Sunday, 20 November, 7:15 PM, Notso Hostel, the Aimee Room, Charleston, SC: Thursday evening we joined hundreds of Columbians in a street fair and the lighting of the Vista Lights Christmas (Holiday) tree. Restaurants had food samples and specials available on the street, beer and wine were poured and sold, art galleries were open and showing, stores had great specials, bands played both inside and outside, and strollers and children were present in abundance.
Friday, our last day in Columbia began with Laundry. We smelled. We mailed ourselves two pounds of grits (locally ground, the same I ate at the Blue Marlin), and 3 pounds of pancake mix (North Carolina). At the Columbus Art Museum, we enjoyed a wonderful collection of Mediaeval to Baroque religious art. And we ended Columbia by again walking past the statue of Strom Thurmond, this time to go to the Hunter Gatherer Brewpub to sample their ales and menu. Not as good as either Columbus or Raleigh, but still worth the walk.
Columbia is a city dedicated to the automobile. Outside our hotel, Taylor was six lanes heading west. We looked up the street and it was devoid of cars. By the time we made it to lane 4, we needed to trot the rest of the way to beat the steel monsters barreling toward us at 45 MPH. We and poor African Americans (mostly) were the only ones on the sidewalks outside the downtown. Very few bicycles passed us on the street. I assumed the riders were all dead and their bicycles too mangled for anyone else to take up the challenge. Finally, before I leave Columbia, the downtown has no where to sit. In contrast to Raleigh which, in spiffing up the downtown decided that having places for people to sit outside was a good thing, downtown Columbia has very few such areas. Certain oases exist -- Finlay Park, the forecourt of the Columbia Art Museum, but these were notable exceptions. We got ourselves some theological differences here.
We realized this morning that it is still dark out at 3:10 AM, which is when we left our room and boarded a taxi for the short ride to Columbia Amtrak. The train arrived on time and whisked us off to Rocky Mount for our rendezvous with the southbound Palmetto to bounce us here. Have I explained why the all day, round about route when a shorter, much shorter, route was available through Savannah? Money. A few bucks. The allotted Savannah pass seats were all gone and we’d have paid extra that we would rather spend, it turned out, on the $40 cab from Charleston Amtrak to here.
They tell us Charleston is expensive. That is why we found the Notso Hostel in which we have our little Aimee’s room with burned out light bulbs and a chest of drawers in a closet too small to let us open the drawers. Odds are we’ll find a bus to take us back to the station Tuesday. Odds are that within a few blocks is another bus that will take us wherever we want to go. Not having much money should never get in the way of being a traveler.
I looked at that last sentence a bit and decided that, although inconvenient, not having much money is a blessing. It gets us with real locals who can tell us, for example, where to get good, authentic food without a 125% pretension mark up. Local transit riders will also let us know about unsafe areas. In Montgomery this spring, a panhandler told us about panhandlers to avoid and not engage or be engaged by.
Which brings us to today. We decided to do the Charleston volkswalk knowing that the volkswalk routes often give us the best basic foot tour of a city. And we were not disappointed.
Charleston was an important city in the colonial period and it was the site generally considered the start of the actual Civil War (The War Between the States) when Confederate troops captured Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor. A monument in White Point Gardens across from the Fort Sumter National Monument honors the Confederate soldiers who defended Charleston and Fort Sumter before it finally was wrested away by the Union.
The walk also took us to the immense craft market (City Market), on a seawall walkway along the harbor, among endless antebellum mansions with cobblestone or brick streets, and among the upscale shops of downtown King Street. Just to make sure we had an incredible walk, the temperatures were in the mid 70s and the sky was blue.
We paused before the completion of the walk as we were lured into Hymans seafood restaurant by a pleasant team of young people in yellow t-shirts who wanted only our happiness and satisfaction. We ate. And we were happy and satisfied. We began with a bowl of boiled peanuts after which I had a crab bisque-soup (a Low Country tradition), Pat a plate of hushpuppies and shrimp, and we shared a plate of sweet potato fries. All this with a locally brewed Palmetto beer. We thanked the fine people in yellow t-shirts and stumbled the rest of the way to the end of the walk and then to Notso Hostel. Once there, we felt so good I even shaved and showered.
Tuesday, 22 November, 1:15 PM, Aboard Train 90, The Palmetto: I like the idea of a free day in the schedule. We picked up most of the sights of Charleston in the volkswalk. After breakfast, we went looking for the free trolley and eventually found and boarded the re-routed orange line near the Visitors Center. Pat got off near a yarn shop, and I continued to the waterfront.
My plan was to check out the Fort Sumter ferry and tour. I made it to the ticket booth at 11:58, bought a ticket, and ran (in a manner of speaking) for the ferry. The ramp was pulled off as I stepped onto the boat, and we were underway. Not much thought in this maneuver. The boat was full and crowded, with over 100 passengers (so said the NPS volunteer guide).
As a a Park Service intern stated in her lecture at the Fort, this was the site where the shooting war between the states began. The actual war of politics and words was already in full swing long before Lincoln.
In April 1861, Sumter was surrounded by local militia loyal to the Southern cause, based at several other forts. Tensions had been escalating for some time. The commander of the American garrison, Major Anderson, himself a southerner, was flying a vey noticeable 10X30 stars and stripes flag. During the night of 12/13 April, a single shell was fired over Sumter, signaling the Confederates ability to fire on the fort. This was followed by a demand for surrender. When Anderson refused, a bombardment of the fort was initiated. On 14 April, the fort was evacuated, along with the really big flag. And it got worse from there.
Wandering the fort and the destroyed rooms and quarters (after the US abandoned/ceded the fort, Sumter was under attack and siege for several years and Charleston was subjected to a blockade by Union ships), it was easy to see the sites where other forts and gun emplacements were located. It was even easier to see why one would not have wanted to be there.
Pat called me to let me know the knitting shop was closed Mondays but she had found the Southern Brewery and Smokehouse, probably the only Charleston Brewpub. We ate well with a barbecued pork sandwich (Pat) and a huge vegetarian Ciabatta sandwich (me) and, because Pat had gotten a coupon along the way, we had a shrimp-cheese dip with chips. We had two beers, a pale and a wonderfully smooth red.
We were up early this morning, eager to move on. Our timed taxi came precisely at 08:45 and we were at Amtrak by 09:10, ready to roll. And from then until arriving here at DC Union Station, we were on the train. Charleston, SC is about 450 miles from here, a long day’s ride.
We had on the train early Thanksgiving travelers, some of whom had little experience riding trains and so the good Amtrak people were fighting to stay near schedule. Unsuccessfully.
Our plan was to ride Metro here, we know a stop is just 3 blocks down 11th. We went out the Union Station west door, rode the escalator down, looked at the maps and options, and rode the escalator back up and walked to the taxi stand. Tomorrow we will remember how the Metro works.
And here we are, ready for a night’s sleep in Room 403. I’m in bed 4, Pat in 3 (upper), and two young Italian men are in 1 and 2. Pat’s in her glory.
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