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Best of Leisure

Dogs Love the Pendleton King Dog Park!  • Photo By John Harping

Leisure

Place To Throw Darts
Surrey Tavern (471 Highland Ave., Surrey Center) is looking sharp in this category, real sharp. People also get the DTs (dart throwers) at Robbie’s Sports Bar (2834 Washington Rd.). “Sports” is obviously code for “darts.” Third goes to Somewhere in Augusta (2820 Washington Rd.).

Place To Play Pool
No votes for the Augusta Aquatic Center. Instead, Robbie’s Sports Bar wins. “Sports” is obviously code for “pool.” Lower Broad Street’s authentic Sports Center (594 Broad St. next to Luigi’s) takes the 2-Ball in the corner pocket. Metro Coffeehouse (1054 Broad St.): third place.

Park/Recreational Facility
Columbia County’s Patriot’s Park is a sterling facility, a fact readers rewarded by electing it to First Place (or as we sometimes say, “Best”). Pendleton King Park (1738 Pine Tree Rd.) is a perennial favorite, a classic, a golden, uh, make that a silver oldie. Diamond Lakes Regional Park (103 Diamond Lakes Way) takes the bronze.

Tourist Attraction
Let’s see...what brings people from out of town to Augusta? Got it! The Masters Tournament! We fully expect free badges for helping the tournament with this free publicity. Artists’ Row takes second place. Take your visiting guests for a gallery tour. They’ll be impressed. Third: Cruise, walk or bicycle along the Augusta Canal.

Arts Performance
There was this guy who made a really cool chalk painting on the sidewalk during First Friday one time, but readers ignored him and instead named Symphony Orchestra Augusta’s Pops Concert Series as best. Good call. Augusta Players gets curtain call number two and the stage also provides us with the Fort Gordon Dinner Theatre (Third Ave. #32100) in third.

Local Festival
Arts in the Heart withstood a furious charge by Westobou to retain its title. While all that was going on, the Greek Festival snuck into third place.

Place to Spend a Rainy Afternoon
Here are your results:
Best: Home
2nd: At the movies
3rd: At Augusta Mall
4th: Singing in the rain
5th: Splashing in puddles
6th: Dancing in the rain

Place To Get Back to Nature
Assuming you ever left, you can reconnect at Phinizy Swamp Nature Park. If you’ve never been, rectify that situation this fall without fail. Augusta Canal and Lake Thurmond (second and third) happen to be man made, but we won’t tell if you don’t.

Place To Walk Your Dog
Readers like the Augusta Canal best, possibly because it’s easy to convince yourself that you and your dog are fertilizing nature. How noble. Try the same thing on your street and the neighbors may not be quite so appreciative. Bark Park at Pendleton King gets second place; North Augusta’s Greeneway wins third.

Cheap Date
The slight economic downturn doesn’t mean one must abandon one’s social life. One could go to Riverwalk, the number one destination for the frugal romantic. Another suggestion: concerts at the Appleby Library (2260 Walton Way). Finally, one word: picnic.

Place To Propose Marriage
Riverwalk is a quiet and romantic setting for just such a proposal, say the ballots. Alternately, readers say aboard a boat on the lake, perhaps under the setting sun. Remember to bring plenty of bait. See how she does cleaning the fish. Third place: on the verandah at the Partridge Inn, an excellent suggestion.

Place To Get Married
If she said yes—and if she’s good at cleaning fish—the best place is church, believe it or not. Go figure. Then comes Sacred Heart, certainly a memorable place to begin life together. In third, readers say give them a ring at Aiken’s Rose Hill Estate (221 Greenville St.,  N.W.).

Place To Break Off a Relationship
We’ve come full circle in 10 short sentences: We’re back at Riverwalk, a quiet and romantic setting for just such an occasion. It’s all-purpose. Readers actually voted “the I-20 bridge” into second place, but we’re relatively sure they’re kidding. In third a bit of a surprise: church. We were expecting “in court” to make the top three.

Day Trip
Where do people in Atlanta go when they want to get out of town? Augusta, of course. The least we can do is return the favor, say readers. Second-best destination is Charleston. The award-winning Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia  takes a well-deserved third place.