Unintentional Vacation
Part 2
Saturday morning, I was up and at ’em and ready to go. However, my enthusiasm was dampened a little bit when I looked out the window and saw that it was overcast outside. That would make my photos look a little grayer than I would otherwise prefer, but unlike when I photograph locally and can plan around the weather, I did not have that luxury with Charleston. So in those cases, I go forward with my plans and just do my best with the conditions that I have.
After having my first hotel breakfast of the trip, I got going. First on my itinerary was General Diesel, where I was dropping some stuff off at the bus. This was one of the more amusing discussions that Elyse had with me – amusing from my standpoint, at least. Elyse sent me down with a whole bunch of supplies intended for the bus, but then told me not to go over to General Diesel to unload those supplies. She expected me to have those knocking around in the back of the car for three days. I was like, nah. I wanted them out of the rental car, because it was one thing to have them there when I was going down the highway on the initial trip down, but I didn’t want a bunch of dead weight getting in the way on my photography days when I was dealing with camera bags and drone cases and such. I could access the bus fairly easily in order to do this transfer, so I did, especially when Elyse wasn’t able to articulate a better reason than “because I want you to wait for me”.
At General Diesel, the way that the property is laid out, I couldn’t bring my vehicle directly up to the bus (the facility is closed on the weekends), but I could access it on foot. So I ended up humping all of the various items up a small hill and put them on the bus. That took about three trips to the car and back with my awkwardly carrying a bunch of items, but I got it done. I was also quite pleased that, unlike in September, there were no dead animals on the bus this time.
Once I was finished with the transfer, I took a few photos of the bus.
The back end of Biscuit 2.0, on the lot at General Diesel.
The front of the bus, amongst a bunch of trucks at General Diesel.
Inside, looking towards the rear.
Inside, facing the front.
Operator’s seat.
With that done, I was off to my next destination. The plan was to go to Folly Beach, but first, not far from General Diesel, I spotted some converted former restaurant buildings. What caught my eye was a sign for a laundromat in a frame that was clearly intended for Shoney’s, and then there was a former Captain D’s right next to it. This was not too surprising, as the two chains were under the same ownership at one time, and were often co-located.
Sign for Smiling Rivers Laundromat, using a sign frame clearly intended for a Shoney’s. The Shoney’s building itself had been replaced by the current laundromat building.
Larry’s Convenience Store, housed in a former Captain D’s.
Larry’s Convenience Store also reused the old Captain D’s sign.
According to Google Street View, the Shoney’s closed some time between September 2011 and April 2012, and then was demolished between June and December 2015, leaving only the sign. The laundromat was under construction in early 2017, and was finished by the middle of that year. Captain D’s, meanwhile, is shown in operation until at least July 2019, and then the next capture in March 2021 shows the convenience store in the building. Based on that timing, I would assume that COVID-era closures did them in.
Then down the street from that, I found a former Wendy’s that was now an Italian restaurant, and photographed that, too.
Nick’s Gyros and Phillys, just down the street from the other two, housed in a former Wendy’s building.
From there, I made tracks towards Folly Beach. One thing that I noticed as I approached Folly Beach was that they were not shy about telling people how to behave.
Street View image of the sign at the city limits of Folly Beach, containing an admonishment to visitors that reads, “You are responsible for knowing the rules and regulations,” with the URL for the beach rules right on the sign. According to historical Street View imagery, the sign appeared around 2017, so it makes me wonder if there was a spate of bad behavior around that time which led Folly Beach to put so much emphasis on rules of conduct right at the city line like that, rather than the usual unspoken advice of “don’t be a jerk”.
Arriving at Folly Beach, I found a parking space on the street that was close to everything that I wanted to do. Ever since Elyse and I did that trip to Charleston back in April, I had wanted to photograph Folly Beach with the drone, so that was the first order of business. In April, we had come to Folly Beach at night, but now, it was daylight, so despite the overcast skies, I was ready to fly.
My first flight was done the way that I often fly drone flights: from the car. I just unfolded the drone, powered it up, set it up on the roof, and then launched.
The Tides, a nine-story hotel at the end of Center Street, which Elyse and I explored in April. I believe that this is also the tallest building in Folly Beach.
Overhead view of the beach.
View out from just beyond the Tides.
The fishing pier from over the water.
View out across the ocean.
View to the northeast from near the Tides.
