National Infantry Museum and a Great Dinner (Thursday, March 31st, 2016)

We woke up at the Microtel Hotel this morning after a really good nights sleep!  We ended up at this hotel on accident, but we are enjoying our stay, and that is what matters.  We typically book at Holiday Inn Express since we are reward club members with them, but there is a Microtel Inn very close to our son (in-law's) apartment, so our daughter wanted us to stay there.  So last week Steve booked our hotel, not realizing that there was more than one Microtel in Columbus GA.  To make a long story short, we didn't realize that we were at the wrong hotel until the day before we left, and we knew at that point that we wouldn't be able to get the hotel that is closer to Ft. Benning.  So here we are, in a really nice part of Columbus at the wrong hotel!

We will have today on our own to explore Columbus, so we have decided to visit the National Infantry Museum.  It is outside of Ft. Benning, so doesn't require a pass to get on post, which makes it accessible to everyone, whether they are associated with the Army or not.

But we also thought it made sense to do a test run to see where we needed to go for graduation tomorrow morning.  

As we approached Fort Benning from the highway, the landscape around the clover leafs was very patriotic and very beautiful.

It made us very proud to be visiting this post to see our son (in-law) graduate from Ranger school.  So we drove onto the post and followed the GPS to where we were told the graduation would take place.  It took us on rutty dirt roads, way off the beaten path, and into several dead-ends.  

Our daughter had warned us that GPS really doesn't work well on post, but we didn't realize how bad it was.  Several hours later, we think we finally found where graduation will be held.  Being off just a little bit can cost you hours when your are driving in circles on post.  But one nice thing about being lost is that you sometimes see things you would otherwise miss.  I grew up in the military, and we often lived in base housing, which was definitely not something to brag about back in the 70's.  But during our excursion, we ran across the base housing on Fort Benning, and it was quite impressive.  I had to text my dad and tell him that we got jipped. Our housing certainly wasn't this nice.

Ok, so now we knew that GPS was unreliable on post, but we figured that it would be better in town near the Army post.  So we turned it back on, and tried to let it navigate us to the Infantry Museum.  But no, it was no more reliable for this than it was on the post.  It sent us on another wild goose chase.  In our search for the Infantry Museum, we probably hit six different spots where the road just dead-ended and we had to turn around and try another route.  

We've never had this happen anywhere else in all of our travels, even in Puerto Rico, it was more reliable than it is here around Fort Benning.

After all of our driving in circles, we were getting hungry, so we decided to take some time for lunch, and try to find the museum again after we had eaten.  Good choice.  We went to a great sushi and Thai restaurant called Wasabi. 

It had a very nice atmosphere, and was much more crowded than we expected it to be.  There was no waiting for a table, we were seated quickly and each enjoyed a salad (which came with our lunch), and then Steve had a dish called "The Amazing", which was a peanut curry with chicken, broccoli and raw spinach, and I had red curry with chicken and a nice variety of vegetables.   We really enjoyed the southern food that we had yesterday, but it was also nice to have a nice healthy lunch today.  

From our lunch spot, we put the address for the National Infantry Museum back into the GPS, and even from this location, it tried to use one of the same routes it had taken us before, that lead to a dead-end.  So we manually changed the route, and forced it to take us a different way, in hopes that this would not result in another dead-end.

With only a little thanks going to our GPS, we finally made it to the National Infantry Museum.  

It is a very interesting museum that shows the role that the Army Infantry has played in all of the wars that the U.S. has been involved in, clear back to the revolutionary and civil wars. 

They also have a section that talks about the Army Rangers, the training they are required to complete, and the role they play in the U.S. Army.  

I thought this was very pertinent because our son (in-law's) next training will be airborne

Just like the Navy seals (which are more well known), the Rangers are the first-responders for the Army.  

We enjoyed the life like depictions showing how the army has evolved through the years.

As we were finishing up at the museum, we received a text from our daughter, telling us what time to meet at the apartment for dinner.  We asked if we could bring anything, and she said that drinks would be very helpful, so we swung by the Piggly Wiggly grocery store and picked up some drinks to take for dinner.

We have purposely stayed away, and given our daughter and son (in-law) room to themselves.  It has been hard because we know he is right here, and has had day passes both yesterday and today, so to not see him has been really difficult.  We will see him very soon though since our daughter is having his parents and two of his grand-parents (they flew in today) and us over to his apartment for dinner tonight.

Dinner was fabulous!  Steve and I arrived first, and our son-in -law was just waking up from a short nap.  A big part of Ranger School is sleep deprivation, food deprivation and stress, to see how the soldiers can handle the harsh conditions, so his nap was very well deserved.  

Soon our son-in-law's parents and grandparents arrived, and we all enjoyed some wonderful fajitas while we listened to the tales of his last three months.  His parents had a lot of questions for him, so Steve and I just hung back and listened to his stories.  It was a very fun and interesting night for all of us.  

Notice the Christmas Tree in the background.  Our son (in-law) left for Ranger school right after Christmas

We left shortly after dinner, since our son (in-law) once again had to be back on post by 10:00.  Since it was still early, we headed back down to historic downtown Columbus where we enjoyed the sights and sounds of the evening for awhile.  Don't be fooled, the night life of Columbus is only about one block long, so there isn't that much to see and do, but we still had a good time walking around and taking in the sights.  

This is the window of the hat and wig store, all decked out for Easter

Inside the hat and wig store, a huge variety for the high-society women of Columbus

There some very cool buildings in downtown Columbus!

Some of the evening entertainment on the street of downtown Columbus

We finally picked a spot where we stopped in, had a beer and listened to a local entertainer for awhile before we headed back to the hotel for the night.

One thing that we have definitely noticed while we've been here is the southern hospitality.  It is really a thing.  Everywhere we go, the people are so nice!  At our hotel, everyone from the front desk to the housekeeping staff are such a pleasure to be around.