Welcome to the final day of my South Carolina trip! On the formal itinerary for this trip, I had set aside today for a hike at Congaree National Park. But when my visit to Fort Moultrie failed (Day 4), I decided to shuffle the itinerary a bit. If it came down to a choice between Congaree and Moultrie (and it did), Moultrie would win. This time, I skipped the Visitor Center and went directly to the fort itself. Historic coastal defense forts are yet another of those things that I’ve seen several of, but that are each unique. One of the interesting things about Moultrie is that there have actually been three forts at three separate times on this site. The first of those forts was made of palmetto logs and sand. If it weren’t for the fact that this log fort withstood bombardment by the British navy during the Revolutionary War, there would almost be a Three Little Pigs feel to the story. After the log-n-sand fort, an earthen fort was built here, followed by the brick fort that still stands today. Here’s a look at Moultrie III…

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When I had completed my tour of the fort, I crossed the street to take another look at the exhibits in the Visitor Center. I quickly changed my mind once I felt the air inside. It wasn’t nearly as hot as the Fort Sumter visitor center the day before, but it wasn’t comfy either. So I headed out for lunch.

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A few days ago, I had noticed a business called “Vicious” in Summerville, SC. My drive from Fort Moultrie to the last destination of this trip would take me right past this place, so I decided to stop there and see what this place actually was. And it was this:

OK, now I really had to find out what this place was all about! I went inside and looked over the menu. It was like Bojangles on steroids. I decided to play it safe and go with the ol’ standard: a full order of Biscuits & Gravy. Here’s what it looked like:

This was yummy and huge! I should have just gotten the half order – I loved it, but it was just too much for me to eat. It’s a good thing I was going to be on the road for a couple of hours before arriving at the last destination of this trip. This way, my overstuffed belly had time to do some serious digesting.

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FINAL DESTINATION: Player 1UP. This is a bar / video game arcade / pinball arcade in downtown Rock Hill, South Carolina. I started with a casual walk around to learn what all they had, and where it all was. When I come to such places, I’m primarily interested in pinball. All but two of their pinball machines are “new” (by my standards) – so they had none of my old favorites…but I could stand to find some new favorites. They also have a few multi-game video machines, each of which includes a huge number of old video games. Most of these are games I’ve never even heard of, but I managed to find a few of my old favorites (Mr. Do’s Castle, Burgertime, Rampage, Qix, among others). The best part: these multi-game machines are set to free play. There are signs posted asking that you please only play the games while paying for food and/or drinks (kind of the reverse of the Las Vegas approach). So, after looking over their custom cocktail menu, I ordered a “Kongarilla” or something like that. It was tasty, seemed to have an appropriate amount of alcohol, and was only $5 since it was happy hour. I grabbed a second one just before happy hour ended, and spent at least an hour on the multi-game machines. Then it was time for pinball. I played the one game there that I am already familiar with (Attack From Mars). I did not play well. I moved on. I quickly found that all the “new” pinball machines are set to $1 per play. I’m used to paying 50 cents per game, and have been used to it for 30 years. Now I know I shouldn’t expect anything to be the same price it was 30 years ago, especially the way prices have been spiking on everything over the last several months, but I can still play pinball for 50 cents at Super Abari in Charlotte, which is closer to home anyway.

Conclusion: If I lived in Rock Hill, I’d probably hang out at Player 1UP pretty frequently. But it’s not worth the drive down from Charlotte.