View to the southwest from near the Tides.
Looking back over the town of Folly Beach, facing approximately northwest.
Looking down the beach to the southwest.
Looking up the beach to the northeast.
I then went the opposite way, and flew inland, to the other side of the town. This view faces approximately northwest, looking towards the road out of town.
Looking southeast from approximately the same location, facing the ocean.
Intersection of Center Street and East Hudson Avenue.
The Crab Shack, where Elyse and I had dinner on our April trip. I would go there again.
Looking down Center Street, towards the mainland.
The first flight wasn’t bad, but my location was not ideal. I encountered a lot of signal issues, and I soon realized that it was because I was in the car and surrounded by buildings.
That said, if I wanted to fly more effectively, I needed to change locations. So I packed up all of the drone stuff and took it out into the field. I walked through the Tides to get to the beach, and found a place in the back to use as a base. I ended up setting up on top of a stack of wooden lounge chairs, after finding the guy that was working with all of the stuff in that area to make sure that he wasn’t going to need any of those chairs for a while. Once I got that confirmation, I got started.
On my way out to the beach, I spotted this very old sign about responsible disposal of smoking materials on the beach. This sign is now obsolete, as current laws prohibit smoking anywhere on the beach, making disposal of smoking materials a moot point.
With my new location, and with fewer objects to block my signal, I was able to get lower and closer shots of the fishing pier. Though when it comes to fishing piers, always remember to keep a safe distance, because fishing line is practically invisible on the remote’s small screen, and that will get your drone tangled up.
Looking up and down the beach from offshore.
Looking across Folly Beach.
Looking down over Pier Pointe Villas (left) and Pavilion Watch (right), which are both vacation rental properties.
Coming back in for a quick landing to complete a battery change.
Flying about a mile off of the beach, I realized that Folly Beach got very small very quickly. Except for the Tides, there really are no tall buildings in the town, and that makes the town look small and flat when viewed from any kind of distance. Larger beach towns like Virginia Beach, Ocean City, or Myrtle Beach lend themselves far better to aerial shots from a distance because of the prevalence of high-rise buildings. The aerial shots of Folly Beach really just showed off how horizontal the town really is.
Finishing up, I packed the drone back up and went to the car, and exchanged it for my camera bag. I wasn’t satisfied with what I got with the drone, but I suspected that I would be more satisfied with conventional photography. For that, I went to the pier, and wandered out, seeing what I could see and photographing what I saw. It was something of a combination of landscape photography and people watching.
While walking over to the pier, I noticed the number plate on room 138 at the Tides. The weathering on the sign is really a good indication of the kind of environment that you are in here.
The beach. I was surprised to see how well populated the beach was, and seeing people in the water. It’s a reminder that this was the Deep South, and not the Mid-Atlantic. If this were Ocean City or Virginia Beach, it absolutely wouldn’t look like this in October, because it would be too cold.
A bocce ball court is drawn out in the sand, with several people playing.
A woman reads a book on the beach.
A man stands at the water’s edge.
Various people play in and near the waves.
A little girl plays in the waves.
Two women take a selfie on the beach.
Looking down the fishing pier, towards the ocean.
All the while, the waves continue to roll in.
Looking down the beach from about midway down the pier.
Looking out over the ocean.
A little bit further down the pier. Most of the people fishing were concentrated near the end of the pier.
Fish cleaning table with hose, with a sign reminding people not to dispose of any unwanted fish parts in the water.
Looking up and down the beach from near the end of the pier. The very horizontal character of Folly Beach becomes quite evident when going out a little bit.
Marine growth around the pilings holding up the fishing pier.
When I got to the end, I ended up striking up a conversation with a few of the people who were fishing. Turns out that there are people that come here regularly, and most of the regulars know each other. They shared a lot about what they do, and I got to see a whole bunch of their stuff. I even saw one guy accidentally catch some weeds beneath the water.
Looking back towards the beach from the end of the pier.
A recently caught fish.
A man fishes from the pier.
A bucket full of little tiny crabs, being used as bait.
I ended up following a grackle around with my camera for a little while. I kept a safe distance, and used my zoom lens, specifically so as not to disturb her movements and cause her to fly away.
This shot, where the grackle has one leg on the railing while looking over the side of the pier, is my favorite of the bunch.
And all photo sessions must come to an end eventually, as she hopped onto the top railing, and then took off.
