A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.
This past Sunday the Upstate Minis held their 7th Annual Bulldog Fun Run. The event is a benefit for the Greenville County Animal Care Center, and consists of somewhat British-related events taking place all over the county. Laura and I participated in our first one in 2016, and we put this one on our calendar so that we’d be sure to participate this year. It was our first outing with the Upstate Minis since returning from Washington.
We’ve had some absolutely beautiful days over the last few weeks, and it’s been tempting to just abandon everything at the house and head out with a camera. I was able to do that a couple of times. These were places I’d visited many, many times, but I got a few good photos on separate trips to Pearson Falls and Poinsett Bridge to share.
On North Pleasantburg Drive near Worley Road there once was a local dive called the Radio Room. It was either a din of iniquity or a cool place to hear up and coming bands, depending on with whom you spoke. The Radio Room has relocated into more respectable digs in the Auld Hardware building on Poinsett Drive and the old building has been demolished, revealing a once-hidden cemetery. Of course I had to explore it. In the process I found a collection of fascinating people that had been part of the Turpin/Raines Family that were early settlers of Greenville.
It had been awhile since I’d visited the Pickens Flea Market. I had visited once since returning from the west coast, and at that time I didn’t play with the musicians circle. I figured Halloween would be as good a day as any to pay another visit, and this time I was loaded with guitar, banjo, melodica, and tin whistles.
I’ve been wanting to get back on track with our “Water Wednesday” outings. This past Wednesday was inundated with Hurricane/Tropical Storm Michael, which dumped tons of water and brought winds to our area Wednesday into Thursday. By Thursday afternoon, though, skies had cleared, so we were good to go for an outing on Friday. This time Jeff Holland and I headed down to Laurens county to the Boyd’s Mill Pond on the Reedy River. While any day on the water is a good day, this one presented some unique challenges.
When I was in middle school (or Junior High, as they called it back then), occasionally one of my classmates would show up with some cool contraband object that they would show off at recess. It might be a toy, a knife, or some thing they weren’t supposed to have at school. When asked where they got it, the answer was invariably the Anderson Jockey Lot.
When you’ve lived in an area as long as I have you can’t help but find yourself exploring places that you’ve been previously. Expect the term “Revisited” to start popping up more frequently in blog post titles. This was the case for a recent photo trek with fellow explorer Mark Elbrecht as we wandered over lower Laurens County. We both wanted to see what was left, if anything, of the old ghost town of Renno.
There’s been a lot happening over the last couple of weeks. We had a trip to Tampa, FL to celebrate my sister, Glynda’s birthday. There were computer OS upgrades, music events, and a major case of writer’s block. Combine that with an impending Hurricane Florence and I just didn’t get around to writing. I’m taking some time this week to catch up on posts. A couple of weeks ago I paid another visit to Greenville’s Cancer Survivor Park along the Reedy River. It was my first visit to the Falls Park area since our return from out west.
It was another Second Saturday and time for a paddling trip with my friends from Lowcountry Unfiltered. For our September trip we had planned to do the western portion of Okefenokee Swamp, but we decided to put that on hold. I had told Matt that after our epic Morris Island excursion I wanted something with current, preferably going on the direction we were paddling. We got that…sort of…by paddling a section of the Savannah River below Augusta. However, any helpful current was offset by the length of the trip, a new record for Lowcountry Unfiltered.
There was a time when I was directing the music for two different churches. I was rehearsing with several choral groups and finishing up my Masters degree, and singing the title role of The Mikado with the Greenville Savoyards. I had some sort of rehearsal three or four nights a week. Laura complained about being a “Choral Widow.” She had a point. This past week I had just about as many musical events and she once again felt like a music widow. However, I do have a strategy.