In the nearly 10 years that my family has lived in Columbus, we’ve found plenty of fun things to do.

Maybe what we consider to be fun is not what you and your family consider to be fun. I don’t know.

But let me throw out some stuff. If it sounds fun to your family, then great.

We like to go to the Columbus Museum and watch the little movie about the Chattahoochee Valley that shows guys catching largemouth bass and spreading sauce on giant slabs of pork with full-sized kitchen mops.

Then we like to go catch largemouth bass and eat barbecue. I’ve never actually used a full-sized mop to slather sauce on a pig, but it’s nice to know somebody in the town where I live is doing it, or did it once for a museum movie.

We also like to go to the National Infantry Museum, which is free unless the kids want to shoot M16s and see an IMAX film, which they always do.

And we like to go to Providence Canyon, which teaches children that if you’re plowing and you plow straight over a hill and keep going up and down the hills instead of along the contour lines, then you’ll suffer massive erosion and one day have a canyon so spectacular that it becomes a state park.

On the way back from Providence Canyon, we like to stop at the Four Winds Restaurant in Chattahoochee County and get a Ranger Burger, which has two half-pound patties, bacon and cheese. But we discourage our children from gluttony and usually limit them to the Junior Ranger Burger, which at one half-pound patty is a light snack.

We also like scramble dogs from Dinglewood Pharmacy and fried chicken from Country’s Barbecue. But we like our barbecue from 13th Street Barbecue, which is on Seventh Avenue in Phenix City.

Yes, it takes a while to figure this stuff out. You have to work hard at it.

We like to go to Callaway Gardens and ride bikes and check out the butterfly center and watch the raptors. We like to hike on Pine Mountain.

We used to like the playground at Lakebottom Park, but the kids are bigger now, so we might just throw the football or go for a walk. Invariably, somebody still falls in the creek.

On rainy days, we like to go to the library. Columbus has a beautiful big library off I-185 at Macon Road, but we like to go to a smaller branch that has a great selection of independent and children’s movies. I’d tell you which branch, but then you and your kids would go get all the good movies, wouldn’t you?

Some things you’ll just have to discover for yourself.

What else? Oh, music. We like to go to the RiverCenter, where we’ve seen everything from bluegrass to opera. Actually, our kids thought opera was sort of like long-distance running -- it’s really no fun while you’re experiencing it, but afterward you feel like you’ve improved yourself somehow.

We like to go see the Cottonmouths, the local hockey team. We watch a lot of Little League games, because three of our boys play. But in this town, people pack movie theaters to watch our hometown boys via satellite play Little League in another part of the country.

Really.

Here you’ll find stuff you’ve done your whole life, and stuff that’s brand new to you.

Some of it will be obvious right off the bat, and some of it will take some trial and error.

It’ll be fun. But don’t take my word for it.