Road Trip

Visited Norway Today

Visited Norway TodayI may have to start a South Scandilina gallery. I’ve already got a picture of me in Switzerland and the town of Denmark is just around the corner.

Donna and I got up early and drove to Orangeburg to visit the city’s really nice Edisto Memorial Gardens. Not the best time to visit, the roses aren’t totally out yet and most of the azaleas are past, but still worth the drive. There is a really nice sensory garden, a really cool metal palmetto tree fountain and a long boardwalk along the south fork of the Edisto River. We walked all over the place for a couple of hours, but knew it was time to go when Easter services around town let out and families descended on the place to have pictures taken in their spring finery.

I spent the afternoon up a step ladder installing two ceiling fans in our soon to be new bedroom. Two, because the first one didn’t work once I got it 90% installed. Lowes was more than happy to swap out for another of the same style fan, but they wouldn’t refund me for my time spent. The good thing about the second install is it took less than half the time of the original one.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 112

Muffler Man

Muffler ManAiken, SC to Washington, GA where we lunch on the square at a place called the Jockey Club. Donna had, appropriately, a Club Sandwich, with soup and a salad while I had a Chicken Salad Sandwich with french fries. The food was good, but the highlight was definitely the fries. Real potatoes, hand-cut and deep fried to perfection. After lunch we walked off our meal by doing a lap around the square where we discovered a cool old hotel, The Fitzpatrick Hotel, built in 1898 and operated for 50 years. Then sat neglected for another 50, before being bought and totally renovated and has been open for only the past two. Donna walked into the lobby dragging me with her. We poked around on the ground floor for a while when an employee invited up to look at some of the guest rooms. Very classy. We are going to go back in May when the town holds one of its two big cruise-ins and spend the night, if we can get a room…

After Washington we headed northeast to Watson Mill State Park. we had visited there way back in 1998 on one of our covered bridge tours. We have a little book we bought that has a bunch of Georgia attractions that we bought back then and right there in the margin was the date we visited (4/10/98) and the notation, “Very nice, need to come back.” Well we did and it was worth it again. Guess we’ll schedule another visit in 2014.

We are spending the night in the Holiday Inn Express in Elberton, GA. Us and a bunch of bass fishermen, because there is a team tournament being held on Thurmond Lake this weekend. The only problem with that, besides worrying that somebody will drag their boat trailer across the hood of the Miata trying to park 60′ of vehicle, is ice is very scarce. Neither machine in the complex spit out any frozen water, pushing the button resulted in nothing but whirring noises. I had to go to the front desk to get my little plastic bucket filled. We have 4 channels of HBO on the TV and for our viewing pleasure this evening, on two of them, is Catwoman with Halle Bery. I’ve got a whole ‘nother rant post about our stay which may come your way later.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 87

History Deficiency

History DeficiencyShows how much we don’t know about American Revolutionary history, when an extremely critical battle that turned the tide the colonist’s way was fought right here in SC at Kings Mountain. Donna and I stumbled on it while searching for a place to turn off the Interstate in our quest for a newer North Carolina state map. This monument was erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution, a larger one is just a couple hundred feet away and was constructed by the US Government in 1930 when the site became a National Park.

Over these last two days we have driven around 500 miles and at least half of that was with the top down. Good thing it isn’t later in the year or Donna and I would be a lot more sunburned than we are right now. We are also a little wind burned too, plus my lips are way chapped. But we had a great time.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 68

You Lookin’ At Me?

You Lookin' At Me?We planned this impromptu getaway a couple weeks ago, but nearly backed out a couple days ago because it wasn’t going to be as warm as we wanted. This morning we got up Packed an overnight bag and hit the road. The trip had two real objectives, the North Carolina Zoological Park and Razzoo’s. Either one was expendable, but we had to make at least one.

We ended up doing both and we are pretty beat. The zoo is awesome and will require at least one more (we are thinking fall as the park is covered in hardwoods) and possibly several visits. We spent from around 1 o’clock until 3:30 meandering most of the exhibits along it’s 5 mile length.

