Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Well the State Fair has come and gone. No big surprises this year. The retro swing ride at the intersection of the central way and the North Midway corridor is still gone. I guess it won't be coming back. Somehow the baby duck slide survived another year, and we had some new greasy goodness with doughnut-burgers and Wisconsin fried cheese curds. Aprt from the sky ride, the Bumper Cars were the only place I spent my tickets this year, and there's (somewhat badly focused) video of that below. Those issues (really time for a new camera) are apparent in the skyway video above as well, but I think it gets the spirit of things.

As for the rest, if you've followed these posts, you know what I like, and I liked the same things this year. It's always nice to be out and about on the grounds after sundown!

Next year is coming..

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I see that I haven't posted about Columbia's Greek Festival since 2014 for some reason. I generally try to go by if I am in town, and it's always a nice experience. This year, I didn't really have time to do much more than swoop in, grab some goodies and swoop out again, but Saturday was a beautiful day, and there was a good crowd of people enjoying the food, booths & music. In the event, I'm glad I did go Saturday even though I didn't have as much time as I wanted since Sunday was an awful, rainy day, and that had to have put a damper on the festivities.

I'm not a golfer, though some of my friends are very into the game. That said, I always thought it would be neat to ride the cable-car gondola across the waterway here at the Waterway Hills Golf Club.

This article on the closing of the club says it was designed by Robert Trent Jones and opened in 1975. As it closed in 2015, that's a 40 year run, which is not bad given the pace of change on the Grand Strand. The course was purchased by the company owning the adjacent Grande Dunes, but it appears to me that as of yet, nothing has been built on the former course.

You can see a picture taken from a gondola here. Also, I am going to try something new (for me) here. Google Streeview often has images I am unable to match, as they preserve things that have been long torn down in their year-by-year views of the same spot. My assumption had been that I could link to those, but not embed them, but in looking at the actual terms of use, it appears that embedding is OK. So, below I am embedding an image from June of 2013, which shows the course in operation, and a gondola en-route. You can click on the embiggen square to get fullscreen.

Looking at other Streetview images, I can say that the cable car infrastructure was torn down sometime between January and July of 2019.

Ultimate California Pizza is one of the Grand Strand based Divine Dining Group's many concepts, and it's a good one. Their pizza is excellent, and they brew the iced-tea strong. I usually go to the one in Surfside Beach, but in the past I used to hit the ones in Murrells Inlet, or at Market Common fairly frequently. Unfortunely, those later two may feature here at some point as they are now gone.

I never made it to this one, in the Kroger-anchored Galleria plaza in North Myrtle Beach, though I kind of wish I had now, as it appears to have been their Chuck E. Cheese concept, except with more to offer adults. There are some quite nice pictures of the place on website, which is still up. I quite like this one. You can see the place in the daytime with the branding still up on the real estate listing. I find it quite amazing the the whole building is pegged at $11,250. Perhaps it's a typo.

As far as I can tell, it was COVID-19 that did them in. The last post on their blog is from March of 2020, and their last Facebook posts are from April of 2020, where at some point they mention combing operations with the Barefoot Landing location. The real estate listing apparently went up in mid July of 2020.

UPDATE 25 June 2023: There seems to be a consensus that this is a former Showbiz Pizza location as well, so I'm adding that to the post title. I barely ever got up here during the period mentioned, so I don't believe I ever saw it then.

I never got to go to Wild Water & Wheels in Surfside Beach next to the Flea Market. I would have been in my early 30s when it opened, which is a bit old to do a water park without kids in tow. I always figured maybe I would go with a family group sometime, but it never materialized. The official announcement that the place was closed came last November, but it was apparently pretty commonly assumed before that, as the land had been sold in April. According to the owner, it was a completely financial decision: He would have loved to keep it going, but it wasn't making any money with shorter summers and more competition, and he had to retire the operating debt by selling.

Currently, it appears the 17 acre site will go to housing, but that has not been completely finalized yet.

Here is The Post & Courier on the closing, here is The Sun News, WMBF and WBTW.

Here is a promo video, with plenty of shots of the park in operation:

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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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When I finally got over to Forest Lake Park after commenter Sidney mentioned that the gym was being torn down, I found the whole place fenced off and closed. Presumably there is an upfit planned here, but oddly, I can find no mention of it on the Richland County Recreation Commission site. Elsewhere on the site there is a ten year plan for the system, but the only mention of the park there is that it is in "fair" condition and could be better. I don't see any news stories about it either.

I actually did not realize this was a park -- I thought it was all part of the adjacent elementary school. It looks to have been a pleasant enough place.

Also, for the record, I have used the term Forest Lake Park on this site before to talk about the park attached to the old Forest Lake Shopping Center, which is apparently technically incorrect.

(Hat tip to commenter Sidney)

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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Today's closing comes courtesy of commenter James R who writes (in a note I lost track of for quite a while...):

An out of the area closing, but I thought you might like the
pictures anyway. Facebook says it closed in 2011.

He links to his Google Photo set of pictures of the place, from which the top picture comes. The pictures put me in the mind a bit of Main Beach Arcade in Fernandina Beach.

There is also a Facebook page devoted to the park, with many more photos, including some of it in operation.

Here's what I've been able to find out online (mainly here and here): The park is on Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks, was built in the 1980s, and operated until 2010. At that time, one of the owners passed away, and the place was closed. It was intended to be temporary as the family dealt with the situation, but in the meantime, Hurricane Irene hit in 2011 doing enough damage that the park could not simply re-open. Since that time it has sat vacant with the family putting in just enough money to fence it off and handle the worst safety issues. A local civic association has tried to buy the park property several times, but as of early this year, that had not happened.

(Hat tip to commenter James R)

It wouldn't be September without the Greek Festival, and this weekend was one more chance to load up on baklava and Greek arts and crafts. The fest has really grown over the years, and this year saw bright sunshine and warm temps for a nice outing before the State Fair finally brings in the nippy weather next month.

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