DAY 3: Friday 11 May 2012 - Atlanta, Georgia to Harlem, Georgia to Columbia, South Carolina
We had a 7am bags, 8am bus day today. Time for the included breakfast – there was more room this morning as the other bus group left at 7.30am.
Our bus was taking us to Columbia - the state capital of South Carolina. On the way, Brenda showed us the movie, The Help. I’d seen it on one of my transatlantic flights, but it’s a good movie. It shows how far we’ve come, but sadly there is still so far to go.
On the way, we stopped off at Harlem, Georgia – population 317! This is the home of the Laurel and Hardy Museum which was our first stop of the day. The town began life called Sawdust in the late 1800s, but they moved it and – to annoy the people of Sawdust – renamed the town Harlem, after the New York city. Not quite sure why that was supposed to be annoying, but whatever.
Harlem is the birthplace of Oliver Hardy, known as “Babe.” He ran away from home twice, attended military school and the Conservatory of Music in Georgia. He got the name “Babe” while he was still in Georgia, with people patting him on the cheeks. He didn’t like it.
In 1926, Hal Roach and Leo McCarey put Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel together and they made a lot of films. They even toured Europe, including an appearance at our local theatre in Dudley, England, just up the road from where I live (when I'm not travelling). Their career ended in 1954 when both of them became ill. Hardy had a heart attack while living in a retirement home and this was followed by two strokes. He never really reovered, dying on 7 August 1959. His remains are in North Hollywood.
The museum is in the old Post Office building and they hold a Laurel and Hardy festival each October. It was an interesting little stop – just the right amount of time as it’s not a big place. Well, Harlem is small, but the museum is even smaller, with just two rooms. The main room has a huge selection of Laurel and Hardy-related items. All kinds of stuff including some near life size stand-up things. I’m a bit worried about this photo of me with Stan though – he looks like he’s about to wash the car with me!
In the second room, they have Laurel and Hardy movies running on a loop. They’re not really my kind of funny – I’m not big on slapstick – but some of our group obviously approved.
They did lose a Ted for only having two bathrooms (one male, one female) although the women soon took over the men’s room - you know what they’re like! The museum did put coffee and cookies on for us though, which was a nice touch. They didn’t have as much stuff in their gift shop as Coke did, but at least it was affordable. Paul even bought a $10 t-shirt.
We still had time to wander around a little bit of the town so we walked down to take a photo or two of the water tower, which displays a picture of Oliver Hardy.
Then we just had time to go into Lucky Lady Pecans. There were two very nice ladies in here – I told them I’d tell you about their little shop. They had all kinds of pecans – key lime, sweet ones, savoury ones – I went for the kind of traditional praline pecans, which I like (well, they’re good in ice cream!) but it might be a gift if I don’t find anything better – unless I get hungry before then. Will have to see!
They also make a nice gift basket – they were just creating one while I was in there. You should go check out their website – they do ship online, even internationally if you are not in the US - you just need to give them a call. I’m not even on commission!
We arrived in Columbia, South Carolina, for a fifty minute lunch stop. We had last night’s dinner leftovers for lunch, we just needed to find a place to sit. A few blocks up the road was the South Carolina State House. We found a bench in the grounds and decided to have dinner there amongst the trees, with the squirrels. Lunch over, we went back to the bus, for our ride to – you guessed it – the State House!
This time we were going inside. As we got off the bus we spotted a pretty-looking church, which was Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. Once inside the State House, we started the tour with a short film, which was a bit dull, hence the dropped Ted, then a State Capital tour guide took us around the building, although she didn’t know the answer to a question someone asked – was Columbia established when they made it the State Capital (taking over from Charleston). We would find out the answer later, at the museum, but you’d have thought she would know (which cemented my dropped Ted, but I didn't think they needed to lose another one).
The first South Carolina State House was actually in Charleston, but was moved to Columbia, in the centre of the state in 1786. Unfortunately, it burned down. This one started construction in 1850, but it was interupted in 1865 by the Civil War (more about that shortly). A significant part of the interior decor was completed in 1885 to 1895, with the building eventually completed in 1907.
We stood in a central corridor among marble pillars - the marble floors are made of pink Tennessee and white Georgia marble. They have a wrought iron staircase that looks amazing and we headed up the stairs and while waiting for the lift-goers, we took a look at some of the artwork on the walls.
We saw the Senate and the House of Representatives, which are usually located in the State House. It always amazes me how accessible these places are, after a little airport-style security. Can't imagine being allowed to just wander around the Houses of Parliament, or even the local Council House here in the UK.