Looking back towards the beach from the end of the pier, on the other side.
Then I started working my way back, doing more people watching and such.
A group takes a photo in front of the ocean.
A grackle, possibly the same one as before, perched on a ledge on the pier.
A man stands in the water.
A man holds a leash out of the way as his dog jumps up.
A couple walks along the beach, holding hands.
The bocce game continues.
A man stands on the beach using his phone.
A man throws a football.
The football lands on the ground, and then is retrieved for a return throw.
Two women carry on a conversation while lounging on the beach.
A little boy throws a blue football, which his older brother catches and then returns.
A woman in a dress walks along the beach.
A woman stands in the water as a wave crashes around her.
The older of the two boys from earlier is now drawing a picture of some sort in the sand. I couldn’t tell what it was, but there were a lot of Xes and Os in the circle.
When I got to the front of the pier again, I found a discarded orange rind on the ground from someone’s drink, got down on the ground myself, and photographed it.
After that, as I was packing up, I noticed another gentleman with a DSLR and chatted him up a little bit. Turns out that he’s a bit of a photographer as well, and he’s visiting from the Kingsport/Johnson City area in Tennessee. I was somewhat familiar with that area from our trip two years ago, so that was good. Nice guy.
Finishing up at the pier, I hit the streets for a little bit. This wasn’t anything particularly earth-shattering, as I mostly just photographed in the intersection of Center Street and Ashley Avenue, i.e. right near the car.
The local variation of the message saying not to put any liquids in storm drains because they drain into various bodies of water.
Traffic lights at Center Street and Ashley Avenue.
Pedestrian signal call button.
Traffic signal mast arm pole at the southeast corner of Center Street and Ashley Avenue, completely covered with stickers.
The 4Runner, parked along Center Street.
While I was in the intersection, I ran into the gentleman with the DSLR that I had previously encountered on the pier, and we chatted some more. Nice guy. It turned out that we were both planning to photograph in downtown Charleston later on in the evening, so maybe we would see each other again. Unfortunately, I didn’t get his contact information, but maybe he’ll find this website and reach out. Who knows.
Finishing up there, I started heading back to Charleston. However, on the way out, I stopped to photograph some stuff near one of the many bridges leading to Folly Beach.
And that was the end of my time at Folly Beach. On my way back to Charleston, I spotted another converted former Captain D’s building.
Dukes Barbecue, at 331 Folly Road in Charleston. I didn’t stop to eat there, but looking at their website, it seems like the kind of place that I would enjoy.
Continuing on, I then stopped at the West Ashley location of East Bay Deli, which is a small regional chain of sandwich shops. This was the third East Bay Deli location that I’ve visited, so it’s become something of a staple whenever I go to Charleston. The restaurant was just fine, and lined up with my expectations for the brand. However, the architecture on this one was quite unique.
East Bay Deli, at 858 Savannah Highway in Charleston. Turns out that this building’s architecture belonged to Hardee’s, which constructed buildings in this style for a time, prior to the architectural style that most of us are probably familiar with.
From there, I returned to my hotel. I needed a break, and it was a good opportunity to offload photos from my various devices to cloud storage, i.e. those photos were now in my systems, organized, and backed up, and would be waiting for me when I got home. This was also where I waited for it to get dark, since I was going to do some work with the tripod in the evening. This was the perfect night for it, too, since it was warm out, and Elyse was still at home. I prefer to do this kind of photography alone, because Elyse loses patience with me for night photography with a tripod rather quickly. Generally speaking, if you see me publish long-exposure photography at night, rest assured that in most cases, Elyse was not happy with me while I was doing it.
While I was waiting, I went down to the hotel pool for a quick swim. I knew that they had an indoor pool, so I packed a suit when I was planning my outfits. That was a fun enough thing, as I just sort of paddled around for a bit. Unfortunately, the partially torn rotator cuff on my right shoulder made itself known again, causing some pain if I tried to do too much on that side. But all in all, I had a good time, and it worked parts of my body that don’t typically get a lot of work. So I felt refreshed. Only downside to this pool facility was that there was no hot tub, but I don’t know if the lack of a hot tub is a Tru thing in general, or a just-this-location thing.
