Laundry PLUS

Laundry.  We head for the nearest ‘clean’ Laundromat and I make sure Mona had all the quarters she would need for her style of ‘arcade’ J. I walk the mile or so to the Citadel Shopping Mall.  I enter through the Sears department store; not for the Craftsman tool display, but because it’s the closest door out of the noon sun.

I walk the air conditioned halls, not because of the cool air but because I’m looking for the bathroom.  I find it in the Dillard’s wing not because, I think, more people might use this wing, but because it has the most out of business stores.

I see almost across from the bathroom entrance not a store, but a museum!  The Charleston Model Railroad Club workroom/showroom and museum: open NOW, and FREE.  The club is here not because the mall management would rather have a railroad museum than a retail store next to Dillards, but because they’d like to have ANY body rather than NOBODY bringing SOMEBODY into their mall.  Even geeky railroadee’s like me.

  

And what a wonderful selection of layouts and types of trains there are!  HO, N, O. No S gauge. They sometimes get American Flyer hobbyists in but it seems most modelers like the bigger selections of rolling stock and accessories HO or Lionel’s O gauge has to offer. Or the small size of an N gauge layout. 

Sorry Grandson Khalif (the recipient of my 1950 + American Flyer set when we began to downsize) but you can still get ideas for your classic AF layout from other types of trains.

I had just about completed my tour of the layouts when Mona called and said the last unmentionables were being folded as she spoke.  So I walked the mile back, we loaded up TOAD and headed for Summerville.

Summerville lies to the northwest of Charleston, so we drove up the Ashley River Drive past several beautiful old plantation homes.  One of them built before the Revolution.  But we didn’t choose to stop at any.  Even the Vanderheijden recommended Magnolia Gardens was just way out of our retirement price range.  So we enjoyed the drive and did the next best thing.

On arriving in Summerville we found an EXCELLENT pizza shop.  And when I say excellent, I mean that upon returning to our car Mona turned to me and said these very words, “That was probably the best, freshest, most tasty pizza I’ve ever had.  It was a 10” veggie cheese. Just big enough for the two of us.  Thank you Choudhry’s for putting us onto veggie style pizza!

Then, before heading for home, we visited the small but attractive Summerville Azalea garden.  Why visit an azalea garden far from the blooming season of Azaleas?  Only because this park was dedicated to all who helped Summerville rebuild after the devastation of Hurricane Hugo.

  

We have visited towns destroyed by tornadoes and floods on this journey. Now one destroyed by hurricane. One thing stands out about each town we have visited. They built back.

There’s something for each of us to learn from each of these towns.

-Ken