A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.
It’s usually my policy not to review a restaurant more than once unless there are extenuating circumstances. In this case, I’ve written a review of Tupelo Honey Cafe, but the review was for the original in Asheville. The Greenville location has been open for a couple of of years now, and we have visited it several times. Today we visited for Sunday brunch, and I felt the need to write a few comments. Consider this less of a review than a follow-up.
You have died of dysentery.
That was the sad fate that awaited many who played the 1980s game “The Oregon Trail.” It was a frustrating game, and I used to enjoy torturing my students with it back in the day. The game was supposed to be a representation of the perils of pioneer life on the early cross-country routes like the Santa Fe, Cumberland, Oregon, Mormon, and Chisholm Trails.
Flash forward 75 to a hundred years or so. Railroads crossed the country, but routes for automobiles were still a challenge. Neither the roads nor the cars themselves were suited for long cross-country road trips. While one probably wasn’t going to succumb to dysentery, flat tires, steep hills, winding treacherous roads, and all manner of other problems awaited.
On our recent trip down to paddle the Savannah River I lamented the fact that we couldn’t stop and all of the cool photo ops along the way. We had a schedule to meet and we were running late. Tuesday of this week I decided to take a break from house remodeling to get and explore a bit with my camera, and I was determined to catch some of those photo ops that we had missed.
Actually, this post is just a taste of a much larger project, one that I hope to complete over the next couple of weeks. Even on this outing I had a tighter time crunch than I might have liked, and I still missed lots of things I’d like to have explored further. I would be exploring the land between the rivers – the basins between the North and South Edisto, and the Savannah River.
Read More “Rambling between the Rivers – The Edisto and Savannah” »
Earlier this summer my cousin Brent Baker contacted me about some family history sites. His mother, Judy Oliver Baker, is my first cousin, and they were wanting to visit home sites and graves for the Ellenberg-Oliver family.
I sent Brent a map of locations I knew about, and he and his mom set off. I would have loved to have tagged along, but that was during the time that Laura and I were in Florida. Brent was kind enough to send me his write-up of the trip and share some photos on his Amazon Cloud Drive. I told him I’d be happy to post his information here, even though I wasn’t able to go with them.
Bavarian Pretzel Factory has closed its doors. The owners say that they will continue baking breads and taking orders for specialty goods, but the restaurant is gone. I guess the “curse of the RandomConnections review” strikes again.
It was Keith Dover who discovered the body, so to speak, and alerted me via text. He had placed an order for potato salad, but when he tried to call about it, there was no answer. I had to run a few errands, so I swung by to see what was happening. At what should have been a busy lunch time, there were no cars in the lot. I peeked in the window, and all of the furniture was gone. While their website still seems active, a quick check of their Facebook presence confirmed that it was closed.
Our television gave up the ghost. While it was a fairly modern hi-def LCD TV, by today’s standards it was quite small. We still hold to the old “TV as furniture” ideal, and kept it in a cabinet in a corner. This was actually a design decision, as we have picture windows overlooking our back yard and lake, and didn’t want a large TV interfering with that view. Perhaps it got jealous of the big new TV in our newly remodeled basement. Who knows? The upshot is that on Wednesday I found myself heading out to buy a new one.
We missed our traditional Second Saturday trek with Lowcountry Unfiltered. Laura and I were still in Florida, and Matt was tied up with moving. Several others of our group also had conflicts, so we decided to postpone the trip to the third Saturday. For this trip, we decided to tackle a wild and remote section of the Savannah River. We would be putting in at Burton’s Ferry Landing and paddling 15 miles downriver to Cohen’s Bluff.
The time that I was in Florida and not in the Keys I spent a LOT of time on my my kayak. I was probably out everyday. My typical MO was to head out after having a cup of coffee. Sometimes Amy would join me, and sometimes Laura would. We even got Amy’s dog out on a boat for the very first time.
So far our Key Largo getaway was going just like we wanted – lots of pool time, some kayaking, good food, and several delicious rum-based drinks. On Wednesday we decided that we’d had enough direct sunshine, so we decided to ride a bit. It seemed a shame to get this close and not make it all the way down to Key West, so we set off in that direction.
It’s been a stressful few weeks. We have been making trips to Florida to help out with Laura’s mother. While I’ve been able to make the trip to Ireland, Laura hasn’t had a vacation. So, on this latest trek down to Florida we decided to extend trip a few days and head down to Key Largo for an escape.
We drove down on a Monday. The drive from Fort Pierce to the Keys is not the most exciting stretch, until you reach the end of the Turnpike. There, US 1 takes over, and the two-lane route leads over wetlands and mangroves. While beautiful, the area is fenced, and there is nowhere to stop. Eventually we reached the bridge crossing Blackwater Sound and arrived at Key Largo.