A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.
Call it writer’s block, winter blahs, or post-inauguration depression, but for whatever reason I’ve just not felt like blogging. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing interesting things, each worthy of their own post. It’s just that I haven’t been able to muster the energy to do in-depth research or document our adventures. However, on this lovely Sunday morning I have a bit of peace and quiet, so I’ll try to backtrack a bit and bring everyone up to date.
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.
It has been our tradition to do a hike with our Lowcountry Unfiltered group on the first Second Saturday of the year. This year Second Saturday is a bit later in January as New Year’s was on a Sunday. I guess that’s as late in the month as it can get. This year we decided to return to the site of our first Swamp Stomp, Congaree National Park.
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…
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.
So, I was intrigued by this random name on a map. I had to find out more about it, so I had done some initial research. Now it was time to see if there was anything left of the old Temple of Health.
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Antreville and the Temple of Health are small communities. I knew it wouldn’t take long to cover those areas, so I added a few more targets to my list to justify the trek down to Abbeville County. My plan was to head down to drive pretty much straight down to Antreville, check out a few sites I had tagged, then meander back through Anderson County by way of Lowndesville and a few other spots north of there. As usual, there would be discoveries along the way.
Read More “The Temple of Health: Ground-Truthing in Antreville” »
I was out and about searching for examples of buildings designed by 19th century architect Edward C. Jones. I had visited three locations in Henderson County, including the Mansouri Inn, St. John in the Wilderness, and Calvary Episcopal. It was now time to close the loop and head back to South Carolina. I only had one more target related to Edward Jones, but I was far from done with explorations.
Read More “In Search of Edward C. Jones – Part 3, the Trek to Spartanburg” »
In Part 1 of this series I took a look at the legacy of Edward C. Jones, a South Carolina architect who until just a few weeks ago was unknown to me. Having done a bit of research, I decided it was time to do a bit of ground-truthing. Wednesday was an absolutely spectacular fall day, despite an oncoming hurricane, so I wanted to take advantage of the weather while it held. My ramble would take me on a loop up through North Carolina then back down through Spartanburg. As usual on these rambles, I made discoveries I never intended, and met some cool people along the way.
Read More “In Search of Edward C. Jones – Part 2, the Trek through Henderson County” »
The Upstate Minis have been organizing some fantastic trips, lately, and I’ve been trying to take part in more of these. A few weeks ago Laura and I joined them for their X-Files Mystery Tour to PARI. This time, Jeff Goodman planned a trip down to the “Boneyard” on Bull Island to do some dawn photography. Sadly, Laura wasn’t able to go with us because of work. So, on Friday I swapped the Subaru for her Mini and joined the rest of the group for the drive down.