
The oversized child in question was the star attraction of EdVenture, the largest children’s museum in the South. Doubling as an interactive playground, the three-story sculpture known as Eddie reveals the inner workings of the human body as kids climb, jump and slide through his insides.
Our son, Owen, had been asking to make a pilgrimage to EdVenture since seeing a photo of Eddie’s cavernous stomach, which is filled with furniture-sized fake food – an ice cream sandwich, a steak, even syrup-slathered pancakes (all strangely unchewed, not that I’m complaining). While my husband and I love kids’ museums, jumping on vinyl pancakes – not to mention the exit route through Eddie’s intestines – didn’t hold the same allure for us. Luckily, Columbia packs in plenty of adventures, from gaping at Civil War cannonball holes in the State House to riding rapids on the Congaree River and exploring public art installations on a kid-friendly scale.
Chasing Blue Sky
As South Carolina’s buttoned-down state capital, Columbia isn’t a place you’d expect to find whimsical public art, but there it is: a spurting two-story fire hydrant, a trippy mural that opens a mountain tunnel in the side of a bank, and Neverbust, a giant chain connecting two historic buildings across an empty lot, all by the artist known as Blue Sky. Our first stop was Tunnelvision, a 50-foot mural of mind-bending depth in which a rocky tunnel opens to a mountain vista deep in the background. Blue Sky spent a year painting in it before its unveiling in 1975. The mural garnered plenty of recognition: It appeared in People magazine in 1976, and the trompe l’oeil is so convincing that The State newspaper reported that motorists have actually tried to drive into it. But notoriety didn’t mean universal acceptance for Blue Sky.
We caught up with the artist at his gallery in the Five Points area, where Columbia’s alter-ego – the college town that’s home to the University of South Carolina – overshadows its capital status. Surrounded by his Lowcountry landscape paintings, Blue Sky recalled the inspiration for and befuddlement over his installation of Neverbust in 2000.
“I looked at the building on one side, and it just looked like it was leaning away from the other one,” he recalls. “It seemed like it needed something to connect it.”
While downtown slumbered, he and a friend installed the chain between the two buildlings in the wee hours of a Sunday morning, with the permission of both buildings’ owners.
“We had a wrecker with a hydraulic lift, and we just hoisted it up,” he recalled. “On Monday morning, people were saying, ‘Where did that come from?’ And then the city said it had to come down.”
Ultimately, the city’s Landmarks Commission voted unanimously in favor of keeping it, and the sculpture is now one of Columbia’s tourist attractions.
Must-see Museums
Eddie is the centerpiece of EdVenture, but he’s just one of the hands-on exhibits, which keep grownups just as entertained as kids. In the Mission Imagination exhibit, we delivered one of the world’s worst newscasts at the interactive television station, put out a front page in the newspaper lab and danced on an FAO Schwarz-style floor piano. In the World of Work, Owen tested out the fire pole next to an actual firetruck before stopping by the kid-sized grocery store to ring up some plastic fruit. In the Bodyworks exhibit, we visited a literal skeleton in the closet and played virtual volleyball against a digital opponent. After a stop at the towering outdoor playground, we walked across the parking lot to the South Carolina State Museum, housed in a turn-of-the-century textile mill. The museum’s vast collection includes four floors of wonders, including real planes, trains and carriages ideal for transportation-obsessed youngsters.
A surprisingly family-friendly stop is the free tour of the copper-domed South Carolina State House. Under construction when Sherman laid siege to Columbia in 1865, it still bears the scars of cannonball fire. Nine-year-old Owen, typically allergic to guided tours that stall his progress to anything slower than a sprint, was riveted by tales of the siege of Columbia and the history of the relics it holds.
Outdoor Attractions
Kayaking the Congaree River, which runs through Columbia, offers a chance to test your wiles against rapids gentle enough for beginners: Adventure Carolina offers guided tours that include all of the equipment you’ll need. Prices for tours start at $30 per person for a three-mile trip.
Another choice spot to enjoy Columbia’s outdoors is the Riverbanks Zoo, which borders the Saluda River. It’s really several attractions in one: Cross over the bridge from the zoo, and you’ll find 70 acres of botanical gardens, hiking trails that border the rushing river, and the ruins of an 1830s mill with an interpretive center to learn about its history.
Just outside the city, the Congaree National Park preserves the largest remnant of old-growth floodplain forest in North America – see it from a 2.4-mile boardwalk loop or a free ranger-guided canoe trip.
Where to Stay: The Sheraton Columbia Downtown was built as a bank in 1913: The foot-thick vault door still hangs in the lobby at the entrance to the hotel’s lounge. A rooftop restaurant and bar is kid-friendly in the afternoon and early evening and offers sweeping views of the Vista, a former warehouse area near the Congaree River that’s now home to 45 restaurants and 60 galleries and shops.
Where to Eat: Columbia’s burgeoning culinary scene offers everything from barbecue buffets to organic locally-roasted coffee and microbrews. For a mix of kid-friendly fare and historic surroundings, grab lunch at Hunter Gatherer, which brews its own beer in copper tanks right inside the restaurant.