World on Wheels Home Page
SOUTHERN CHARM
by Darryl Musick
© 2001
It took us two days to drive down here from Pittsburgh. Of course, we took the scenic route down the Ohio River during a driving rain storm, narrowly avoiding an ominous funnel cloud in Virginia before spending the night in Hickory, North Carolina (I highly recommend the Comfort Suites there, by the way). It was a much more pleasant drive the second day into Columbia.
First of all, I don't recommend taking your South Carolina vacation at the end of August. Unfortunately, I didn't have a choice because this whole trip was predicated by the need to be in Columbia for the last week in August because of a conference I had to attend. It is very hot and humid, oppressively so, at this time of the year.
That's not to say that Columbia is a bad place to visit. It's a pretty town, very southern, situated on the lovely banks of the Congaree River. In any other season, it's a great place to be.
Our lodging would be at the Whitney Hotel, about one mile northeast of downtown. I wish more hotels could be like this one. Our suite had two bedrooms and two bathrooms separated by a large living room. There was a balcony, a dining area, a full-sized kitchen (with full-sized stove and refrigerator), and my favorite feature, a separate laundry room with washer and dryer in our suite. Plus pool, cable TV (two!), A/C, phone, and dataport. Our price? $79 per night...including a full, hot breakfast.
Although accessible rooms are available, we stayed in a regular room with no ill effects other than the narrow bathroom door. If you have a wide chair, make sure to get an accessible room.
Now comes another bad point about Columbia, especially if you can't drive, or have access to, a car. Public transportation here is atrocious. For some reason, the buses are run by the local gas & electric utility. They obviously don't take their mandate very seriously. Buses are frequently broken down, have no markings on them (to let you know who they are or where they are going), and getting information about routes and schedules is just about impossible.
There are two accessible trolley routes that connect the downtown area with the two most popular hang-out areas (the Vista and Five Points). They provide decent service at a good price (25-50cents) but only run a couple of hours in the afternoon and then again during the evening.
We had a rental car. My wife would drop me off at my conference in the morning and then play tourist with Tim during the day.
We arrived on a Sunday. I checked into my conference and then we checked into the hotel. After a drive around town to show my wife where everything was, we had dinner and then settled down for the night.
Monday morning. The bad thing is now I'm back at work and have to wake up early. My wife and Tim drop me off and head to the Riverbanks Zoo. They tell me it was a very nice zoo with lots of neat animals and good accessibility. A lot of it is under construction due to an expansion there. I should be top-notch in a year or so.
I spent my lunch break taking in the McKissick Museum of Art at the University of South Carolina (home of the Gamecocks...boy, does that make for some interesting school clothes. Think about it.). It's an interesting and free museum, if a bit small, located on the historic Horshoe of USC. This is the original part of the campus that dates back hundreds of years.
That evening we had dinner at the New Orleans Riverfront Restaurant. The view was spectacular and the food wasn't so bad, but we've had better New Orleans style food back home.
Tuesday, the wife and kid puttered around town looking for things to do and shops to visit. We met at lunch. We visited the Columbia Museum of Art and had sandwiches across the street at Rising High Bakery.
The museum has a pretty extraordinary collection of art and furniture dating back to the 1400's. The galleries are arranged around time periods including a great collection of original Tiffany glass, original Remington sculptures, and paintings from Dutch masters to contemporary Americans. I only had an hour and a half here. I wished I had much more time.
The Rising High Bakery had great sandwiches with some pretty poor service at the counter. Hmmm.
After lunch, the wife and kid returned to the museum and I drudged on with the conference. That evening we had a wonderful steak dinner at the Longhorn Restaurant in the Vista area. This area is full of restaurants, clubs, and shops. It feels much more lively than the actual downtown area where we were earlier. After dinner, we took in some live jazz at a small festival around the corner. This was a nice evening.
Thursday, the wife and kid said they'd seen and done everything they could think of in Columbia and said take the car to the conference, we'll just chill at the hotel. That evening, we took in some minor league baseball as the Capitol City Bombers took on the Columbus Red Sticks.
There was hardly any fans in attendance, maybe 100 people tops. As you can see, I was able to commandeer some really cool seats. It was a blast, but a bit buggy after dark.
Thursday, wife and kid are pretty bored now. They tried to take a long walk during the day, but the August heat in Columbia just saps your energy. The air conditioner at the hotel was better. I'm pretty bored by the conference.
We walk over to the Five Points area (kind of a grungier Vista) a few blocks south of the hotel for pizza.
Friday. It's finally over. The conference ends at 11:30. While Columbia is pretty, it's also pretty sparse on things for visitors to do. Three days here would be great, five is stretching it a bit. Well, now it's on to our ultimate destination...Charleston.
BUDGET for 3 adults/5 nights
Hotel - $395
Food - $250
Baseball Tickets - $15
Zoo - $14
Museum - $9
TOTAL - $683
Back to the World on Wheels Home Page