OK, maybe Ed Bradley I can understand, Elizabeth Taylor is a stretch, but Kobe Bryant? We know Kobe has sex with the correct gender and of the proper age, but as to consensual, eh, maybe.
On yesterday’s trip to Beaufort we started by looking for the Visitor’s Center. It is a touristy type town, so every little spot has a sign outside mentioning Tourist Info, but that is usually just to get you in the door. We stopped into one place that offered walking tours and he was helpful, gave us a map of the historic district and was helpful about a lunch spot, but didn’t know where the “official” Visitor?s Center was. Should have been an omen.
Donna asked a gift shop place and was directed around the corner and up a block, but that proved fruitless. We did find a bookstore where she asked again, only to be brought to a second individual who said the Visitor’s Center was about 10 blocks that away, but there is a smaller one back near where we parked. But the smaller one might not be there anymore, as there was talk of consolidating it with the bigger one. We risked the closer but uncertain one. When we arrived it turned out it was all gone (although there was still a sign offering visitor info outside the place.) An omen?
We walked the ten blocks. On arrival we went inside and poked around the place for a while, picked up some brochures and got a Beaufort phone book, before we decided to leave and walk back for some lunch. Because it was sunny and warm we thought a couple of bottled waters would make the trip back more pleasant. They had a soda cooler there in the front office and I grabbed a couple of cold ones and went up to the counter. There were two people behind it and 2 customers on this side. Both individuals were helping one person and another was waiting their turn, then me. The woman being helped was buying something too, so the woman behind the counter was refolding a map while the guy was running her credit card. The kid running her card was way to effervescent and acting loudly too cute to be enjoyable. The woman was having trouble folding that pesky map. This was taking way too long and who knew how long it was going to take the two to handle the woman in front of me, so I looked at Donna, and she looked back, we wordlessly decided we could make the walk without collapsing if we didn’t have the water. I put the bottles down and we left. Portend of things to come?
The first place we came to I pooh-poohed as it looked too new and crowded. We walked down a little alley to a place that had a signboard on the main drag. There was a nearly full outdoor dining area and some steps up to maybe a place to dine inside and a door underneath that looked like an entrance. We chose downstairs, but when we opened the door it was definitely a bar. Smokey and dark, with patrons startled by the bright light of the opened door, we knew in an instant this wasn?t for us. I just let it close with the both of us still outside. At restaurant #3 we opened the door, entered and stood there deciding what to do. There wasn’t any sign saying “Seat Yourself” or “Please wait to be Seated”, so we hesitated in the entranceway. Ah, here comes someone on the wait staff, she’ll help. Nope, she breezed on by without so much as a how do you do? We figured they didn’t want our business, so we left. We got a little closer at place number four. We were greeted at the door and shown to a table, menus were dispersed, but that was it. We sat at our table for the longest time, we made our choices, but no one stopped by the fill our water glasses, let alone take our order. By now we had pretty much decided to get in the car and drive out to the strip and eat fast food, but we spotted a sign across the street to a place we had seen a menu from at the Visitor’s Center. With a sigh we decided to give it one more try. We were greeted with a smile, seated at a table against the wall that held cloth napkins, given a menu and our blue, real glass, goblets filled with ice water. After taking our order our waitress disappeared. A little while later we see her grab her purse and head for the door. Oh, no. We’ve been here before, our waitress bails at the end of her shift and we never get served. The other waitress in the place is helping about three other tables and has so far not even looked our way. After about 15 minutes and Donna has rearranged her purse a couple times to entertain herself, we had just about decided to leave when our meal arrives. The salad was great and the flat bread pizza, while almost too over done, was tasty. Our new waitress was very attentive once we had our food and because we split the two items between us our bill, with tip, was only $16. Glad we didn’t end up at the Burger Doodle, but boy that was harder than it should have been.
This is not the first time we have gone through an ordeal while trying to get a meal while traveling, so you would have thought we would have caught on to all the omens thrown our way, but no we were blind to them. We had a previous good experience with Beaufort a decade or so ago, so this little snafu hasn?t totally soured us on the town. When we next visit I think the first thing we will do is find a lunch spot early before the crowds and the wait staff tires.
In June I’m leading the Master’s Miata Club on a trip to the Hwy21 Drive-In in Beaufort. We are going to be joined by the Low Country Miata Club from Charleston. Last year the 2 clubs got together to go to the only other drive-in in operation in SC, The Big Mo, just up the street from us in Monetta.
Today, Donna and I took our first fact finding mission to Beaufort. We left Aiken at 9:00 AM and it took 2-1/2 hours to make it there, with 2 small breaks. This seems like a good start time, as it will get us into town around lunch. After lunch, activities will probably be walking around the historic downtown, shopping or just sitting around the waterfront. Mid afternoon we will drive to the hotel and check in, maybe freshen up before heading over to the drive-in to get in line so we can get good parking spots.
