St. Patrick's Weekend: Day One

03/19: Update: Added some links and photos.
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Blogging by phone in outline form this morning. I'll backfill it later with links and photos.

Day One set a nice pace for the rest of the weekend.

Lee and I left Atlanta mid morning and arrived at Sconyers in Augusta for lunch. Their BBQ is great but the hash with rice made the lunch exceptional.

We arrived in Columbia, SC around 3pm and made an obligatory pass through the Shandon neighborhood--the place where Lee, Matt, Mark and others lived when attending USC.

The next stop was the Claussen Inn in 5 Points, our "basecamp" for the weekend which was less hotel and more of a bed and breakfast right in the heart of the action.

Bradd arrived at the hotel and then the three of us went to Jillian's in the Vista area to meet up with Matt and Mark. The 5 of us spent a couple of hours catching up and watching NCAA basketball.

At around 6pm we made our way just up a couple of blocks to The Flying Saucer. With walls lined with decorative plates ("saucers?"), we enjoyed arguably the largest and most diverse beer menu that Columbia has to offer.

Jump to 7:30pm. Bradd arranged for us to go to the local Columbia Inferno's home hockey game against Charlotte. But that's just the beginning. We parked in a special space right next to the stadium and were escorted into a side door arriving, literally, at ring side seats right on the glass. Highlights included me getting the actual game puck from the first period! A few free beers later the game ended, unfortunately in a loss.

At around 9:30pm we made our way back to 5 Points to a great little upstairs pizza place called Village Idiot. There we enjoy great pizza, wings, jalapeño cheese fries and basketball. We left there stuffed.

At around 11pm our final destination of the night was Delaney's, an Irish style pub also right there within the walking-friendly 5 Points area. There we did a final round of beers, free shots of whiskey hand delivered by the Jameson's Girls and (seemingly) authentic Celtic music aptly performed by J.J. Smith ("OYE!")