Day 2.53: Columbia, SC to Durham, NC

We woke up and ate some Eggo waffles for breakfast with Miles and Betty before saying goodbye and thank you for their warm hospitality.

We drove a few minutes to Beth Shalom Synagogue in Columbia, where Arielle had a great meeting. Abe had received two birthday gifts from AMC but hadn’t had a chance to go see a movie in theaters aside from at film festivals, and so we found one that was only a few minutes off the road in Charlotte, just after we crossed into North Carolina. Abe went in a got a free large drink (Hi-C Fruit Punch) and a free large popcorn, and Arielle took the popcorn right back in after we dumped it out into the box we had gotten and some Ziploc bags for the free refill. Not a bad stop! We made lunch (peanut butter and banana sandwich for Abe, turkey sandwich for Arielle) and continued for the next two or so hours to Carrboro.

Our first stop was at the home of Dave and Sarah, Arielle’s cousins, and got to see their older son Max and meet their younger son Wes, who wasn’t born the last time we visited in 2014. We got to see their new house, which was beautiful, and had a great dinner with them, featuring penne with peas, onions, walnuts, asparagus, and parmesan cheese as well as a salad. We enjoyed catching up and laughed when Sarah insisted that Abe had recommended a movie to her back in 2014 but neither of them could figure out what it was (three hours later, she called after finally having figured it out).

We drove about thirty minutes to Durham, where we arrived at the home of the Greybers, who Arielle knew from when Rabbi Dan was an intern at her synagogue in Los Angeles years earlier. After unloading a lot of stuff, we spent some time talking to Jen, who was leaving the next morning for the weekend to visit Rutgers with her son Benjamin, who Arielle had babysat when she was much younger. When Rabbi Dan arrived home with his son Ranon, we talked to them for a bit and went to sleep soon after.

Approximate number of miles covered: 253

Day 2.52: Charleston, SC to Columbia, SC

We woke up and tried to get out relatively early so that we could get to Congaree National Park, a place that no locals in Charleston seemed to know existed even though it’s less than two hours away. Apparently, it was designated as a national park in 2003. It’s pretty small compared to others, and we spent less than two hours there. We did a hike that was supposed to be mainly on the boardwalk but still managed to get lost, mainly because a part of it was under construction and we ended up walking past our theoretical exit point to somewhere we had already been. We saw some cool trees and reflections in the swamp, but that was about it. This isn’t a must-see, but it’s a worthwhile stop if you’re in the area.

On our drive out of the park, Arielle noticed what look like a dark cloud above the trees that quickly turned into black smoke, so she called the police to report it in case it wasn’t a planned burn. We drove about half an hour to Columbia, where Arielle met with Henry, a gentleman involved with the local Jewish community who her avuncular Miles had known for many years. We then drove about twenty minutes across town to the home of Miles, Betty, and their dog Rusty. They have been friends of Arielle’s parents for many years, and it was great to be in their home for the first time. Betty made a delicious salmon dinner with ratatouille, and we chatted for a while afterwards before their nightly ritual of watching MSNBC. Arielle realized that she likes knowing what’s going on in the world and should probably read or watch the news going forward. After a lovely evening together, we went to sleep.

Approximate number of miles covered: 134

Day 2.51: Charleston, SC

We woke up at Daphne’s and had a quick breakfast at home before driving straight downtown a parking garage that was $2 an hour, which seemed like a pretty good rate. We had planned to go to the Confederate Museum but saw that it was basically one large room of artifacts, which didn’t seem terribly interesting to us. We chose instead to explore the Historic Charleston City Market and stopped again at both Byrd’s Famous Cookies and Savannah Bee Company for numerous samples.

We walked through the cool streets about a mile and a half to Gnome Café, a vegan restaurant far from the historic downtown. Locals definitely wouldn’t walk that far, and our trip did take us through some deserted streets, but we enjoyed exploring. The small café had a nice vibe to it, and the food was decent. Arielle wasn’t in love with her portabella mushroom BLT, mainly because the mushrooms weren’t even pretending to be bacon, but it was good as a mushroom-lettuce-tomato sandwich. Abe, on the other hand, really liked his cinnamon pancakes and found his side of mushroom bacon to be disappointingly mushroom-like. The potatoes were good even with the unfortunate presence of peppers already mixed in.

