Okay, so you have figured out that we are not going directly to Iowa! We are scheduled to be in Gaffney, South Carolina, August 28 for a two day class at the Freightliner Facility. On the way we spent time at the Strom Thurmond Lake between Georgia and South Carolina. True to our last visit to the area, the ants were invasive! We had to put ant traps all over Sol and we sprayed around Sol trying to keep the little pests at bay.
Our first full day after our 35 mile drive, we drove toward Greenwood, South Carolina. We spotted a sign for 96 Revolutionary National Historic Site and turned in that direction. Of course being a Monday, the National Historic Site was closed. We walked around the one mile pave trail to see the informational signs and get the answers to some questions for a virtual geocache.
The park was well maintained and had several hiking trails that we were interested in checking out in addition to the one mile loop around the battlefield and town.
The house I am sitting in front of was found inside a more modern structure that was being torn down. The Logan House was saved and moved to 96. The signs at the kiosk outside the visitor center advertised the 100th birthday of the national park system. The celebration would occur on Thursday and Saturday. We decided to return to do more hiking on Thursday. We also needed to complete the geocache....the box was in the visitor center which was closed.
On our way out of town, Bob and I collected a few more caches to add to our total. Each of the welcome signs had a geocache somewhere on them.
After caching, we visited the welcome center and found a good restaurant for lunch. Las Cascadas was an excellent Mexican restaurant with service to match. As we headed back to Sol, we made a detour to Wal-Mart to find a few things we needed. By the time we returned to the campground, we were ready to relax and enjoy our site. When we checked in, the host told us we had the best site in the campground! Bob was really good at reserving our campsites this trip!
So far, we are enjoying our time in this area. If only the weather would cool just a bit, our trip would be perfect!
The next few days we spent exploring local state parks in Georgia and South Carolina as well as geocaching along the Savannah Valley Railroad Trail. Our first visit to a state park took us back to Georgia! We spent a day hiking and geocaching in Elijah Clark State Park, Georgia. We were looking for a multi cache located along the hiking trail.
We found the first stages of the cache, but the last stage of the cache eluded us.
We finally gave up, enjoyed the rest of the hike and decided that we might return to find the final stage.
Another day we hiked the SVRR Trail. We started at mile marker o and hiked to the Petigru Spring House.
The original walls of the spring house are protected by concrete blocks.
Looking inside the doors and windows, you can see the original brick walls. At one time the spring house was used for fresh water and to keep perishable foods on the Petigru Plantation cool.
We returned to 96 National Historic Site on Thursday to hike Cherokee Path Trail and Gouedy Trail. Both trails went through the woods along paths used by the Cherokee and early settlers.
Cherokee Path Trail ended at Ninety Six Lake.
We retraced our steps and found the junction of Cherokee Path and Gouedy Trail. We followed Gouedy Trail to the site of Gouedy's original trading post. There were several burial spots along the trail.
On Friday, we explored Hickory Knob Resort State Park in South Carolina. Prior to visiting Hickory Knob, we returned to Elijah Clark to find the final stage of the elusive multi cache. This time, we found it! It seems we had walked all around it, but never honed in on it.
Hickory Knob had a nice lodge, golf course and hiking/biking trail. We weren't impressed with the campground and decided that whenever we are in the area, the Corps of Engineer Parks are the places to stay.
Friday evening, my nephew Charles joined us for dinner. It had been quite some time since we last saw him and we had a lot of catching up to do. As he was leaving I realized we hadn't t taken any pictures so here is the pic of Charles and I outside of Sol.
Saturday Bob and I found another section of SVRRT to hike and search for geocaches. Much to our surprise, we found two multi caches along the trail. Usually we don't look for multi caches because the final cache is often missing and you get no credit for the stages that you do find.
On Sunday, we traveled to our next destination--Camp Freightliner in Gaffney, South Carolina.
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