Monday, 14 November, 7:15 PM, Raleigh Amtrak: Our last days in Raleigh have been a time of mostly pleasant surprises. This morning we walked to the station to store our bags and, because the Amtrak person forgot to come back to take them, he charged us only $3.00 total, rather than $3.00 per bag. And apologized. Pleasantly.
in traveling as we do, travel days can be tough if there is free time and no where to hold bags. Usually a station will hold bags for a fee, but not always. It’s also important to watch times. It doesn’t work to try to retrieve a bag for a late train and the station has closed. It can happen.
Yesterday, Sunday, we walked to Christ Church (Episcopal) for the 11:00 service. A very formal service, the music, setting, and all the moves were beautiful. It was populated by mostly middle aged and older parishioners dressed church formally, expensively, and uniformly. There were perhaps six men who, like me, didn’t have a suit and tie. And most of those had shiny shoes. I was dressed in browns rather than blue or black and wore a sweater. Walking shoes don’t shine that nicely.
A fashionably dressed woman with (I assume) her daughter came to where we sat (probably where she usually sat), looked us over, and pushed into the pew ahead of us. One elderly lady talked to us as we first came in, and another spoke briefly to Pat at the end of the service. This is not that unusual, the conservative rich gather as a group for worship and hopefully give huge sums of offering money so the less rich and less snobby can do useful Christian things with it. This only works in places where the well-dressed haven’t gotten the notion that because they are rich, God likes them and their ideas better.
A brief notice in the church newsletter told of a concert Sunday evening: Schola Cantorum of Raleigh is an eight-voice early music ensemble along with a 4-piece recorder consort, lutes, and viols. The group performs sacred and secular works of different countries, languages and composers dating from the Late Medieval to Early Baroque eras.
Of course we returned and, sitting in the magnificent sanctuary of Christ Church with a small group of people in rumpled academia fashion, enjoyed an hour of music that delighted our souls and made us more than thankful.
Earlier in the afternoon, we had been wandering downtown Raleigh; Pat had a vision of an ice cream cone at Chick-fil-A. The search was getting dreary and I abandoned her to go to the NC Museum where I learned of a concert of folk and traditional music starting in but a few minutes I quickly called Pat to inform her and headed to the museum auditorium. From the Museum website: Sara Grey grew up in New Hampshire but also spent some of her youth in North Carolina, where she heard a lot of mountain music and developed a love for the old time banjo music and songs. She has carried this interest into her adult life studying folklore and collecting and performing music from the various areas in which she has lived, including the U.S., Wales, Scotland and England. She has been concentrating for the last several years on tracing the migration for songs from the British Isles to North America. She performs with her son, Kieron Means, who was born in the U.S. and grew up in Britain gaining a great love of the music of both traditions as well as the contemporary scene. He plays traditional songs from the U.S. and the U.K.; he also writes and performs original songs.
We, with a house full of Carolinians, tapped our feet and slapped our knees in shared joy with Sara and Kieron and music that spans time and place.
The final surprise: We rode the circulator bus from near the Capitol to near the Boylan Bridge Brewpub and walked the remaining three blocks. What we saw was a darkened building with chairs on tables and assumed the worst - CLOSED ON MONDAY. Rather than disaster, we had a minor inconvenience, they opened in an hour. I took advantage of their wireless and Pat of a picnic table to take a nap.
We shared two ales: the Endless Summer, a light English ale, and a Bruno Bitter, a heavier copper-colored English ale. Pat enjoyed her chicken pot pie and I devoured every bit of my post roast in a bread bowl. As dusk rolled in, we made our way down a residential area to Cabarrus St. and the station.
Thursday, 17 November, 07:04 AM, Rm 124, Holiday Inn Express, Columbia, SC: It was past 02:00 AM when we checked into our room. That makes, our fourth disrupted night of travel.
We walked yesterday, our 51st capital volkswalk and the completion of this project.
We began the morning circling Trinity Cathedral, looking for an unlocked door to make it in to 08:45 morning prayer. We had about given up when Pat walked a bit further down the street and found an open rear entrance to the chapel. Arriving just on time, we joined an elderly priest and a parish member for the brief service. After which, we were warmly greeted and invited to a church supper.
Refreshed by the service and motivated by a forecast for rain and storms in the afternoon, we circled the Capitol, and its many historical sculptures and monuments (pausing to discuss states’ rights with Strom Thurmond), turned south on Sumter St. and headed for the University of South Carolina campus. Crossing the campus at class change time proved useful in that any time we stopped to look at the map, a number of bright and pleasant students were eager to help us get back on track.
East of the downtown, past the mural Tunnelvision (photo posted) and Broken Plug (an immense, backed-into hydrant) by artist Blue Sky is a section of larger historical homes. And the Nirvana Bakery and Chocolate. Yes we did.
The surprise of the walk was Finlay Park, west of downtown, off Taylor St. It features a huge waterfall and pond, all precisely landscaped, and with very passable views of the Columbia skyline.
And then we were done. The kind lady at the Visitors Center took our photograph under a Columbia SC sign and we headed off to the Blue Marlin Restaurant for local cuisine. Pat’s candied pecan salad and my shrimp and grits (the best I’ve ever had) formed part of the celebration. A stop at the Publix grocery store gave us a bottle of Biltmore Estate (NC) Riesling, grapes, and peanuts. Only the celebratory stop at the Hunter Gatherer Brewpub remains.
We were home, showered, and in our travel pajamas when the storm finally hit. Wind and heavy rain here while other areas of the Carolinas and southwest were hit by tornadoes. Here, it was over quickly with no visible damage.
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