I recently moved from Boston to a new housing development off of highway 521 in South Carolina. One of the first things that caught my eye was a tiki style torch burning outside of this gas station turned bar. After unpacking for a few days it was time to check out this local dive.
The first thing that caught my eye was the line of convenience store style refrigerator doors behind the bar. There is a great variety of beer, mostly on the “low end.” Everything from Steel Reserve malt liquor and Natural Ice to Heineken. As far as liquor goes, there is a small collection of vodka, whiskey, and tequila. Most liquor is mid grade with Patrón Tequila being the highest end liquor on the shelf. Along with beer and liquor, the ale house also has a full menu of food with everything from fried alligator tale and garbage nachos to burgers and hot wings. The food prices are very good, with specials hitting the $5 range. The bar has happy hour daily from 4pm to 7pm and a packed house on Thursday and Saturday nights for karaoke. There are several HD televisions on the wall, a Touch Tune juke box, coin-op pool table, two video games, a Megatouch, and an ATM. All in all this is a great bar with friendly people and is worth a visit. They accept all major credit cards and of course cash.
Last week we had our first house guest since moving South. Living here is a lot different from Boston; there is not as much to do when people come to visit. We discovered Carolina Adventure World (CAW) through a Google search and decided to check it out. The online material stated that this was a huge outdoor park where you can ride ATVs, dirt bikes, and even golf carts! The prices were extremely reasonable; $90 during the week for an entire day including park admission and ATV rental. There was a $500 deposit but that is refunded as long as you don’t severely damage the ATV or submerge the engine; they allow scratches as they are unavoidable.
The park is located in Winnsboro, SC which was about 45 minutes away from our house in Indian Land, SC. We typed in the address in the GPS and left the house a little after 7am. Around 8am we arrived at two enormous iron gates that marked the entrance to the park. We began our journey down the gravel coated dirt road toward the beautiful welcome center. After giving our credit card information and signing a few papers and picking out helmets we were on our way to meet Al at another building. Al had our 3 ATVs ready to go when we arrived. He spent about 20 minutes describing the trails, telling us the park rules, and going over some basic safety information. The 100 miles of trails are rated by color which denote the difficulty. Green trails are the most basic and are suited for beginning riders. As CAW describes, Blue trails offer the more experienced riders a chance to open it up. There are “Black Diamond” trails for those that have the skills and experience to ride the challenging hill climbs, and the technical trails that will stand even the most seasoned rider’s hair on end!
This place was amazing! There are some trails that are literally 1 hour long! Coming from the city it is hard to imagine that a place like this actually exists! We had so much fun going through this park. Although the green trails are rated as beginner they are not just straight paths. There are bumps, hills, mud, and rocks to navigate. After a few hours I felt I had to try a blue trail. The blue trails were a bit more difficult, offering steep inclines and declines, a more narrow path, and large ruts along the trail.
If you have a sense of adventure this place is a must see. For a mere $90 you can spend the entire day at this amazing park. ($150 during the weekend Fri – Sun). Please note that there is no food on premises during the week aside from candy, ice cream, and chips. I recommend packing a cooler and bringing plenty of snacks and drinks with you. There is a Wendy’s located about 3 miles away; if you rent an ATV they will let you leave for lunch and come back.
It’s been just about 1 month since I moved from Boston to South Carolina and I am finally getting settled. This is the first time that I moved (aside from living in a dorm for a few semesters) and it was a lot tougher than I thought. Who would have thought that all that stuff could fit into one bedroom!
Now that the move is complete and I am about 60% unpacked (unpacking is probably harder than packing, who would have thought!) I have begun my job search. Searching for a job is extremely frustrating; everything that I find is either entry level with a fairly low salary or requires 5 – 10 years of experience! How am I supposed to gain experience if there are no entry level positions? I applied to about 3 or 4 positions and we’ll see how that goes.
The first thing that caught my eye was the line of convenience store style refrigerator doors behind the bar. There is a great variety of beer, mostly on the “low end.” Everything from Steel Reserve malt liquor and Natural Ice to Heineken. As far as liquor goes, there is a small collection of vodka, whiskey, and tequila. Most liquor is mid grade with Patrón Tequila being the highest end liquor on the shelf. Along with beer and liquor, the ale house also has a full menu of food with everything from fried alligator tale and garbage nachos to burgers and hot wings. The food prices are very good, with specials hitting the $5 range. The bar has happy hour daily from 4pm to 7pm and a packed house on Thursday and Saturday nights for karaoke. There are several HD televisions on the wall, a Touch Tune juke box, coin-op pool table, two video games, a Megatouch, and an ATM. All in all this is a great bar with friendly people and is worth a visit. They accept all major credit cards and of course cash.
It’s been just about 1 month since I moved from Boston to South Carolina and I am finally getting settled. This is the first time that I moved (aside from living in a dorm for a few semesters) and it was a lot tougher than I thought. Who would have thought that all that stuff could fit into one bedroom!