I left the hotel just after 10:30 PM, and headed downtown. I used the old Morris Sokol Furniture building as a navigation point, since I knew that it was downtown, and I knew roughly where it was. I went in expecting a quiet night of photography, but that was not what I got. Rather, downtown Charleston was absolutely hopping, with lots of people in their twenties and thirties out and getting loaded. In hindsight, I suppose that it was naive of me to think that it would be a quiet night in a college town on a weekend. Traffic on King Street was restricted to one lane, and there was a large police presence to help direct traffic and keep the drunks out of harm’s way. I saw all kinds of signage around about an event, and so I asked someone what the event was. Turns out there wasn’t one, per se, but that this was standard procedure in downtown on weekend nights.
I started out photographing the Morris Sokol building, and then worked my way up and down King Street across the span of a few blocks.
The old Morris Sokol Furniture building at night. I wish that this neon sign was still operational, because it looked fabulous when lit up.
Interior of the Hazel and Apple space at 549 King Street, apparently in the process of being built out.
“King of Shawarma” food cart.
Signage at the intersection of Spring and King Streets.
Police cars parked in the middle of King Street.
Vintage truck traveling along King Street.
Traffic signal at the intersection of King and Cannon Streets.
Subway restaurant at 567 King Street.
A can of Miller Lite next to one of the windows at The Darling Oyster Bar.
Meanwhile, the drunks started to get on my nerves really quickly. You wouldn’t believe how many people wanted to get their picture taken with the DSLR once they had a few drinks inside of them. Since I was doing night photography with the intention of stacking exposures later on, I couldn’t change the camera’s position between shots, or else it would mess up what I was trying to do. My normal offer was that I would photograph them with the phone, since the real camera was set for a series of shots, and I couldn’t move it without messing up what I was trying to do. In other words, I’ll gladly get your photo in order to keep you moving along, but I’m also not going to compromise my mission for it. One guy didn’t like that, and actually grabbed the handle of my tripod and pulled my shot out of alignment. Jackass. The joke was on him, though, because I hadn’t taken any shots with that position yet, so he didn’t mess anything up. I just had to set the tripod back to its original position and keep going. One group of people did pose for a photo with the phone when offered, and it was a real keeper, with the guy pulling up his shirt and showing off his nipple for the camera. Classy. I offered to tag them on Instagram afterward, but they said that the pose was a gift to me and walked off. Okay, then.
Their gift to me. That was certainly not something that I was expecting on this particular evening.
I also got a lot of questions about one particular establishment, a place called Ink, which was closed on this particular evening. I was probably the worst person to ask about this, since I wasn’t from Charleston and didn’t even know that the place existed until about five minutes prior to being asked. I found out from someone else that they had apparently had some liquor license violations, and that they had been ordered closed for the night as a sanction for that. So after I found that out, when people asked me, I disclaimed it as hearing from someone else, and then passed on what I was told, i.e. “I am not from Charleston, and am not familiar with it myself, but someone else told me that they had apparently had some liquor license violations, and that’s why they’re closed.” I wasn’t too concerned, myself, because for me, it was just something to photograph.
Wall sign for Ink.
Storefront for Ink.
Detail of the sign and the arched entrance.
While downtown Charleston was interesting enough to photograph at night, I eventually had my fill of the noise and the drunks. So I returned to the car, packed everything up, and then thought about how I would leave downtown. I was also hungry, and despite the late hour and all of the available food options downtown, I just wanted to be away from all of the commotion, so I opted to forgo getting dinner there. I looked up restaurants that were open along my trajectory, and I ended up finding a Checkers location in North Charleston, directly across from CARTA headquarters. It seemed fitting that I went to a restaurant right across from CARTA, considering what the main reason for this trip was. I admit that this wasn’t the healthiest thing that I could have had, but it did what it needed to at an hour when not a lot of stuff was open. Protip: order online, and you can breeze right through the drive-through line, because this location had two lanes, and one of them was for online orders only.
I also took a moment to stop by the Harley-Davidson dealership, mainly to see what the hours looked like. Elyse and I had wanted to go to the Harley dealership in April in order to pick up a poker chip then, but it just didn’t work out with our schedule. Now, I had thought of it, and while it was too late on Saturday, I wanted to see if it would work out for the other days. Looking at the hours posted on the door, it seemed that we had missed it again this time around. They had hours on Saturday that I had missed, but they were closed both Sunday and Monday, and we were leaving on Monday. I was disappointed that we had missed it, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.
From there, I headed back to my hotel, where I had my meal from Checkers. And that was my Saturday.