The Senate is one of the two houses of the Legislature (these are like the House of Lords at state level, except they're elected) and they have some really cool wallpaper. There are 46 members elected to this chamber. There should be a 1704 sword displayed in here, but it was stolen in 1941. Fortunately, we British stepped up and donated another in 1951, not sure why. Maybe we had a post-war surplus of swords or something?
There’s a large mace embedded in a glass case on the wall of the House of Representatives (our House of Commons, but again, at a local/State level). They still vote by voice in the Senate, but in the House of Representatives, they now vote by computer (aye or nay) by pressing a button on a gizmo on each desk. These rooms are always impressive. It's fun to catch them in session too, although it depends what they are talking about. They can be pretty boring but sometimes it's edge of the seat stuff. We were obviously out of season on this visit, sadly. I understand it was decorated with South Carolina's state seal and flower, so I guess there was a limited market as to what they could do with it.
They have a dome over the Capital Building, but the internal dome, while in the same place, is not actually the inside of the dome. In fact, there’s a sixteen foot gap between the top of what we can see – the aesthetic internal dome - and the real inside of the dome. They have some very impressive stained glass windows here too, with nice marble surrounds. Good job they're not paying for it now!
They have a statue of John C Calhoun – a big man of his day, including being a member of the national Senate and Vice President, as well as being an important South Carolinian politician.
In the State House, they have an old room which has not been refurbished and remains as it always did. Looks good to me. We took a look in their store - it wasn't huge, but they had some okay stuff at reasonable prices. I even bought myself a flag for a little over a dollar! (Okay, so I made Paul buy it...)
We had some time to explore the statues outside in the gardens. We saw a life-size (6 foot 2 inch tall) statue of George Washington outside the front of the State Capitol - he was the first President of America. Then we took a look at the Spanish-American War Monument, which honoured veterans from the war of 1898. They also have a Confederate Monument and flag, remembering the men who died in the Civil War.
I spotted another squirrel, but this one was too fast for me, so I tried some more statues(they have loads!) The middle photo below is of the Palmetto Regiment Monument, which was erected in 1852. It is the Capitol's oldest monument and honors the men who fought in the Mexican War in 1847. The Capitol stands in 18 acres of landscaped grounds with a variety of trees and smaller plants. They have a guide that tells you all about the grounds - statues and vegetation, from which I am stealing most of the information I'm passing on here!
There are six bronze stars on the west and southwest walls of the State House. These mark the damage from cannon fire from William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea towards the end of the Civil War. Rather than fix the damage - they hadn't completed the building, after all, they left it and marked those areas that were damaged by the opposing army.
There were a few more statues, but I was beginning to lose interest! How many statues does one garden need? Hmm, loads, as you'll see at Brookgreen Gardens, but that's another day. The Strom Thurmond Monument was unveiled in 1999, when he was 97 years old. He was the nation's longest serving US Senator, retiring aged 100 afer 48 years service. He was also a former governor and WWII veteran. Wade Hampton III is the guy on the horse. He was a Civil War General and the building behind him is named after him. He was also South Carolina's State Governor as well as serving in the US Senate.
The last statue I looked at kind of balances out the first two a little. This is the African American History Monument. This is the first of it's kind on any state capitol's grounds and traces more than three hundred years of African American hitsory in South Carolina. There are twelve scenes referencing slavery, the Civil War fight for freedom, the fight for civil rights and emergence into mainstream America. The obelisk has four rubbing stones from Africa where South Carolina-bound slaves were captured.
Here's a couple more shots of the State Capitol once I'd managed to ditch all my fellow travellers so you could see it properly. Well, behind the handsome guy with the South Carolina flag anyway.
We took a bit of a detour to our next stop - driver David missed the turning, did a turnaround on a bit of waste ground, then another up a side street, but eventually we arrived at the Children's Museum. Oops! Not going there. So we moved again, to the other building across the parking lot - the South Carolina State Museum.
There are four floors of exhibits, although the bottom floor is mostly meeting space. A Titanic Exhibition had opened here the week before, but we were unlikely to have enough time to see it – especially considering the rest of the museum was included and we'd have to pay extra! We had one and three quarter hours to see the entire place. Besides, we’ve done the Titanic Exhibition in Orlando – you can read about it here. We decided to start on the fourth floor and work down. It was quite a long wait for what seemed to be an industrial lift/elevator that we almost walked it. We didn’t though. The mix was a little eclectic, with transportation, the Civil War, agriculture, natural history and more. Should you care, the car is a 1922 Anderson Touring Car.
