A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.
So far I’ve documented my paddling trips over spring break – all both of them. We did some other things, too, like take a few midday escapes out to the local beaches on Hutchinson Island. Dealing with an Alzheimer’s patient can be a challenge. We took an occasional escape in the middle of the day while the home help was there. Usually this was to run errands for groceries or other items needed for the house, but a couple of times we were able to get out for some time for ourselves.
Been a busy couple of weeks. One of those weeks was a spring break trip to Florida where I got absolutely no writing nor blogging done. Here’s a quite wrap up of our spring break…
Several weeks ago my nephew Chip invited me to a day of kites and drones at Legacy Park in Greenville. I meant to write about it at the time, but things crept up on me, and when I stumbled on the photos I had to put that to rights.
It was going to be a beautiful Sunday morning. We made arrangements to meet at Legacy Park, located in a new planned development between Woodruff Road and Verdae Boulevard. Chip and I had our drones, and I had tossed in several kites, just in case. Chip’s wife, Anna, and their kids Olivia and Ethan would round out our crew.
It was a beautiful Friday, and both Ken and I felt the need to get out of our respective houses and explore. I headed over to Clemson to pick him up, and we set off, eventually make our way over to Northern Georgia.
I had spent the morning exploring parts of Fairfield County. So far I had visited the ruins of the old Lebanon Presbyterian Church, and I had zig-zagged through several communities. Now I was on to my final destination of the day, Ridgeway.
Read More “Exploring Southern Fairfield County – Part 3, Ridgeway” »
So far I’d already had a productive morning. I had visited the ruins and cemetery of the Old Lebanon Presbyterian Church. I would have been satisfied with just that, but I still had time on this beautiful Thursday, and there was much more to see. I would spend a good bit of time chasing GPS waypoints, and zig-zagging across the lower part of Fairfield County.
Read More “Exploring Southern Fairfield County – Part 2, Rion, Wallaceville, and Blythwood” »
It seems that I’ve made several trips down to Fairfield County lately. On each of those trips I spotted places I wanted to explore, but just didn’t have time, or the weather wasn’t right, or some other circumstance prevented me from paying a visit. Last Thursday the weather was perfect, so I decided to get out and find some of those locations.
Read More “Exploring Southern Fairfield County – Part 1, Old Lebanon Church” »
Usually, when someone utters the phrase, “The Athens of ….” whatever region, they mean that the region is a center of enlightenment and learning. While this particular saga does end with a school, the story begins with civic jealousy.
Greenville County did, in fact, have its own town named Athens for a short while. I first heard about the town from Dot Bishop at the Travelers Rest History Museum. I made a note to add it to my list of ghost towns until I could do a bit more research on it, and see if I could find any remnants of the old town. That time has finally come, and here’s what I found…
I grew up in the southwestern part of Enoree County, South Carolina…
At least, that’s how my biography might have started, if the people of Woodruff had their way back in 1913. Enoree County would have been created from parts of Greenville, Spartanburg, and Laurens Counties, with the county seat in the town of Woodruff. I came across a reference to this mythical county while doing research on another topic on the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America site.
I haven’t been able to relocate the original article (should have bookmarked it right then and there) but it gave more specific boundaries for the new county. At first I thought it might be cool to find these boundaries in Google Earth and see which areas would be encompassed by the new county. As I dug deeper, I found that this wasn’t an isolated proposal, and was part of a much larger story, leading me to the discovery of “new county fever” that broke out around the turn of the 20th Century.
NOTE: I’ve had a very bad cough and head cold this week, so I’m a week behind with this story. Trying to write while not feeling well is almost impossible for me. Anyway, this should have been posted last Sunday…
Saturday night was a big night in Greenville. CBS was holding a debate for all of the GOP candidates at the Peace Center, so there was lots of hoopla in town. The biggest hoopla was fictional (kind of like most of the candidates’ debate points.) Frank Underwood had set up his campaign headquarters in town.