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^ THE GAMECOCK ♦ Wednesday, April 28, 2004 9 • /I I T 'w “T travel not to go anywhere, B B LJ I ■ / B B W but to go. I travel for travel's sake. Contact. Us ■ I |i j % / B B The great affair is to move.” Story ideas? Questions? Comments? B B I k I y I I J ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON E-mail us at gamecockfeatures@gwm.sc.edu —"-"-"—-A-» _■-*—WRITER V * • ■ Area festivals offer summer travelers more economical entertainment options * 1BY MEG MOORE THE GAMECOCK | T f ith prices rising on everything I f\ / from gas to ice cream to beef, \I v summer 2004 threatens to be a season of sun, surf and depleted bank accounts. Triple A Carolina reported Monday that per gallon gas prices in Columbia had reached a record $1.67; when budgeting for the usual summer road trips and beach ex cursions, that adds up. Money that once could have been used to buy concert tickets or to stock up on beverages for an afternoon at the beach is now getting burned at the fuel pump. Thankfully, plenty of lower priced excur sions are available around the South to help offset the cost of such exorbitant gas prices — finding them just takes a little more effort. Since summer is, by definition, a season of lazi ness, The Mix has decided to go out of its way to bring you the best of the rest, so that after fi nals week you can simply pull out your map and hit the highway. Championship Barbeque Cooking Contest (May 13) check out an event that has been nicknamed “Superbowl of the Swine” and “The College of Pig Knowledge”? The annual summer festival turns Memphis, a city already known for its BBQ, into a meat-eaters' mecca. Attracting over 90,000 grill-lovers to western Tennessee, the contest not only dishes out some world class barbeque but awards more than $60,000 in prizes. Other highlights include the Ms. Piggie competition, during which men don snouts and tutus and strut their swine appeal. ♦ Little River Blue Crab Festival (May 15 16) Myrtle Beach—You don't have to drive far to chow down on some of the sea's finest fare. The annual celebration serves up the best in below-the-surface delicacies fresh from the wa ters beyond the Little River fishing village. And best of all, admission is free. The succu lent local seafood is more than worth the cost of gas. ♦ French Market Creole Tomato Festival (June 12) New Orleans — Leave it to the Big Easy to celebrate something as seemingly mundane as the tomato. The juicy fruit (botan ically speaking) is a staple ingredient in an as sortment of foods. The N'Awlans crowd pays homage to the common food with tastings, cooking demonstrations and recipe exchanges. Local restaurants also dish out tomato-based fare, all to the tune of live bands and street en tertainment. ♦ Rhoan Mountain Rhododendron Festival (starts June 19) Rhoan Mountain, Tenn. — Amid a flurry of color typically reserved for spring flower fests, the annual festival takes place in the world's largest rhododendron gardens I perched atop the 6,000-foot peak, Rhoan Mountain, in I northwestern Tennessee. An ideal stop for the outdoorsy type, the site is not only fra granced with the scent of flowers in bloom but is traversed by a variety of hiking trails. Food, music and crafts are also festival staples, invit ing nature lovers to a flower-filled paradise. Admission is free. ♦ Piccolo Spoleto Festival (May 28 through June 13) Charleston — No culturally aware Carolinian can speak of festivals without mentioning Spoleto. The annual arts cele bration attracts world-renowned artists and performers. An offshoot of Spoleto, Charleston's Piccolo Spoleto festival also highlights a variety of creative talents. Consider it Spolefo's locally-centered, more economical younger sibling. With a lineup of events that ranges from performances by the Charleston Ballet Theatre to programs spot lighting traditional and folk music to theatre productions, Piccolo Spoleto offers visitors a delectable slice of Carolina culture. Tickets are sold by event and are priced reasonably. Admission to the Early Bird Blues concert, for example, is only $8. Comments on this story ? E-mail gamecockfeatures agwm.sc.edu Service organization .to give benefit concert Rock On at Crocodile Rocks to benefit children’s hospital BY LINDSEY JEFFERSON . THE GAMECOCK . Tonight students can listen to great bands and benefit others at the same time. Rock On, which will take place at Crocodile Rocks in the Vista, is an annual event held by Epsilon Sigma Alpha service or ganization. The event is one of several events the sorority spon sors. In the fall, it sponsors a Rock-A-Thon — a 12-hour rock ing chair marathon for charity, as well as a kids' week on campus and a Kiss the Pig Contest. KOCK (JI1 IS in its fourth year. “This year's Rock On is go ing to be bigger than ever,” third-year ex ercise science student hmiiy Atkinson said. Atkinson, who serves as the event's publicity chairwoman, said the organiza tion is receiving a lot of help from 93.5 FM and Crocodile Rocks, wmcn