There's a replica of the CSS Hunley, which was the first submarine to sink an enemy ship during the American Civil War, in 1864. There's not a lot of room inside, as this mock-up shows. After the torpedo was delivered (by contact, on a long stalk out of the front of the sub) the Hunley mysteriously disappeared, resulting in the loss of all lives on board. More recently, they found it and it is currently being restored in Charleston. I went last year to see it - will tell you about it someday. This replica was built in 1960 for the Civil War Centennial.
There are several horse-drawn vehicles, including a hearse (centre) and the Manning Carriage (right), which was made in Connecticut for wealthy planter John L Manning of Sumter County.
They have an example of a country store, which provided post office, pharmacy and banking services as well as being a grocery and hardware store. There is a one-room school house, the Berry School, which is representative of many of the schools in South Carolina between 1865 and 1920. Below right is their half-size model of a c.1920 South Carolina kitchen, although it was built in 1985. It's kinda cute - and my size!
These guns (left) were made by Columbian William Glaze, at the Palmetto Armory, for South Carolina. After delivery, they went back to buying guns from the federal government, prior to the Civil War, which started in 1861. The sabres and guns in the middle photo are from the first half of the Nineteenth Century and were used in the Civil War. The picture, however, is representative of conditions during the American Revolutionary War. It was painted in 1980 and the artist claimed it was not a specific scene, "but generally illustrates the terrible conditions" General Greene's army had to face.
The Museum is housed in an old cotton mill, so there are a few cotton-y artifacts. The first photo below is of an 1805 Spinning Jenny which they claim was invented by a Nashville mechanic (so much for Arkwright, who I'm told also didn't invent the Spinning Jenny - shock horror!) The purpose was to enable one person to gin, card and spin raw cotton into yarn as a single combined task. Then we have the Whitney Cotton Gin, which, again, was NOT invented by Eli Whitney (despite what you were told in school, in American anyway - we Brits wouldn't care, being too overcome at the whole Arkwright revelation). The middle photo is actually a replica of Whitney's 1800 model of a cotton gin - the original was destroyed in a fire in 1836. The photo below right is of a big bale of cotton.
Below left is a Dobby Loom - a weaving machine. The introduction of the Dobby Loom meant it needed less manpower to manage the machines than previously. The first ones were introduced to the USA in 1878 but this example was made in 1940 and remained in use until the 1980s. The last batch of shirt cloth remains on the machine.
The museum is housed in a building that was the Columbia Mills cotton mill, which opened in 1894 and produced heavy duty cotton 'duck' material used in conveyor belts and tents. There were thousands of spindles and hundreds of looms housed within the building. This room (centre) is deceptive. There are only two machines in reality, but by clever use of mirrors on both side walls, the room looks like it once would, going on forever (the multi-reflections look amazing).
The large machine on the right is a printing machine. I don't seem to know much more about it than that. It's big though!
The original Best Friend locomotive was cast and machined in the West Point Foundry, New York and assembled in Charleston, South Carolina in 1830. In 1831, after six months of use an annoyed (and inexperienced) fireman pressed the hissing safety valve causing the locomotive to explode, mortally wounding the fireman and scattering boiler parts across the countryside. The parts were gathered up and re-used in a locomotive called the Phoenix, which ran for many years. The Museum has this replica (below) which was built in 1972 for another South Carolina museum.
They have a selection of old vehicles here too. From left to right, top row, we have: a 1904 Curved Dash Oldsmobile, owned by JE Richard, the first Oldsmobile dealer in Columbia; a 1938 John Deere Model G Tractor used near Orangeburg, SC; and something with red wheels. No idea what. Next row, left to right we have: a Model T Ford, a 1937 Dodge Pick-up used in West Columbia from 1937 to 1968, then kept it in a shed until it was donated to the museum in 1998; and a 1927 Hupmobile bought by an optometrist from Columbia's Gibbes Machinery Company.
The Museum also has a couple of model railways. The HO scale railway (far right) portrays post-Civil War South Carolina.
Remember repeats of the black and white 50s cop shows? (What do you mean, you remember them the first time - how old are you?) Anyway, this is a call box, it's where people used to make phone calls from before mobiles! They also have a display of some old televisions. You know, before flatscreens and 3-D. Sheesh, where did the time go?
