Field Trips

In the early days Jim would take us along on his errands, providing us with a chance to see the surrounding area. We called them our field trips.

Our first outing was to Clayton, Georgia, just down the road a ways. Jim’s favorite Mexican restaurant was full with the lunch crowd by the time we got there, so we did our Wal-Mart and Home Depot errands, then came back around to the restaurant.

One of the truly big advantages in staying with locals is getting to know the area through their eyes. They live there, they already know the best places to go and which places to avoid.

The Mexican restaurant in Clayton was a case in point. For such a small, quiet and unassuming spot, the food was excellent and the service was great.

Knowing we wanted to see as much as possible, Jim took us the long, slow, scenic route home. We’re still a bit confused about where we were, but it was very twisty and winding, with a number of hairpin turns.

Jim is full of stories with their roots in the past. The hairpin turns reminded him of what his daddy used to say. “My daddy didn’t want to carry corn on the horse and cart because the road was so twisty the horse would eat all the corn by the time they got there.”

Our big excitement from that field trip, besides a great Mexican meal, was arriving home with plants to soften the look of the front porch.

On other fields trips we saw Seneca, SC, about sixteen winding miles from here. In Seneca, Jim’s got a favorite Chinese buffet restaurant. We were treated to lunch several times. Hard to turn down that offer!

Still another day Jim stopped by to show us Stumphouse Tunnel and Isaqueena Falls, two landmarks just a few miles away. Isaqueena Falls is just what it sounds like, a local waterfall.

Stumphouse Tunnel is a relic of the push to connect the Blue Ridge Railway from Charleston SC to the Ohio River valley. Construction began in 1856. Three years later the state had spent over a million dollars and stopped construction, refusing to spend any more on the project. The tunnel was abandoned, and today is a tourist attraction.

The tunnel is impressive. It’s dark as midnight inside. Going is slow unless you’ve got a flashlight. We didn’t have one, so Jim and Chelsea and I held hands in a chain and carefully worked our way to the interior stopping point. Turning around to look at the light from the entrance was a surreal experience.

Twice we were privileged enough to have hamburgers and salads at the Mountain Rest Café with Jim. Yet another time we’d been out for errands and stopped by a gazebo place to buy a terrific new bench swing for Jim’s unbelievable wraparound porch at the Big House.

Perhaps our favorite field trip with Jim was the day we drove to the North Carolina border through Georgia. We could say we’d been in three states that morning.

We came through Dillard, Georgia and stopped at Cindy’s Dragonfly to see their “teal, ornamental iron, home and garden art”. Tim and Cindy Brantley run the place. They clearly love what they’re doing, and have an incredible selection of clever and fun items.

It was another of those places where I could have reduced my bank account in short order.

The art gallery behind Dragonfly was quite an experience. We never did make it back for photos. I’ll regret that for a long time as there no way to describe the artwork available.

The gallery was divided into sculptures made by the former owner, now deceased, and oil paintings done by his son, now the current owner. The oil paintings were faces like Picaso would have drawn in one of his periods, but dark and a bit twisted. The sculptures were, well, indescribable.

We wandered around in semi-stunned silence, processing, while the owner followed us, watching our progress.

Jim’s not one to stay long anywhere, so it wasn’t long before he was agitating to leave. We talked to the owner upon leaving. Jim told him, “I’m gettin’ medicated before I come back”.

The owner, with a perfectly straight face, said, “Oh yeah, you see a whole new world.” He added for our benefit, “My daddy always said they all come alive after midnight”. We’re not sure if he was serious or not.

Greenville

Costco, as you know by now, is one of our favorite places, both for the prices and for the quality of their goods. We needed some things from Costco, and had an item to return to REI, so Chelsea and I sat down one day to Google the area near Costco in Greenville and draw up a wish list.

Pat agreed to take us there.

By the time we’d completed our wish list, we couldn’t believe our luck. In a one-mile stretch of road anchored by Wal-Mart at one end and Costco at the other, we had Best Buy, Trader Joe’s, Total Wine, Whole foods, REI, and Chipotle.

Whole foods, REI, and Chipotle were in the same plaza, right next to each other. Hoooeee! What a score!

And what a relief it was for us. What could have been a brutal day was merely exhausting. We covered so much ground and did so many errands in the same day that we’d have achieved Guinness World Record status if we’d thought to apply.

