Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

There are certain restaurants I want to like more than I do. El Burro Loco in Myrtle Beach is one -- I go by every five years or so to see if it is finally any good. Bocci's in Charleston was another.

Since it was conveniently located next to the original location of Theatre 99, and near to The Market, and since I like Italian, I used to check it out every so often. I think every time I did, it was a really mediocre experience, including the last time, around Christmas 2013 when I waited two hours for an unexceptional pizza. They did have really sharp matchbooks though.

UPDATE 21 March 2016 Wow, who would have thought this photo and letter would turn up at my house at this late date, but there we are: David Pearson's first ride crew on Thunder Road. See the text below for details.

Grit Your Teeth
Bear The Load
Enjoy Your Ride
On Thunder Road
-- Burma Shave

I was on the first run of Thunder Road on 3 April 1976.

As it happened, I had won a phone-in contest on WIS Radio. I suppose there were similar contests on stations all over the Carolinas to fill both cars. It was not the first time I had been to Carowinds, I remember a school trip in particular, but it was not the quick jaunt from Columbia it is nowdays, as I-77 between Columbia & Charlotte was not yet finished and it was a longish two lane drive on US-21.

In its initial configuration, the two track coaster was promoted as a "race" between moonshiners and police with the trams on each track having automobile body front ends. For the initial ride, we contest winners were divided into two teams, one per car, and in the front seat of each car was a then prominent NASCAR driver. I'm afraid I didn't (and don't) really follow NASCAR so the names of our team leaders has totally slipped my mind. I have the feeling that our team was on the right hand track, and that we were the law, but I couldn't swear that to you. What I do remember in particular is the set of four Burma Shave signs, quoted above, which were between the two tracks as the cars were chain pulled to the top of the first hill. They gave you something to laugh about just before cresting the hill and that first precipitous descent.

At the time, my experience with roller coasters was pretty limited. My father did not trust the travelling coasters at the State Fair, so the only coasters I had ridden were the Swamp Fox in Myrtle Beach, and the mining themed Goldrusher also at Carowinds. There was really no comparison, and Thunder Road was a thrill ride far and above either (though I still love both the others). There was just something about that initial jerk and the clank of the chains as you went up that first hill, then teetered on top of the world for a second before the bottom dropped out..

I rode Thunder Road many other times over the years, though probably not any after the early 1980s. I totaly missed the era when they ran one of the trains facing backwards.

When I heard that Thunder Road was to be retired, I wanted to try and be on the last ride, but in the event I was on vacation that day, and while I seriously considered making the ten hour round trip drive, in the end I didn't. It would make a better story, but that's life.

I did go out last weekend though and get what pictures I could of the attraction before it is all torn down. The entrance is in what is now the Snoopy section of Carowinds while the main body parallels the water park area.

It's kind of sad how little of the original Carowinds remains. Really, I think the only two remaining original rides are the Eastern Airlines Skytower and the aforementioned Goldrusher. While I was googling some Thunder Road facts for this post, I ran across a teriffic site Carowinds The Early Years where most of the links above come from, and which you should definitely visit. Who could forget The Oaken Bucket, The Hillbilly Jalopies, The Powder Keg Flume, the awful food at The Grubsteak (You expect grubs to be good steak? we asked..), The Paddle Wheel Steamer, The Skyway and The Monorail?

UPDATE 14 August 2015: My sister (who was also there the first day of Thunder Road though she did not have a first ride ticket) says she remembers that the NASCAR teamleaders were Cale Yarborough and David Pearson and that I was on Pearson's team. She has also found online sources saying it was Bobby Allison & David Pearson though that's not the way she remembers it (and all it takes is for one source to get it wrong and then be quoted by everyone else..)

I have also found a number of Youtube videos of Thunder Road. Here are a tribute video and then a front car POV video:

I have only eaten at any Sonny's once, and this was the one. For some reason, several years ago when we were staying in Fernandina, nothing would do for my niece but that she have some corn on the cob. My memory is a bit hazy, but I think she had been quite kid-finicky in restaurants on the trip and it was a chance to get her to actually eat something if we could find a place. In the event, it seemed that Sonny's was the only game in town for supper corn that evening, and we hied thither. I'm finicky myself so I had the salad bar, which was pretty good, and my niece did get, and eat, her corn, so all was well.