The second floor has the natural history exhibits, including these exhibits from Prehistoric Times. They have a mastodon (or mammoth) with a shaggy coat to protect from the cold and wet weather of the Pleistocene era (not unlike a 2012 British summer). In the centre is a Glyptodont which a weird looking guy, with it's bony plate armour. Unfortunately, he didn't make it out of the Pleistocene alive and is now extinct. Mind you, he did better than Albert, here on the right, looking a little thin. This is actually Albertosaurus libratus, a smaller version of it's close relative Tyrannosaurus. Still wouldn't want to meet him on a dark night though. Or day.
At the end of our allotted time, we caught the bus to take us to our hotel. The Clarion Hotel, Columbia This hotel was a bit of a letdown. It was okay, but the TV was CRT, no fridge, no microwave, good Wi-Fi and a very slow lift – we walked up to our room on the second floor. The biggest problem was it was in the middle of nowhere. Well, actually, it was probably about six long blocks from the State House, but you couldn’t see it and we didn’t fancy walking six blocks or more to reach possible civilisation.
Brenda had recommended The Back Porch Café which was across the road from our hotel (below right photo). We scoured three sides of the hotel before we finally spotted the small sign in script writing you could barely read across the four lane highway. We crossed over to check out the menu (we hadn't found one online) – it seems they haven’t yet decided what to put on the menu, so they don’t have one! On further digging we determined the chef had not yet arrived for the day, as he had car trouble. I've got to say, the bar did look a bit seedy anyway (even for me!) and this was the clincher for us. As we crossed back, we were able to pass on this information to others from our bus, who were standing outside the hotel, presumably looking for our guide-recommended diner. Having received our news, they said they were going to get a shuttle to civilisation. We couldn’t be bothered so headed back inside.
According to the sign in our hotel lobby, there was a buffet available from 5-7pm. This was in Carolina's Restaurant. We wondered if that was seated up to 7pm or by 7pm – we asked the barman – apparently it was a mistake. 5-7pm is when happy hour is. The buffet was actually open to 9.30pm which made it a bit more appealing. He changed the sign, which probably explained why it got so busy with people off our bus shortly after.
The buffet with BBQ pulled pork and fried chicken wasn't that appealing to veggie Di (they did have mac and cheese, but that was pretty much it) so she wasn’t too keen to pay buffet prices however, they did have a cheese quesadilla on the bar menu which would do. We placed our orders for the buffet, and Di’s quesedilla and we were set. Until Di’s chicken quesadilla arrived. We had already noticed the two bar staff looking a little harried, so she took it back to the bar – ordered a cheese one this time, and a side of fries as it hadn’t looked that big.
A bottle of red was $18, and Brenda had given us a ten percent discount voucher to use (while recommending the place across the road!) The cheese quesadilla soon arrived and we sat to enjoy the buffet. It was good enough – others on the bus later said the food was getting a little thin on the ground by 9pm, but we found it okay. The bar staff were being run off their feet at this point. It seems they were told to expect two busloads, but as the bus passengers never eat in the bar (on previous experience) they hadn’t brought in more staff accordingly. Of course, they weren’t to know about the Back Porch’s chef’s car trouble.
For all their being short-staffed, they worked really hard and did the best they could, I think. We’ve suffered at the hands of more staff for a poorer experience. The final problem we suffered though, was the bill. The barman had already said he’d throw in the fries for Di, but they’d also missed off the wine. They added it on when we mentioned it but then we saw they’d also forgotten the beer, so he threw that in too. We’re not quite sure the 10% discount was applied quite right, but with the free beer and fries it wasn’t worth mentioning.
Overall, I only docked them one Ted, as they had worked really hard and it hadn't been too bad. The room service menu should be clearer in stating it is also the bar restaurant menu (it doesn’t mention it at all) and the times for the buffet would be better for accuracy! I’m pretty sure they could do way more business than it sounds like they do – Di said her quesadilla was really nice – so I gave them four Teds for trying. Their biggest problem, as I see it, is communication – letting people know they are there, for what and when.
It doesn’t help them if the bus tour guides push the place across the road too, rather than the hotel restaurant. It's not like there's anywhere else to go, within a short walk anyway.
We mentioned to Brenda about the issues with the Back Porch the next day. Hopefully, she’ll take it on board. It’s particularly unfortunate when, for us anyway, the food in the hotel was pretty good – although Paul didn’t get a choice of dessert with his buffet, just what was left. Overall, it was a friendly, positive experience.
NB. I've just been on the website - 5th July 2012 - and there's details of the restaurant hours and menus. I certainly didn't find them back in May so, maybe they listened and are now more successful!