is allow ing the build ing to be used for free. The bands are also play ing for free, al lowing all pro ceeds collected at tne door to be donated to St. Jude Children's Hospital. In past years, Epsilon Sigma Alpha has raised about “This year’s Rock On is going to be bigger than ever.” EMILY ATKINSON EPSILON SIGMA ALPHA PUBLICITY CHAIRWOMAN PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE GAMECOCK Thomas Reed Band will play tonight at Crocodile Rocks in the Vista as part of Rock On,' $z,iuu mrougn me concert. Jessica Tillinghast, a fourth year pre-pharmacy student who serves as the Special Projects Chair over Rock On, said the fund-raiser allows USC students to get involved in the communi ty. She said it gives the bands, which otherwise might not have had the chance, the opportunity to be charitable. “It puts USC on a broader per- < spective” in the Columbia area, she said. Last year's outside concert was dampened by rain, but this year's benefit shouldn't be hin dered by the threat of a few show ers. Admission is only $7 for peo ple underage and $5 for those 21 and up. Out ot the live bands sched uled to perform, four are local to Columbia, and one is local to North Carolina. The lineup in cludes: May water, the Thomas Reed Band, Dial 9, Point 0 Eight and Last Breath. The event will kick off at 9 p.m. with the first band taking the stage at 10 p.m. The show should last un til about 3 a.m. So on the last day of class, take some time to relax while giving to a worthy cause. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecockfeatures@gwm.sc.edu Spring Snippets TOP 10 GROSSING FILMS FOR 2004 1. The Passion of the Christ 2.50 First Dates 3. Along Came Polly 4. Starsky and Hutch 5. Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed 6. Hidalgo 7. Miracle 8. Barbershop 2: Back in Business 9. The Butterfly Effect 10. Dawn of the Dead TOP 10 NETWORK PRIMETIME TV SHOWS (SEASON TO DATE) 1. CSI 2. American Idol - Tuesday 3. American Idol - Wednesday 4. The Apprentice - 5. Friends 6. Survivor All Stars 7. E.R. 8. Survivor Pearl Islands 9. CSI: Miami 10. NFL Monday Night Football Source: www.zap2lt.com Sandboarding becoming fad in West Texas dunes BY ALINE MCKENZIE KRT CAMPOS In the early morning, it's as if humans had never set foot here. Pristine sand dunes rise to 70 feet high amid the scrubby West Texas vegetation. Damp with dew, they're marked with the tracks of nightly visitors — insects, birds of various sizes, the resident mam mals: skunks, jackrabbits, coyotes, deer. But new tracks are about to take over. Every day, the dunes at Monahans Sandhills State Park, near Midland, Texas, are open as a playground for people. Both locals and out-of-towners come to “sand board” down their slopes, riding rented plastic disks, wheel-less skateboards, and sandboards both homemade and professionally con structed. The first people arrive shortly after the park opens at 8 a.m., to enjoy the cool before the afternoon heat strikes. The Massey family, from Bangs in Brown County, Texas, is enjoy ing the chance for its three chil dren to frolic in the ,sand. Brandon, 8, and Keelan, 3, are rid ing disks, leaving long gouges down the dune. Logan, 18 months, is doing things his own way. He crawls down the dune backward, leaving a smooth track punctuated with handprints. “I think we’ve got a big prob lem,” said Brandon, who's down the dime with Logan. “I think you've got a big prob lem,” replied his father, Chad, 30, a lead operator for 3M. Chad is en joying his spot at the top of the dune. One of the downsides of the sport is that for every slip-sliding trip down a dune, which takes only a few seconds, there's a slog ging, slippery hike back up. Over a stay of a few hours, that can add up to a lot of strain on the legs. “This is really fun except when you come back up,” said Rebecca Anderholm, 15, a ninth-grader from College Station, Texas, who is visiting with her Girl Scout troop. “I think you notice it more as an adult than as a kid, the going uphill part,” said Duane McVay, 45, associate professor iOf petroleum engineering at Texas A&M University in College Station, whose wife is the troop leader. As the morning progresses, the sands are showing the wear. Dunes that are farther from the parking lot are still relatively pris- 1 tine, but the ones nearby are pock marked with footprints and gouged with the marks of disks. There are pits where children have dug holes and finger-shaped trenches where people have taken breaks, stretching out their legs and scooping sand over them. By early afternoon, the sand is hot and dry, with a texture like flour, and the dozens of people who were on the slopes have largely XL!_3_X UliiUlbU UUl. It's more difficult to slide when the sand's like this — the visitor center even has posted a notice that it’s not responsible for sliding conditions after 1 p.m. Tanner Cash and Craig Shelton, both 13 and visiting with a Boy Scout troop from Lone Oak, Texas, take a break from sliding, instead digging holes 2 to 3 feet deep, i ♦ SAND, SEE PAGE 10