I know I would have noticed if the place, past Sadler Road on the way to the bridge, had been closed during my last trip in October 2014, and Tipadvisor page and pictures suggests the place probably closed in December of that year.

I passed many other Sonny's locations in my most recent Florida trip, so apparently the chain as a whole is doing OK.

Coming off of I-77 and heading downtown on Saturday gave a really stunning view of Charlotte's downtown. The sky was dotted with puffy clouds and the skyscrapers were laid out almost artistically. I really wish I could have pulled over and gotten a shot.

I was headed to the Convention Center for this years iteration of Charlotte's Heroes Convention which I have been checking out out over the years as often as I could since the days when it was a few meeting rooms at the old Holiday Inn on Woodlawn.

This year, I didn't attend any of the panels as it took all of my time just to completely canvas the main show floor. My impression is that Guardians Of The Galaxy is a new hit with costumers, though there was no single theme for the majority of costumes. I think I did notice a bit of fall-off in the Frozen costumes since Amelia Con. Stan Lee was there for photo-shoots, but the line was so long that I didn't attempt to see him. There were plenty of other creators there as well, and I bought a number of indie books for myself and my nieces, more than I've scanned below.

Anyway, it's not a bad drive (I-77 seemed a little less pot-holed this time) and there's a reasonable nearby lot, so if you get the chance next year, I recommend you check it out.

The only time I ever ate at a Sam's Corner was Monday 30 June 1997.

I was living in Aiken at the time (and working in Augusta), but found out less than a week in advance that The Beach Boys were playing the House of Blues in North Myrtle Beach that day. It was a rare small venue appearance, and I think many fans realized it was probably one of the last chances to see Carl Wilson on stage. In the event it was a bittersweet performance. Carl played most of the set seated and I think everyone in the audience could tell he was not long for the world, though he still sounded like an angel.

At any rate, when the show was over, with it not being a weekend, I was on the hook to be at work the following morning, so I fortified myself at the NMB Sam's with a hot-dog and coffee and made it back to Aiken (after further fortification with Waffle House coffee in Manning) in time to slip into bed half an hour before I had to get up. It was not something I could do now, and could barely do then.

Truthfully I was so focused on what I had to do that Sam's made little impression on me other than it was well lit, had an acceptable chili-dog and drinkable coffee.

I think the NMB location was the second for the chain, with one by the pier in Garden City being the first.

This location on US-17 in Pawleys Island came much later, and was, I think, something of a miss-step as the South Strand is a much different place from Myrtle Beach or even Garden City. I had noticed over the few years it was open that despite the proudly proclaimed 24 Hours in fact during the off season, it was rarely open past 10, and lately wasn't open at all except during the summer. I even did a post on the dark building called 25th Hour a few months ago.

On my last trip down over the Memorial Day week I saw that the place is now officially closed, even though they apparently had a plan to upfit the office space.

Falling, falling, falling..

It may seem strange to the under 50 crowd at this remove, but it's pretty much impossible to overstate what an incredible influence Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album had when I was in the last years of high school. Almost every track was on the radio at one time or another, and everybody had a copy. I would have had one, but I was dead broke at the time, so I somehow convinced my sister to spring for it. I taped her copy to cassette and it was in constant rotation with my Beach Boys albums in my jury rigged car player (which would reverse the tape and start playing the other "side" every time we hit a bump).

Rumours was the followup to the also very successful eponymous album Fleetwood Mac which established the band's "classic lineup". It was also the lead-in to the rather experimental Tusk which no doubt confused their legions of fans.

Over the years the band went through a lot of acrimony and romantic imbroglioes, with the fact that it was coed giving even more scope for feuding than even the Beach Boys "enjoyed".

Still, after all the dust settled, and after a sixteen year absence for Christine McVie, the classic lineup is back together and making music again.

I took the opportunity to see them in Charlotte, and everybody was in fine form, and looking and sounding pretty good for a bunch of 60 and 70 year olds. They played everything you would expect, and added a few new songs that, if not instant classics, were pretty good. As you can tell from the video and pix, I was *way* up in the nosebleed section, something I did not appreciate in the least while inching towards my seat like an action movie hero sidling along a window ledge over a twenty story drop. It was somewhat better once I actually had a seat, though as you can hear in the video, I fell in with a bunch of Chatty Cathys..

