Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

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I had not realized that Flo's Place in Murrells Inlet was closed until I drove by recently and saw a different sign. I never ate there myself, not being a big seafood fan, but an aunt did, and declared the place "fun". Last week I was able to google up a news article to the efect that the owners were retiring, but today I can't find that information. I do see a listing for an auction of the quirky decor, which took place in early 2019, leading me to put the closing date as late in 2018 (and there are reviews up through September 2018).

Here is a 2017 Sun News article on Flo's in operation.

The space is now American Steak & Oyster Bar.

Indian Wells Golf Club is on the Garden City Connector, a short cut-through that joins US-17 Business with US-17 Bypass just north of the former Pink Pony. As is usual for the Grand Strand, the area has developed quite a bit in the last decade, and there is now a Wal-Mart on the east end of the connector.

According to The Sun News, the plan is to replace the golf course with up to 520 houses and townhouses. This, understandably has upset the locals who already live by the course, who would see their green spaces replaced with houses and traffic, and there have been protests against the development plans.

The course was 36 holes, and opened in 1984 with Hole #9 named to the "Grand Strand's Dream 18". You can see some pictures of the course in manicured operation here. By the time I walked the course on 1 November 2020, I couldn't really tell where the holes had been (though I did find a sandtrap) as it had grown over very quickly during the year of closure.

It was a very pleasant outing though, as the cart paths are still there, and without golf, your "nice walk spoiled" is just a nice walk. There are a number of ducks and herons on the water, and I have seen folks out in canoes from time to time as well; the place is now an unofficial park, and I can see why the folks living behind it will miss it.

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Kangaroo was bought out by Circle K several years ago, and in the Midlands, most stores transitioned some time ago.

This one, in Murrells Inlet held on for some reason, though as you can see the gas canopy recently underwent the re-branding. As I was driving by, I noticed the boxed sign out front which would complete the switch, and I expect next time I get down to the area, Kangaroo will have hopped away.

UPDATE 20 August 2020: Add "Reflagged" to the post title to note this is basically a branding change.

Due to scheduling issues of one sort and another, I did not get to Brookgreen Gardens Nights of 1000 Candles in 2019, so I was looking forward to seeing the Bruce Munro Southern Light installation this Spring. Well, then there was, of course, COVID-19, and that was put on hold for a while.

Now however, the display is up and running, and I found a chance to take it in on 6 June 2020. It was one of those unseasonably cool nights we have had this Spring, so the bugs were down, but it was still very comfortable, and there was also a beautiful full moon to go with the lights. My favorite part was towards the last of this set of pictures, a profusion of small color-changing bulbs on stalks planted across one of the more open and less sculpture-studded sections of the gardens. I felt as though I could probably have sat out there for some hours, but as the display closes at 11pm, I had to move on out before I was quite ready.

The exhibition runs from 8pm-11pm through September, so if you are in the area, it's well worth checking out.

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After not being able to go last year due to scheduling issues, I was afraid that this year would be a bust as well, since it had rained all day Friday, and was just starting to drizzle again as we pulled into the Gardens. Fortunately, that quickly petered out, and the rest of the night was rain free (though the ground was saturated as I found to my squishy discomfort a few times I steppted off the paths).

The basics of the festival stay the same year after year: Lights in a garden full of beautiful trees and sculpture, but they change it up a bit for each new edition. In particular, this year the boat full of glass balls was new as was the Hogwarts train setting.

I learned something interesting about taking pictures of LED Christmas lights: Even though these are not "blinking" lights, if you push your shutter speed high enough, you may well catch the instant when they are off. This did not happen with the old incandescent bulbs. I'm not sure exactly what the mechanism is. I would have said they go on and off 60 times a second with the AC frequency, but clearly in some pictures one strand is off and another is not.

One thing the preceding days of rain did do was keep the temperature at a comfortable level. There have been years where I could barely work the camera because my fingers were numb, but not this year!

There are two days of the lights left: Saturday 22 December & Sunday 23 December. If you are in the area, you definitely should go. Tickets are at https://www.brookgreen.org/.

(If I get the time, I may go back and add some videos of the train setups).

