A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.
This was going to be a very different post. I was about to explode with righteous indignation about the theft of yet another photo. And while the photo theft did take place, it was a different photo and my culprit turned out to be…me. It was an interesting rabbit hole of research that led me to an unknown (to me) photographer and an appreciation for his work.
It was another one of those weekends where everything was happening at the same time. It’s a Chorale concert weekend, downtown was hosting the Reedy River Race as well as the March for Science. There was baseball, festivals in just about every small surrounding town, and more than one individual could take in. Yet, we managed to squeeze in quite a bit of it in one day.
It was a beautiful day and I decided I needed to be outside. While I’ve done lots of paddling lately, I have done very little pedaling, so I decided to take my bike over to Pickens and check out the Doodle Trail.
I was intrigued by this idea of a Beer and Hymns event. When I found one in Columbia I sent a note to my friend Dwight saying that he and his wife Sue should check it out. He responded that there was already such a thing in Greenville. After doing some digging, I found Hymns and Hops would be holding its next event at What’s on Tap, a bar on Woodruff Road. I contacted my partner in this endeavor, Don Kirkindoll, and we made arrangements to attend.
Say the words “drinking songs” and what pops to mind is probably a group of swaying revelers, mugs in hand, slurring away off-key in an Irish pub or German biergarten. Asked to name a drinking song, most could probably only come up with “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” Lately, though, a new phenomenon seems to be popping up – drinking beer while singing hymns. Sounds kind of strange, a bit sacrilegious, and right up my alley.
There’s one really good thing about being a member of the Church of the Double-Bladed Paddle. Services can be spectacular. Such was the Easter Sunrise Service Houston and I shared on Lake Oconee.
Laura was in Florida for the Easter Weekend visiting her mother and sister, and I was spending time with my brother Houston at his home in Georgia. Every time we get together Houston tells me about all the paddling opportunities near his house, but I’d never had a chance to try them out…until now. On this Saturday before Easter we decided to launch from the Dyar Pasture Recreation Area and explore Lake Oconee and the Oconee River.
A follow-up to the previous post’s mystery Rosenwald School. Fellow explorer Mark Elbrecht left a comment on that post with some clues as to the identity of the school we found in Butts County, Georgia. Unfortunately, that opened up an additional can of worms and conflicting info.
I was visiting my brother, Houston, and his wife, Lynda. We were on a ramble across mid-Georgia, hoping to visit Warm Springs and tour the “Little White House.” We’d had several distractions along the way, and whether or not we would actually make it to Warm Springs was in question. Spoiler alert – we did make it. But not without a few more distractions, both coming and going.
Easter weekend. Laura had Friday and Monday off from Furman and decided that she needed to head back down to Florida to check on her mom. She decided that she needed some “sister time” with Amy to talk about how their mother’s care was going. That being the case, I decided to needed some “brother time” with Houston, so for the holiday weekend we headed in different directions.
I arrived at Houston’s farm below Watkinsville, Georgia about mid-morning on Friday. I was loaded to the gills with every toy we might need – kites, cameras, banjo, drums, recording gear, computers, and paddling gear. I was set for any eventuality. We would actually use quite a bit of that gear.