Pat was an incredible good sport about it all. Not only did he follow us around, but he managed to leave us a couple of times while we were busy and do several of his own errands. By the end he was so ready to have the day over, but to his everlasting credit, he remained a good sport all the way through.

I won’t bore you with the all the gritty details, but we did get a café mocha at Whole Foods, a burrito at Chipotle, coffee vodka at Total Wine, and (thank you Michael and Myra!) made some killer purchases at REI.

That’s in addition to getting some computer questions answered at Best Buy and replenishing our stocks at Costco, Wal-Mart, and Whole Foods.

Our day didn’t start in Greenville either. Pat picked us up early so we’d have time to check out downtown Walhalla and Clemson, turning off to run through Clemson University.

Pat made sure we saw downtown Greenville, too. We craned our necks wildly looking at everything as we cruised slowly through, with Pat trying to catch as many red stoplights as he could.

We put downtown Greenville as a place we’d go back to check out. With its mix of upscale bars, restaurants, and higher-end shops, it reminded us of West Palm Beach – the Clematis/ City Place section, and Atlantic Ave. in downtown Delray Beach.

Pat’s Move, Cliff and Chicken Wings

Pat’s has wanted to sell his condo in Daytona for some time, as he’ll never recover his investment (a rather common story these days), and finally, after a year or more of hassle, got a contract, got it signed, and moved the last of his goods from Daytona.

He arrived back here tired and frazzled with a truck to unload. His timing was good, as Cliff, a neighbor, had chosen to drop by and barbecue chicken wings for us.

Chelsea and I were so whupped with the pace of daily life by then we could barely keep our heads up, but it sure was fun to chat and hear new stories and be fed. Pat scored, too, because Cliff agreed to help unload the truck in the morning. We showed up to help, but I’m afraid we more moral support.

Long Creek, Humble Pie, Bull Sluice

Long Creek is a community about ten miles from here, closer to the Chattooga River, a major whitewater rafting and canoeing/kayaking river. On a glorious Sunday Jim picked us up and showed us the route to Long Creek, treated us to “the best pizza around” at Humble Pie Pizza in Long Creek, and took us over to Georgia Rock to watch a Class III and IV rapids – Bull Sluice.

The pizza was very good, we saw an indigo bunting on the hike to Georgia Rock, and we got a great little nature hike back to the rock.

Bull Sluice is on the Chattooga River. At that point the Chattooga is right at the Georgia/South Carolina border. The parking lot, and easy access to watch the rafters, is on the South Carolina side.

Georgia Rock has far better views and is on the Georgia side. The downside is that Georgia Rock can’t be accessed other than by a narrow overgrown path. You’d have to know the path was there or be willing to do some cross-country exploring.

We loved the path and were thoroughly enjoying the walk when Jim suddenly stopped in front of me. He grabbed a leaf, pulled it off the vine, rubbed it between his fingers, and said, “I don’t know if you are the type to be touchin’ and feelin’ ever’ little leaf.”

I assured him we were not. He continued, “Well, that’s a good thing. You see, ‘bout every third plant in here is poison oak or poison ivy.”

Chelsea is highly allergic to poison oak. She had a couple of spectacular incidents in childhood, so spectacular that I’m sure if Chelsea’s dad is reading this, he’s wincing from the memories. I know I am.

We weren’t far from Tecnu poison oak soap for a number of years. Then we moved to the Czech Republic, followed by a stint in Florida, and we weren’t exposed to poison oak or poison ivy.

We were already far enough down the path towards Georgia Rock that we figured we were probably done-for anyway, so all we could do was have a good attitude and watch where we stepped even more carefully.

Watching the rafters and kayakers come over Bull Sluice was very, very fun. A local whitewater rafting company had several rafts on the river and a few private groups were out. Chelsea and I have about seven years experience in kayaking under our belts, but no whitewater or ocean kayaking.

It was really thrilling to watch the strategies and approaches of all the individuals. Chelsea had the camera clicking non-stop for well over an hour and caught some really great photos. We couldn’t wait to download them that night, and still love looking at them.

We could tell right away that we’d have some good photos, so I walked around and gave out cards to a few people, telling them we got great photos and to email us if they wanted to see them.

I got responses right away, but I didn’t realize at the time how swamped we’d be and how isolated from Internet. I have finally finishing sorting, culling, and captioning nearly a thousand photos from the last few months.