Arielle found us a less sketchy route to walk back towards Marion Square, where we wandered around the park a bit. Abe brought Arielle into a cookie place where he had bought her little tiny mini-bagels with cream cheese on his last visit, but they apparently don’t carry those anymore. We also went across the street to Goorin Bros. Hat Shop, where Abe had purchased a Shabbat hat for Arielle last time we were there. Our next stop was at White House Black Market, where Arielle had seen a dress earlier that had caught her eye. After she finished, we raced back to the car to get our respective items and for Arielle to change her clothes. Arielle went to a meeting at KKBE, the local Reform synagogue, and Abe went to meet Shari, a friend who we saw just a few weeks earlier in Florida at Shosh and Eric’s wedding, at a coffee shop called Kudu.

After our respective appointments had ended, we met up and went to go get biscuits at Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit, which Arielle was very excited about. They were closing just a few minutes later, so we ate them in our car in an illegal parking spot right outside the market. We got a blackberry, a buttermilk, and a cinnamon sugar, which were tasty but hardly the best biscuits we’ve ever had.

We drove past Rainbow Row, which we had heard was cool but was a bit underwhelming, and Arielle dropped Abe off at a local Harris Teeter so that he could do some work while she drove to Synagogue Emanu-el, right near Daphne’s house, for a meeting. Abe got some TV watching and blogging done, and Arielle returned so that we could drive to dinner. We ate at Five Loaves Café, which was a great experience. Abe got vegan chili and tricolor tortellini, which contained far more pasta than tortellini and ravioli dishes usually do. Arielle got the half FLC Caesar (with cold tortellini) and a broccoli cheddar potato soup. It was a lot of food, so much so that Arielle didn’t even want dessert.

We went back to Daphne’s and she convinced us to watch the first episode of The West Wing, which Abe had seen before. We loaded our car so we would have less to do the next morning, and went to bed.

Approximate number of miles covered: 17

Day 2.50: Savannah, GA to Charleston, SC

We got up in time to have breakfast at the hotel, which wasn’t terribly impressive. We drove into Savannah to get to Congregation Mickve Israel in time for the first tour at 10am. We parked on a meter right by this still-functioning synagogue, which is the third-oldest congregation in America. Our tour enabled us to see and learn about the history of this neo-Gothic synagogue, and how it started as Orthodox before a sermon delivered by the rabbi helped move it to becoming Reform. There was also a wall of letters from United States presidents, including Washington and Trump. The tour was informative, interesting, and worth the $8 cost per person.

We drove a few minutes to park and walk through Forsyth Park, which reaffirmed that Arielle was already in love with Savannah.

We decided to stop by the Conservative synagogue, Congregation Agudath Achim, which was open, and we got a brief tour of the building from an administrator and the executive director.

We may have driven around the neighborhood looking at what houses near the synagogue were like, and encountered some beautiful flowers. We weren’t sure where to go for the lunch, and the place that was recommended by the synagogue had apparently been closed for three years. We ended up driving about thirty minutes to the nearby Tybee Island, stopping first at two lunch places that weren’t what we were looking for before settling on a perfect choice right by the water: The Deck. Arielle got fish and chips and Abe got the market fish, both of which were delicious. Afterward, we walked onto the sand towards the beach and then sat on a bench swing for a while, taking it all in.

We eventually got up and left for Charleston, crossing immediately into South Carolina. It only took us about two hours to get there, and we went straight into town, parking at a meter along Market St. We opted to have dinner at a highly-rated place called Swig and Swine despite the fact that we knew that we would have neither of those two things (the signs and shirts were very entertaining). We had been told by the hostess that we could order a half-pound of the “meats by the pound,” but the waiter said that wasn’t true, so Abe got a pound of burnt ends with collard greens and corn pudding on the side. He liked the meat but didn’t touch either side after a brief sample. Arielle liked the fried pickles appetizer and the sweet tea, but did not like the mac and cheese. Our waiter never came back to check in on us, but a manager who was circling was very nice and took off all of the items we didn’t eat, making it a decent value.

We returned to Byrd’s Famous Cookies for many more samples and a few purchases, then drove a bit to park near the Pineapple Fountain, which we walked around even though it was already dark.

It took us about twenty minutes to reach the home of Daphne, a former USY colleague of Abe’s, who had hosted him last time he was in Charleston back in 2015 after his flight was cancelled on the way out from a USY convention. She had graciously offered to host us for this visit, and we had a nice time catching up before heading to sleep in her lovely home.

Approximate number of miles covered: 124