USA Road Trip - Day 10 (Rock Hill, North Carolina to Aiken, South Carolina)

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Breakfast was a bit later today around 9.30am as we had a shorter day of travel to navigate. I had two fried eggs sunny side up with bacon and sourdough bread. Kerry had Granola with yoghurt and some fresh fruit. We left the “Courtyard” Marriott around 10.30am. It was an excellent hotel chain part of the Marriott group we have not been to before and I took a few souvenir pens along with me (as I do !). We then headed to Columbia which is the state capitol of South Carolina. We were hoping to do a tour of the State House where government sit. We arrived around 11.45am and the gardens around the building were beautiful. We saw scores of young children around we were concerned about not having booked anything. We took a few pictures from outside and then we went inside to the visitors centre and the sign said next tour departs at 1pm (bummer !). Whilst Kerry was writing our names down in the book, a lady named Cathy asked us where we were from and once we said Australia she said she would take us on a private tour right away (how good is that !). She would later tell us she had a sister living in Perth. I think for the last 4 days we have met people here who know someone from Perth. I don’t know anybody who lives in Perth but I do know some Americans who know some people who live in Perth ! The tour was excellent. Again, lots of information to digest about the history. Seems Columbia is a bit like Canberra in that it was not the original capital but a compromise between more populated areas. Largely spared major damage from the Civil War days. We visited the State Governors area where they have their first female Governor Nikki Haley (Republican). She is the youngest Governor in USA and they think she may be a future President one day. We then saw the Senate chamber and the House of Representatives. They have a very formal system similar to ours back home. Except the Governor is elected separately and does not sit in either house, but has power to veto legislation. The tour was free and took about 40 minutes. Cathy was a schoolteacher and an excellent communicator. She told us that the structure of the building is mostly locally produce blue granite and each of the external columns are individual carved pieces of granite. How on earth did they do this back in 1800’s I can’t imagine. We went to the gift shop and could not resist the temptation to buy some key lime cookies (yummy !!!!!). We then grabbed a coffee from a nearby café and headed down the road to our next stop of Aiken, South Carolina which was about and an hour further south. Nothing much happened on the drive although we noticed some very large signs advertising petrol prices. Some of these were like 30 metres high I guess so you saw them from a long way away. The weather today was very cloudy and overcast, cool at around 21 degrees and threatening to rain but nothing eventuated. We arrived in Aiken around 3pm and drove around the small town centre. Very leafy area and wide streets so very nice. This area is steeped in history for horse racing and hunting. We have decided to splash out a bit and stay in a fancy hotel called the Aiken Hotel. It is very old and has had many famous guests including Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt. Prince Charles tried to stay here but was told it was booked out so feel very special to stay here. The Hotel has been ranked in the top 50 in America by a travel magazine. Our Nissan Rogue is spending the night accompanied by some nice Mercedes cars in the car park ! We asked about reservations for dinner and the earliest we could get was 8.30pm as they were booked solid. We went for a short walk to grab a coffee or hot chocolate but there was mostly antique shops or clothing shops in town and nowhere we found suitable for a coffee so we went to Mellow Mushroom. They had NO coffee! Hence we had to settle for some food. We had a cheese pizza bread, some bruschetta (same as we had in Savannah a few days back) and some wines and Coronas. All very nice. Later when we had dinner at the Hotel Restaurant we arrived at 8.30pm but meals not delivered until 9.30pm. Kerry had creamy parmesan polenta with roasted squash, kale, chestnuts and thyme crème fraiche. I had the chicken breast with some fancy stuff too. Very nice food befitting the style of the Hotel but we ate too much in the afternoon I think. The Hotel is very busy as they have a massive festival here for a Steeplechase race that is on tomorrow. There is a lot of woods around here where they do fox hunting and they have something like 55 polo fields. Unfortunately we won’t have time to stay and enjoy the festivities. Tomorrow we cross back over the state line into Georgia. Kerry made a poem up today which I really like. “Nothing is finer than being in Carolina”. Our first stop tomorrow will be only 30 minutes away. The magical town of Augusta, home to the Masters Golf tournament. I am so excited to be going there.

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