A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.
So far I’d had a great day out exploring. I had an interesting visit at the Old Santee Canal Park, and the next day I’d be paddling part of the canal from Lake Moultrie. Now, however, the afternoon sun was sinking and I had to get to my night’s lodgings. Along that route I found some more cool bits of history.
Read More “Exploring the Old Santee Canal – Part Three, Moncks Corner to Santee” »
The target of our Second Saturday adventure was the old Santee Canal. In the previous post I presented a bit of the history of the old canal. Now it was time to do some ground-truthing. I was heading down a day early so that I could visit the Old Santee Canal Park and as much of the surrounding area as I could.
Read More “Exploring the Old Santee Canal – Part Two, Old Santee Canal Park” »
It was time to plan a second Saturday paddling trip for our Lowcountry Unfiltered gang. After looking at several options on the Berkeley Blueways website, we decided on a section of northern Lake Moultrie where we could paddle part of the old Santee Canal.
Read More “Exploring the Old Santee Canal – Part One, History” »
It has been tradition for Alan Russell and me to take a photo excursion on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. This time we decided to make the trek up to North Carolina and visit the Henry River Mill Village. This choice ticked lots of boxes – it’s a ghost town, and it served as the shooting location for “District 12” in the movie The Hunger Games. It turned out to be a day that went beyond expectations.
Just because it’s December doesn’t mean that we stop paddling. Heck, for this particular trip we even went swimming, but that’s getting ahead of things a bit. Fellow explorer, and now fellow paddler Mark Elbrecht proposed a trip out to Andersonville Island to see if we could spot the ruins that everyone says are there. Bennie Waddell had just gotten a new kayak, and I lacked only 6 miles to push me over the 200 mark for the year. Of course, agreed to come along. Turned out to be a great trip with unexpected finds and unexpected excitement. But, I guess the word “unexpected” is redundant. Regardless…
Closing out the various properties that belonged to my parents has meant going through boxes and boxes of things we’ve discovered in attics, closets, the garage, and anywhere else someone might hide a box of junk. Most of it is just that – the sort of stuff you save because you think you have to. Some of it looks like trash, but can contain some real nuggets of insight. While probably meaningless to anyone else, to us these bits of paper have revealed another side of our parents, including concerns and other thoughts often unbeknownst to the children at the time. Even though Mom’s been gone for two years now and Dad for five, it’s been like getting to know them and at the same time mourning them all over again. The process has been fascinating, and I thought I’d share some of the discoveries we made while sifting through the ephemera of their lives.
This past Tuesday night my Aunt Grace Ellenberg passed away. She was 95. The older sister of my late mother, she led a long, amazing life of adventure that defied the expectations set for a young farm girl from Ninety Six, South Carolina. Grace was a teacher and world traveler, a complex person with a profound Christian faith coupled with a keen intellect and desire to learn.
Ebenezer A.R.P. Church, otherwise known as “The Old Brick Church,” is one of my favorite places to explore and photograph. It’s on my list of historic churches where I would love to attend a service. I finally got the chance this past Sunday, Reformation Sunday on the liturgical calendar. Originally founded as Little River Church, … Read More “Reformation Day at the Old Brick Church” »
Back in September Dwight Moffitt and I had taken a tour of the historic Elmwood Cemetery in Columbia. The tour was interesting, but since it was at night you couldn’t really see any of the headstones or features. The tour focused on the people, and not on the features of the cemetery. Dwight and I decided that we needed to return during daylight. So, we made plans for another visit, and also planned to throw in a tour of several other historic cemeteries while we were at it. This past Friday was the date we’d set, so I headed on down to Columbia to rendezvous with Dwight. I picked him up at his house, then headed downtown where we had several stops planned.
I had been trying to track down a place I’d seen on an old map. The Temple of Health was the name of a community and a post office, but it originally applied to an old inn on a stage coach route. The Stage Coach Inn was purchased and renamed for mineral springs on the property that supposedly had medicinal properties. After my initial research I had tried to visit the location of the Temple of Health near Antreville, but I hadn’t found anything. I had discovered that the original inn had been moved to a resort near Toccoa, Georgia. It was time to actually visit the Temple of Health.