Last weekend we went to the SC State Museum with Debbie and her service dog, Apollo. Below is a picture of us next to the sign for the museum—the first of many in this picture-rich story!
(In all the pictures I am in my power wheelchair wearing a mint green dress and rainbow mask. Alice is a sable and white Japanese Chin in a rainbow pouch, and Hestia is a black and white Japanese Chin on my lap. Debbie is wearing a grey sweatshirt and shorts, and Apollo is a hound dog mix wearing a black vest. Brad was trying out a gold-streak lens filter on his main camera, so many of the lights in the pictures have long gold lines.)
All the pictures are collected at the end, and during my story I’ll pick out some of my favorites.
At first it was a little hard for Apollo to ignore Hestia and Alice—they are very attractive, after all! But over time we got into a groove.
We started out on the industry floor, where we were able to see lots of exhibits about the history of various industries. We got some great shots next to a mural of a wharf at sunset where we learned about shipping. And apparently Apollo likes to pose with his tongue out!
They had a cool room where pixels moved around and changed color based on you moving and the color of your clothing. The camera was too high, though, so in my wheelchair I only affected the very bottom of the picture. Strange it doesn’t seem made for kids or short adults!
We also learned about lasers! Debbie worked most of the displays because they were hard to reach in a wheelchair. The girls enjoyed the pretty lights!
Then we headed to the sound exhibition. Luckily none of the dogs were bothered by all the high pitched and loud sounds. They had a cool machine that played familiar sounds when you pressed buttons, and we had to guess what the sounds were. We were pretty good at that! They also had sounds of dolphins and bats! Hestia and Alice were really interested in the dolphin sounds (that’s them with the dolphin skull in the picture).
At the end of the exhibit, there was a big room that showed sound waves. A little girl was running around and dancing to the sounds, and the pups were all great!
Of course we had to see the Apollo mission display because of Apollo! They had a big globe that could be turned into any planet which was really cool!
Next we zipped on over to the IMAX theater for our show (getting pics along the way), but we were early! So we zipped back and took pictures with a giant inflated dog (to promote the Superpower Dogs movie we were seeing). Of course Brad stole the show with his pictures of him posing wonderfully and even petting the tongue of the dog, pretending it had gross drool on it!
Eventually it was time for the show. As we were waiting in line to enter, a little girl was taking pictures of me and the girls. I told her it’s nice to ask people before taking pictures of them. So she asked me, and I said yes!
When we got into the theater, it was dark and I was nervous about the previews. Typically the previews are the worst part of IMAX shows for me. So I brought sound reduction earmuffs! Luckily there were no previews, so I didn’t need them.
The girls did great during the show! They didn’t mind at all, and even watched a good portion of the show from my lap. And even though the movie had lots of the dogs featured barking, panting, playing with toys, etc, all of our three dogs didn’t make a peep. For me, it was difficult. I really struggle with IMAX movies! But by mostly looking at the bottom of the screen and my dogs, I made it through! I think the hardest part for the pups was that the theater was pretty hot, so they were a little uncomfortable being cuddled up on my lap.
As we were leaving, a group of people stopped us and prevented us from walking through the exit door to talk with us. It was a bit weird that they wouldn’t let us go, but we rolled with it. Eventually the theater person got them moving.
After IMAX, we went and saw antique telescopes! That was pretty cool!
Next we saw various displays on history of life in South Carolina. There was a display of funerary items, including a spirit jug which had buttons and things important to a deceased person glued on it. There was an old wooden prosthetic foot. An early submarine had a plate you stood on to see mannequins demonstrating how to operate it. There was also an old Jewish wedding dress, a cool vase with a snake on it, and a collection of swords.
The last area of the museum celebrated our parklands! They had a canoe we of course had to get inside and pretend we were paddling! Plus a recreation of the coast. It was beautiful!
We had about 15 minutes before the museum closed, so we headed to the gift shop. It was really tricky to maneuver my wheelchair in such a small space with narrow aisles and expensive stuff! But I made it without breaking anything! I never really realized what a good driver Brad is until I had to try it LOL!
Overall we had a good time seeing the museum! It is very large, and we went very fast through it. We might go back and go bit slower and focus on just a few sections of the museum. It was fun to meet up with Debbie and Apollo, too! We were all extras in the movie Gigi and Nate which comes out September 2nd!
Below are all the pictures that Brad took in the museum. Enjoy!