The drive-in is about 5 miles from the historic district and is across from the Marine Corp Air Station. You can’t miss it as they have a huge sign right on US21 visible for about a mile in either direction. The drive-in is about 200 yards down a side road. Because they also do a flea market thing on Saturdays during the day it was open, so Donna and I stopped in for a visit. The first thing you notice is that it is a lot bigger than the Big Mo. There are 9 rows for cars where as Mo has 6, maybe seven. The concession stand and the restroom facilities are light-years improved over the Big Mo’s. They are bigger, brighter and better kept up. We chatted with the owners a bit, told them we were coming with a car club in June. They seemed very friendly. When we told them where we were from they of course asked if we knew of the Big Mo. These guys are only coming up on one year of drive-in ownership, so when they were starting out they of course visited the Boaz’s at the Big Mo to get pointers on running a drive-in. As a matter of fact the FM transmitter they use for the movie audio is the Big Mo’s back-up unit. The cool thing about the Hwy21 is that they didn’t actually need the transmitter, but felt they should have one for modernization, because nearly all of their corded speakers still work!
We thought at first we would try to stay in a B&B. That might have been an expensive proposition and we were not too sure that the Miata Club folks would want to go that way. Plus it seems a shame to stay at a place like that when you are really getting a short night sleep and leaving, what with staying out late at a drive-in. A B&B should be savored. There is a Best Western right in the historic district, so we went inside to check it out. They were already all booked up for the Saturday night in question anyway. For kicks we asked the price, $139 to $169. Yikes! Those B&B’s are not sounding so expensive after all. When we left town we drove back the way we came and there are about 6-8 chain motels in between downtown and the drive-in. There was a Country Inn and Suites that looked promising. When we got home we went to the internet to check prices and they are $115 a night. Ain’t nothing cheap.
More research is required. I envision at least one more day trip in our future. Cool thing is I now have a Beaufort phone book, no I didn’t steal one from a phone booth, they had them as giveaways at the Visitor’s Center. While we were they we also picked up a bunch of menus from restaurants in town. In tomorrow’s installment I will tell you all about lunch in Beaufort…
After a visit to Kroger’s to pick up tomorrow morning’s breakfast essentials I cruised by the 2 Japanese restaurants in town checking for photography backgrounds. I figure if I’m going to take a couple of photos of the car with the Japanese license plate and then remove it, I might as well try something a little more artsy than backing it out of the garage and snapping away in the driveway. A night shot might be cool, I wonder if they leave the lights on after they have closed up shop for the day?
We have three lights in front of the house that we leave on all the time. One to light the house number and stairs, one bug light to light the door and one at the end of the driveway. It seems like these burn out way too often and all 3 will go about a day or so apart, so it seems like I am always complaining about burnt out light bulbs. My mother-in-law found some 2,000 hour bulbs in a catalog so she ordered me a six pack.
Last Friday I changed out the one at the end of the driveway with a long lasting bulb. I can see why they last that long, these suckers are dim. I guess it is expending 60 watts of power and giving off 30 watts of light and 30 watts of heat. I’ll let you know it lasts 76 more days.
I should have known better.
I downloaded my state income tax software (TaxCut) and when I was done and had printed the invoice I was asked if I’d like a free trial of a internet music service called RealRhapsody. Being a sucker for free and music I said yes. I was then taken to a download page so I could get the necessary software to play along. At that point I figured I maybe I would just forget about it if I needed some proprietary software to listen to the music, but I finish the download anyway. Up pops my gmail notifiyer: Welcome to the Rhapsody digital music service!
What? I’m in? Opened Gmail and sure enough, there are two emails from Rhapsody welcoming me to their service. The second one included these lines: You’ve successfully subscribed to the All Access subscription plan on the Rhapsody digital music service. You can now log in to Rhapsody and enjoy your free trial. Cancel any time before the trial term expires, and your credit card will not be billed.
signed
Rhapsody Customer Care
RealNetworks, Inc
Real Networks, those rat bastards. I have finished downloading the software, but now I know I want nothing to do with it. I go the http://listen.com and try to sign in so I can cancel this mess. Can’t sign in, not unless you do it using their software. Shit. I guess I am going to have to install it. After installation, which was relatively painless compared to what I was expecting, I clicked on the My Account tab. Under subscriptions, it informs me I am Active and subscribed to All Access @ $9.95/month. There at the bottom is this:
To unsubscribe, please call customer service at 866-834-5509.
Rat Bastards. I subscribe by clicking one little button, the folks at TaxCut supply them with my credit card number and billing information, and I’m all signed up. But to get out I’m going to have to call and jump through “Customer Service” hoops. Rat Bastards.
The only honorable thing to do is to stay subscribed for the next 13.5 days and then cancel. But while I’m signed up I’ll go grab a freeware program that rips anything coming through my sound card and do a little copying.
Today, because of yesterday’s train derailment, was a day off for Aiken County schools because several local schools are now housing the displaced folks of Graniteville. But it was a teacher work-day, where the teachers reported to school to do, uh, work. On teacher workdays they get a lot longer lunch break and can leave the school grounds to dine in local restaurants.
I found this out when Donna and I walked into our favorite Friday afternoon off lunch place and it was packed. Several clues tipped us off that all these extra people were teachers, but what amazed me most was that a lot of these young women were very attractive, especially in their jeans and t-shirts. Funny, I don’t remember my elementary school teachers as being this hot. They were all old ladies.
Then logic took hold and I realized that when I was in elementary school my teachers were at least 20 years older than me, which would make them right about as old as these “girls.”