From there we headed southwest to Razzoo’s in Concord for dinner. We almost didn’t get there, I think everyone in the central part of NC was visiting the area, so traffic was bumper to bumper for the last 3/4 mile to get into the Concord Mills Mall. Mark, remember how empty the mall parking lot was when we visited? It was virtually full this afternoon! Donna and I have notoriously short fuses when it comes to creeping in a line of traffic for a luxury item, but we persisted because the Cajun call of spicy hot food was siren-like in it’s pull. As expected, Razzoo’s did not disappoint.

We briefly considered driving home, it is a 3-1/2 hour trip and it was only 6:30, but decided to treat ourselves to a hotel room for the night. There is some sort of basketball tournament in town and rooms are scarce, but we managed to get the 3rd to last one available at the Wingate Inn just the other side of I-85 from the mall. We’ll get up tomorrow at our leisure and take the back roads home.

Started up, went down, back up, down again, back up for the night.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 67

Bird Flew

You will never never see a dead crow on the side of the road. — Mark Turner

Last night Donna and I were wined and dined by Jerry and his wife (also a Donna.) We went out to a place called Catch 22, a small seafood restaurant on New Orleans Road. Jerry was feeling expansive so he insisted we have all have an a glass of wine, appetizers, entree and dessert. The pinot noir was the best I have ever had, the crab cake for a starter that was terrific and the Veal Saltimbocca was so good that if they kept bringing to the table I would have eaten it until I lost consciousness. The chocolate brownie with ice cream for dessert while good, but was actually the low point of the meal. Catch 22 is listed as a seafood restaurant only the women had a seafood entree, unless Jerry’s duck was an eider. Everyone of us raved about our meals as the best we had eaten in memory, so while I’m sure Hilton Head Island has many terrific places to eat, you definitely can’t go bad in your hunt to find your personal favorite by starting out at Catch 22.

This morning dawned cold and overcast for our drive back. There are only so many ways to get back to Aiken from HHI and I’m thinking unless we start taking dirt roads, we’ve been on all of them. Donna did manage to map out one we hadn’t done in a while, which had about a third of it on US321 (a nice bit of symmetry seeing as we were in condo A321.) Even though it was quite chilly the birds know spring is right around the corner as there were quite a bunch active along the roadside. Quite a few cardinals were spotted along with a couple of our state birds, the Carolina Wren. As usual on the these rural two-lane roads many a turkey vulture was spooked by our approach only to hop back to feeding once we were past. There was cauldron of them feasting on a deer that I bet numbered a couple dozen. The most unusual sighting was when we crested a small rise and there were several crows and a large brown and white bird around something on the left of the road. As we got within 50 yards the crows scurried off leaving behind a slower to take off bigger bird, which turned out to be, no shit, a bald eagle. It probably had a 4 1/2 – 5 foot wing span. It was the last thing we expected to see feeding along the road.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 51

Nice Day in Someone Else’s Paradise

Nice Day in Someone Else's ParadiseStated out doing a little shopping in a used book store/gift shop. We did a little driving around enjoying the sunshine and warm temps on some of the very few roads on Hilton Head that aren’t part of some “plantation.” We then took a breif respite by walking through the Newhall Audubon Nature Preserve. We then stopped at Gruby’s New York Deli to pick up a couple of sandwiches so we could have a picnic on the condo’s balcony. Plus a couple of bagels for tomorrow’s brekfast

The afternoon consisted of a brief nap on the couch, followed by a couple episodes of the X-Files in a mini SciFi Channel marathon (including one of my all time favorites Post Modern Prometheus Man.) Before dinner we took a big ol’ long walk on the great beach just outside the door of the condo. It was low tide so the beach was about 50 yards wide and was scattered with families and joggers and cyclists and dogs and a kite flyer or fisherman or two.

While Hilton Head Island is not our idea of paradise it sure is a damn fine place to spend a weekend in the off season.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, down again, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 47