Archive for the ‘out-of-area’ tag
30th Anniversary Heroes Convention, Charlotte Convention Center: 24 June 2012 1 comment
Socastee Mini Mart, 8545 Highway 544 (Socastee): Fall 2011 (open again) 9 comments
Someone can probably look at the gas price signs and make a better guess at exactly when Socastee Mini Mart went under, but I'm pretty sure it was open last summer and not last November 13th (when these pictures were taken -- Unfortunately, it was not a sunny day).
The place is on SC-544, probably 5 miles on the Socastee side of Coastal Carolina. SC-544 is the handy little cut-through from US-501 to US-17 and can save you a lot of grief if you end up inbound to Myrtle by the north route. It's less useful than it used to be though, as there are now more lights and a constant 45MPH speed limit. For many years, the road had a real rural character, and this station is a holdover from that era. Now however the area is getting more and more built up, and "regular" chains are starting to move in.
The Beach Boys' 50th Anniversary Tour, Chastain Park Atlanta, 28 April 2012 8 comments
[Front Row Bottom left-to-right: Brian Wilson-Piano/Vocals, Jeff Foskett-Guitar/Vocals, David Marks-Guitar, Mike Love-Vocals, Al Jardine-Guitar/Vocals, Unknown, Bruce Johnston-Keyboards/Vocals]
(Wanted to get this out last night, but my uploads didn't finish..)
The Ramble Inn, 18139 Commercial Way (US-19) Hernando County Florida: 15 August 2010 no comments
I couldn't help but notice this biker friendly bar, the The Ramble Inn, on US-19 just South of Necklace Warbler Road in Hernando County Floridy recently as I drove past.
Obviously, the place had seen better times, and google reveals that it burned down on 15 August 2010 and that arson is suspected though it does not appear that anyone was ever arrested.
Satellite Launch, 4263 N US1 Melbourne, Fla: 5:15pm 24 Febuary 2012 4 comments
Well, yesterday I had the good fortune, wholly by accident with no pre-planning whatsoever, to be on the Indian River deck of Captain Katanna's Dockside Restaurant when the Navy launched their latest Mobile User Objective System satellite. Here's another, better video.
It was an impressive moment, and it's always nice to see a little bit of (good) history being made.
Kmart, 1525 Sadler Road (Fernandina Beach): March 2012 (probably) 7 comments
You'll recall that we discussed the announcement a few months back about how Sears & Kmart have announced a round of store closings which largely left South Carolina stores (except for Sumter) untouched.
Well, I was recently in Fernandina Beach, and found that their Kmart is one of the ones which got the ax. The store is on Sadler Road, which is the first major connector between 8th Street (the bridge road onto the island) and the beach, an area which is in general doing *quite* well, with lots of new upscale shops (both there and on the other side of the bridge).
When I was growing up, Fernandina was still quite a small town, and this would have been a major blow. Now there is a Wal-Mart a few blocks away, and Target within a mile.
The store is still open for now, and while the inventory is starting to hollow out and the vacant space to spread (as in the Dutch Square Kmart) there is still while until the final days when the fixtures start to go..
UPDATE 10 October 2012 -- As these pictures from 5 August 2012 show, the place is closed and all the logos and branding is gone:
UPDATE 7 October 2019: Add map icon, update tags.
UPDATE 22 December 2021 -- The main part of this store is now a Bealls, and has been for a good while. The garden center part of the store is now an Eat The Frog Fitness, which is new within the past year:
The Crab Pot Restaurant, 10024 Highway 17 South (McClellanville): late 2000s no comments
Tanners Convenience, 3745 Greeleyville Highway (Manning): 2011 10 comments
The middle route from Columbia to the Grand Strand takes you through Manning on SC-261. US-521 joins 261 there, and they run together until just east of Manning where 261 forks North to Kingstree and 521 continues on to Greeleyville.
Historically rest stops between Manning and Greeleyville have been pretty sparse, so perhaps that's why I especially noticed this rather lavish little gas plaza when it was constructed just a few years ago a little East of the 261/521 fork. That, and the fact that any sign with the word "pizza" on it tends to concentrate my attention.
While the right confluence of events hadn't ever happened, I figured it was a pretty sure thing that sooner or later I would be stopping at Tanners. Well, that was true, but not for the reasons I'd anticipated -- I noticed earlier this year that the place, which had started on such a large scale (this wasn't your typical no-name, one-guy, rural convenience store) so recently was well and truly gone.
I don't know if it turned out that US-521 wasn't as major a road as they had figured, but even with gas, pizza, bait and an attached liquor store as draws apparently the traffic wasn't there. LoopNet on the other hand, says they cleared $78,000 and 100,000 gallons monthly, so who knows?
At any rate, the road between Manning and Greeleyville is pretty empty again.
Brookgreen Gardens Nights Of A Thousand Candles: 3 December 2011 1 comment
Well, it seems to me I got better pictures last year, but I had a good time as usual at Brookgreen Gardens Nights Of 1000 Candles last Saturday. The weather was nice -- I didn't have to zip my jacket or put on gloves, and the lights were as spectacular as usual.
If you will be in the vicinity of Murrells Inlet on 9, 10, 16, 17 or 18 December this year, you should definitely stop by and check it out!
Building 581 Myrtle Beach Airforce Base, Farrow Parkway: 1993 7 comments
I noticed a new cut-in to Farrow Parkway at the (bankrupt) Market Commons shopping development in Myrtle Beach back in July.
Market Commons is the Myrtle Beach equivalent of Village At Sandhill, and is the most promenient development on the old Myrtle Beach Airforce Base. The base (which shared runways with the Myrtle Beach Jetport) was closed in 1993, and most of the old Airforce Buildings are already gone. The new cut-in to Farrow however leads to one which is still standing, more or less.
I don't know what Building 581 was used for, but the size of some of the doors make me think it may have been a vehicle maintenance facility or storage building. Probably the later, as I saw no evidence of pits or lifts. The place has now been heavily tagged with graffiti, sometimes amusingly, sometimes profanely, so some of the pictures after the jump might be considered NSFW.
Google Maps indicates a phantom road on the north side of the building, which it designates as Old Railbed Road. I suspect that it originally was a rail spur which connected to the rail line crossing the trestle connecting the Waccamaw Neck with the rest of the national rail grid, and would have been used to bring in supplies back in the day.