A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.
Friend and fellow kayaker Terry Alexander has been wanting me to come up and paddle his favorite river, the North Toe. A couple of weeks ago while Laura was out of town I finally got a chance to do just that. I spent a great couple of days in the Linville, NC area catching up, … Read More “Dipping a Toe in the North Toe” »
When I bought Big Red last December I did so with one specific venue in mind – Lake Jocassee. Jocassee is remote and some of the coolest locations are a distant paddle. I was thinking that a nearly 18′ boat with a rudder might make those spots more accessible. It’s been almost half a year since I bought the thing, but I decided that it was time to take Big Red out for its first run on the lake.
Last August tickets went on sale for a concert by Paul McCartney at the Bon Secours Wellness Center in Greenville. I tried and tried to get tickets, but they were completely sold out within minutes. I told Laura about my failure. What I DIDN’T tell her was that I was able to go back online … Read More “A Visit with Sir Paul” »
Of late my life has taken own the following pattern, at least as far as my car is concerned – Unload music gear. Load kayak gear, Unload kayak gear. Load music gear. Rinse. Repeat. In the past couple of weeks I’ve kayaked nearly 40 miles and played with six music gigs, NOT counting my regular … Read More “Paddling to Longnose Falls” »
Thursday was Sparkleberry Swamp with the Tri-County Blueway Paddlers. Since this was a Second Saturday, it also meant that it was time for a trek with Lowcountry Unfiltered. We would be doing a trip through yet another cypress swamp, this time along Ebenezer Creek in Georgia. I drove down Friday night so that I wouldn’t … Read More “Cypress Adventures – Part 2, Ebenezer Creek” »
Both my late father and Laura’s father served in the US Navy in WWII. Dad talked a little about doing MP patrols in Paris and being stationed in Guam, but really didn’t talk about the war. Mr. Wright was also reticent to talk about the way. I guess some experiences are just too hard to discuss. Now they are both gone, and those stories with them. However, there is one story from Mr. Wright that was told to Laura, not about WWII, but his later service in the Korean War. It was the story about how his ship, the USS Walke, was torpedoed in the Sea of Japan.
The past several days have been a marathon of kayaking trips. I’ve done three paddles in five days for a total of 21 miles. Each of these trips had some similarities, but there were some significant differences. The first trip was on Thursday of last week to Sparkleberry Swamp with the Tri-County Blueway Paddlers.
Last Saturday was Derby Day. For Greenville that means it’s time for the annual Reedy River Duck Derby, where thousands of rubber duckies are set loose at the top of Reedy Falls downtown and prizes are awarded for the first ones through. I had never witnessed the event, but this year decided to join my friends Jeff and Lori Holland and Our World Festival to do some drumming as part of the festival.
We only have two more sessions left in our Lost Communities course, and I have been remiss in posting the information for the last several sessions. In these past sessions we’ve traveled along the Broad River, looked at what’s under the state’s lakes, examined some railroad towns, and explored some Native American sites. Session 4 … Read More “Lost Communities – Sessions 4, 5 &6” »
During our Lost Communities course for OLLI someone said that they wanted to got with Scott Withrow, my co-teacher, and me on one of our adventures. We confessed that we had never actually gone on an adventure together, but independently had been exploring many of the same areas. We decided that it was time for that to change. We had both wanted to explore the Broad River area for the following class, so we decided to do that together.