The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, April 28, 2004, Page 9, Image 9
^ 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
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• ■
Area festivals offer summer travelers
more economical entertainment options
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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