I separated the Bull Sluice albums into the WildWater rafting group, the Ziggy group, and the Blue Hair group. Thanks, all of you, for giving us so much fun and such great photo opportunities and memories!

That afternoon after our return home, Chelsea and I stripped to the bone, walked our clothes and shoes right down to the washer, and took cold showers to rinse off any potential ‘baddies’. We kept a good attitude about it, and it worked. Neither of us had so much as a dot of poison oak or poison ivy.

Bike Rides

Our bike rides have begun to feel like the impossible dream. Here we are in God’s country and we’ve been out on two bike rides. Our only consolation is that they were both wonderful rides and if we are missing rides, at least we are getting a spectacular amount of work done.

We got all suited up for our first bike ride on a chilly Sunday morning. We’d already decided to do the nine-mile loop from our house, out past the post office, back around to home. We figured an hour total for the ride, taking the hills and our lack of conditioning into account.

Nine miles, one hour, and several long steep climbs later (we had to stop to rest a minute or two) we sailed down a long beautiful downhill towards what was obviously the river bottom. I yelled back at Chelsea that we were good. “I know where we are, Chels! This is the river! Pat’s house is right over there!”

At that same moment I had a sinking feeling. The river was running the wrong way! Then Chelsea yelled, “Mom, we’re in Georgia! That’s the state line!”. We’d clearly missed our turn somewhere and needed to backtrack.

There’s was nothing we could do except take a brief rest and start climbing back up that gorgeous long downhill. We’re still laughing about it.

By the time we got home we’d done about twenty miles, and it felt great! Wow, is it ever pretty here! We wanted to go back out again.

Our second bike ride was much shorter but harder. We did do the loop this time, but had much steeper and shorter hills. After five years of riding in flat, flat territory, hills are a new experience for us. All in all we preferred the longer run out to the Georgia state line.

Easter

Easter had its own unique flavor for us this year.

Pat was off in Daytona so Jim brought the barbecue over and grilled steaks and rabbit for us. Yes, rabbit. Chelsea took her plate with a single piece of rabbit. We laughed like kids up to trouble while we cut carrot pieces for ears and found a sprig of cauliflower for the bunny tail to create our own bunny.

Jim entertained us with stories of the “bunny bash” they’d hold every Easter. Apparently a group would get together and four-wheel back into Cedar Creek. They’d make a weekend of it, camping and catching rabbits.

On Easter Sunday morning they’d have Easter sunrise services, then eat the bunny. “We called it the bunny bash. It went on for twenty years every year”.

Cinco de Mayo

Jim is always ready to celebrate and any old holiday will do. Cinco de Mayo coincided with an unusual full moon, and the sun was setting at nearly the same time as the moon was rising, so Jim suggested we go looking for a place to see them both.

Like a high school or young college group, the four of us piled into Jim’s white Crown Victoria with a pitcher of margaritas, a bag of chips and a jar of salsa. After wandering the hills near Long Creek for a few minutes, Jim settled on the Baptist cemetery outer ring road to watch sunset.

The moon view wasn’t working for us so we headed back to the Big House to see the full moon. By ten o’clock Chelsea and I walked back down the hill in the velvety black night with the full moon tracking us.

Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day was the quietest I’ve had in years. It was cloudy and raining hard all day. Getting out in that muddy environment would have taken some determination. Since we’d committed to bringing out our ebooks and to catching up on all our blogs and photos, and we had a time deadline, both of us worked all day.

Chelsea did feed me and was particularly nice to me all day, and I had a great text conversation with Alex, so it was a great day, topped off with watching a couple of old Hercule Poirot episodes.

Daily Walks

We did finally start taking walks in the mornings for a week or so till we moved. We’d hike down the hill through the forest to the river, watch the birds in the bottoms, hike back up past our house and the Big House, and continue on out to the main road.

A neighbor who is a retiree from the Park Service, and his wife, have created an incredibly pleasant little garden space with plants, flowers, an American flag, and a sitting bench. Chelsea and I loved sitting there.

We’d use that time for a short break to just be outside quietly.

One morning a neighbor, Rodney, saw us as he rode by on his dirt bike (motorcycle). A few minutes later he came back by, pulled off near the bench, introduced himself and asked if we’d like him to take our picture. That rarely happens for us so we said an immediate yes.

The walk, though short, is an incredible cardio boost and really tones the leg muscles. We are already missing it.