Anyway, it was a great show, and you should definitely catch them if you can.

As just a few random observations: It's amazing how bad a shape I-77 is in. It seemed like I was dodging huge ruts all the way to Charlotte. I don't remember that from my last trip in June, but it can't have gotten that bad that quick. Also, the parking garage at EpiCenter is the worst I've ever been in, like the old text based computer game "You are in a maze of twisty little passage all alike": It was amazingly hard to find the level changes rather than just driving by the same packed spaces again and again. Maybe I was "Over My Head"...

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The Island Cafe & Deli was for many years a dependable choice for lunch and dinner at Pawleys Island. Landolfi's is my favorite restaurant in the area, but the Deli had a nice front porch for outdoor dining, and sometimes you just want a grilled cheese or burger with black bean soup instead of pizza. Apart from those options, the menu had a number of quirkily named signature items like the Aristotle Salad or the Strom Thurmond, which the description assured us was "an illustrious member of our menu" and featured "young turkey breast".

Some years ago the place had a bad fire and was closed for an extended period, and I believe that after that, someone once drove a car through the front window. Given that history, I was very surprised when I went down in December for the candles to find the place closed.

It appears that the next tenant will be Rustic Table.

I got to Brookgreen a bit later than I had planned this year, and so did not hit all the spots I usually hit, but it was still a very nice evening out in the cold and lights. Actually, the weather was relatively moderate compared to some prior years -- I was able to hold my camera and adjust the controls without my fingers going numb. There is still an official ban on tripods, and I decided this year I wouldn't go for much in the way of "set the camera on something and do a time exposure" shots, so I cranked the ISO way up and took what I got, so I have to admit I've gotten better shots in previous years. I did play around with the in-camera HDR setting, and that's where some of the freaky green-lit exposures come from. Sometimes it did quite a good job of capturing both the lights and normal objects, and sometimes it didn't (I haven't used those spoiled shots here, obviously).

Getting in was a little quicker this year as they did not bring back the suboptimal secondary dirt road route they tried last year, although there was still quite a jam on US-17 (where I witnessed a fender-bender just as I finally got waved through). You still have three more chances to catch the lights this year on 18 December, 19 December and 20 December, and you really should if you are anywhere near the area.

UPDATE 5 December 2023: Update tags and add map icon.

I got to Brookgreen a bit later than I had planned this year, and so did not hit all the spots I usually hit, but it was still a very nice evening out in the cold and lights. Actually, the weather was relatively moderate compared to some prior years -- I was able to hold my camera and adjust the controls without my fingers going numb. There is still an official ban on tripods, and I decided this year I wouldn't go for much in the way of "set the camera on something and do a time exposure" shots, so I cranked the ISO way up and took what I got, so I have to admit I've gotten better shots in previous years. I did play around with the in-camera HDR setting, and that's where some of the freaky green-lit exposures come from. Sometimes it did quite a good job of capturing both the lights and normal objects, and sometimes it didn't (I haven't used those spoiled shots here, obviously).

Getting in was a little quicker this year as they did not bring back the suboptimal secondary dirt road route they tried last year, although there was still quite a jam on US-17 (where I witnessed a fender-bender just as I finally got waved through). You still have three more chances to catch the lights this year on 18 December, 19 December and 20 December, and you really should if you are anywhere near the area.

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I noticed this pair of co-located derelict businesses driving US-601 through St. Matthews towards I-26 this Spring.

I wasn't sure at first what the restaurant was, but a close look at the menu board pretty well pins it down to a Sub Station II.

I can't think of any obvious reason why both businesses in this building would have failed at what seems to be more or less the same time. While the restaurant market is fickle, laundromats are places where you must go. I'm guessing early 2000s for the timeframe here, but the building does seem rather enthusiastically vine encrusted, and if the realtor posting the sign does succeed in selling the place, I doubt there's much that can be done beyond knocking the place down and starting over.

UPDATE 31 March 2022: Updating tags. I can't add a map icon because I have no idea where this was now.

UPDATE 1 April 2022: Commenter Andrew has located this place on Google maps (it was apparently still standing in 2018), and following his lead, I come up with the address of this place as (probably) 181 Harry C Raysor Drive, St. Matthews SC 29135. With that, I am able to make a map icon. Also, I will put that in the post title. Harry C Raysor Drive is the local name for US-601.