Association of Zoological Horticulture Conference

Well, it is the second to last day of the conference.  I am sitting in the lobby of the Courtyard by Marriott in Downtown Columbia.  Just to the right of me our impromtu acoustic band of Bob, Steve and Gerry are playing and singing on guitar and harmonica (Bob) and mandolin (Gerry and Steve).  Yep, we have two mandolin players in our group.

We (my husband and myself) drove up.  We stopped at the St. John's County rest area, and I believe there was Perennial Peanut blooming in their grass area.

We also stopped in Darien, Georgia, which is the home of Altie, a North American version of the Loch Ness Monster.  You can even have your picture taken with Altie.

We made it to Columbia, and Saturday we did the pre-Conference tour of Redcliffe Plantation and Lush Life Nursery.

The plantation was originally built by James Henry Hammond as a recreational place.  While there were no permament field slaves on the site there were four structures for the house slaves.  One is still standing.

There is a link for more information about this historic site here.

We then had lunch at Lush Life Nursery and a tour of this small but great Crinum nursery.

The next day was paper sessions, and I don't have any good pictures, but the following day was zoo day and we started by kayaking and canoeing on the Saluda River.  

Here is a picture of me and my husband in our canoe.  You can see that he is doing a great job of steering.

I took a lot of pictures at the zoo, here are a few....

There are two lions sleeping in the center of the picture.

 A picture of a pretty vine.

 Jellyfish

 Garden Eels.

Then we went to the Botanical Gardens.

My husband by a lichen covered rock on the path over to the Botanical Gardens.