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Well, another little bit of my childhood gone. After the tear-down of the minature golf place in Litchfield (probably sometime around 1970) this was the next Southernmost minature golf course on the strand, and where we played most often when I was a teen. Somehow at the time, I thought the theme was pre-historic instead of "jungle" and I considered the natives at the right-front part of the course to be cavemen (or women -- there was one statue of a woman who seemed to alternate between topless and fur bikini depending on how recently she had been painted..).

Looking at the size of the lot now that it has been cleared and leveled, it's amazing that a full 18 hole course was there, along with ponds, statues, switchbacks, hills and trees. It's possible I may have some shots of the place in operation that will turn up some day, but in the meantime, you can check out the Facebook Page.

Time to cue up Big Yellow Taxi

What with all the chatter lately about Sears and Kmart I thought I would *finally* get up these shots of the former Kmart at Inlet Square in Murrells Inlet. Part of the delay was I thought I had some other shots with the closing signage up somewhere, but if I did, I can't find them.

Anyway, this store opened, in the 80s as I recall, with great fanfare as it was the first Kmart anywhere to be attached to a mall, all the others up until that point being freestanding. That meant it was a bit of a square peg in a round hole in some ways: for instance, you could not take your shopping carts from Kmart into the rest of the mall (other than directly to and from the entrances).

The experiment apparently worked (for a while) as a similar attached store later opened at Briarcliff Mall (now Myrtle Beach Mall) though it too is now gone.

Here is a contemporary WBTW story on the store closing. It's particularly interesting as it gives the viewpoint of another merchant in the mall, who is saying essentially "Well, it's hurting me, but at least we still have Penny's, Belk and the theaters", the first and last of which have both now also closed..

I believe there is now a Planet Fitness in this space, I will try to get some shots next time I drive by (hopefully in the daytime).

UPDATE 7 October 2019: Add map icon, update tags & add full street address.

This year the annual Brookgreen Gardens Nights of 1000 Candles festival is set up a little differently in that you need to buy your tickets online in advance. This was done to prevent overcrowding and expedite the often rather tedious entrance process. It worked well, but I think they may have perhaps shot themselves a bit in the foot income-wise because it did seem to to reduce the crowd a good bit from previous years. At any rate, I chose 2 December this year, and the night was quite comfortable, not as cold as some years where I could barely feel the camera buttons through the frostbite, nor as warm as one or two years when I didn't need a jacket at all.

There's always a bit that's different or new every year, but this year the changes were fairly modest: I think the only one that really comes to mind is a new field of staked candles on the green space in front of Pegasus. The vintage christmas display did have some new roller coasters on the Lionel display, and they really zipped along!

The festival is running weekends through 18 December, so if you have some spare time, and are in, or can get to, the area, I highly recommend it.

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Murrels Inlet's hardluck mall Inlet Square took another blow in May with the closing of Frank Theaters.

This is actually the second set of theaters in this spot. I don't think I did a closing on it, but for many years this site was a Regal Cinema, and the setup kind of used to amuse me, since they often tore your ticket at the window and had no ticket taker inside. I'm sure many a teen just wandered in, and into a any showroom despite any lack of money or sufficent age for an "R" film.

After Regal closed, Frank Theaters leased the spot and did an extensive remodel for their cinema/restaurant/bowling/arcade conceptCine Bowl & Grille. I don't think the airport type restaurant and bar was really credible in the area, but the bowling alley portion seemed to do a good business as did the movies from what I could tell. There was no "attraction" screen like an "Imax" or "RPX", but it was all digital, and had pretty comfortable seats. I'm trying to recall the last movie I saw here, which would have been around Easter, but I'm drawing a blank.

At any rate, I was pretty surprised on my last trip around Memorial Day when I was googling movie times and nothing was coming up in Murrells Inlet: The Sun News has the story. On reflection, however, should have seen it coming. Several years before, I had seen this story about how the theater was way behind in lease payments to the mall. Since the place stayed open, I figured the two sides had worked something out. Apparently however, the theater was playing the same game as Borders Books, the "We're too important to you for you to kick us out" ploy. Given the sorry state of Inlet Square, you might almost expect that to work, but in the event, not.

In the past, when we stayed on Pawleys, we had the options of movies in Georgetown (The Hub), Litchfield (Tara), and Surfside (Deerfield Cinema), all south of Myrtle Beach. Now, the closest place is Market Commons.