Hello my friends! It has been a great first week in Tennessee out here on the road. When I wrote last week, I was on my way out to the Deep Creek area of Great Smoky Mountain National Park in far western North Carolina. Today, I'm writing from Knoxville in north eastern Tennessee. It's been an exciting week of festivals and hiking in the park, and the weather has been just beautiful. Strawberries are coming into season and I love good, local strawberries which I'm thankful I've been able to find. I've also been trying to wrap up a few things from South Carolina and begin writing my next podcast. Thankfully the days are getting long down south and it seems like long ago and a million miles away that I was sitting in sub-freezing temperatures in the dark at 4:30 p.m. in West Virginia. Daylight and sunshine really do make a difference - I hope you are all getting outside and enjoying both. Anyways, this is what I've been up to this past week. I didn't quite get it done in time for my Thursday newsletter, but it has been busy out here…
I ate out a lot during my stay in South Carolina. South Carolina is definitely a wonderful food destination. With tons of seafood coming off the coast and wonderful farm-fresh meat and produce coming from the Piedmont, it's hard to go wrong. Unfortunately I didn't plan my meals out as well as I could have, nor did I do my due diligence by really researching the places I ate. These long days have kept me busy and I usually ended up eating wherever was open and grabbing a quick burger or a salad. This is something I hope to correct in Tennessee as I eat in a little more often and save my money and my appetite for some well planned out meals. I did, however, find a few cool places around the state so before I move on, I thought I would share some with you today.
I had some really great seafood up and down the coast. When I was out on Daufuskie Island, I had a plate of fresh fried grouper over jasmine rice with green beans and slaw at Lucy Bell's Cafe. When I tell you it was to die for, I really mean it…
The mountains in the eastern United States are nice. These are the mountains I grew up with and hiking their trails is where I fell in love with the great outdoors. They have character and grace which come with their age, and it is always great to be in them. Having traveled the world though, and seen the Rockies and the Alps, the Andes and the Wrangells, the Cascades and the Brooks Range, it's difficult to look at the Appalachians with awe and amazement. They're gentle and rounded and beautiful, but "awesome" just doesn't come to mind when I crest a hill and they come into view. Hidden among them, though, are some absolute jewels of nature. The waterfalls of Appalachia are truly some of the most spectacular you will find anywhere. For three days last week, I went out to woods in western South Carolina to get some fresh air, soak in the cool spray of these magnificent waterfalls and practice the art of photography. I love photographing a good waterfall, and while I don't think a photo can ever do some of these justice, it was well worth the effort. Some of these waterfalls were right off the road and others were buried deep in the forest, but all of them were worth the time and energy to get to them...
It's been a pretty quiet but fun week out here in western South Carolina. I've been trying to catch up on some things, so that has taken a lot of my time, but I'm almost there. A lot of the week has been spent here in Greenville, one of my new favorite towns, but it's been great to be here. This next week will probably be my last in South Carolina.
I started the week by finishing my latest podcast. The stories are from the eastern part of the state and this one came out pretty well. It tells the story of Vanna White, from Conway, South Carolina and her rise to fame. I talk about the revolutionary war history of the state and how it led to the state flag. It may look like there's a crescent moon on the flag, but there isn't. Then I talk about Francis Marion, the legendary Swamp Fox and how is bad ankles may have saved the Patriot cause in the Revolution. Next was the story of Robert Small. Born a slave, he made a daring escape and dash to freedom during the Civil War and went on to win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. We hear about the S.S. Central America and how, when it sunk off the coast of South Carolina...
"The Prettiest Town in Dixie" is a pretty big claim to make. Having traveled fairly extensively around the south in my life, I've seen some really beautiful towns. But this claim is certainly an enticing one and a bold one, so I had to go and see for myself. The town that made this claim? Tiny Cheraw, South Carolina. I got there first thing in the morning with the intention of staying maybe an hour or two, and ended up being there the better part of the day. It really is a beautiful town, steeped in history and with one of the best tourism infrastructures I've come across in a town this size anywhere. I came knowing almost nothing about Cheraw, and left charmed by it and knowing it's a place I will return to.
I am a pretty typical American mutt. While all of my ancestry that I’m familiar with comes from somewhere in Europe, there is very little that I can identify with. I knew all four of my grandparents, and all four were pretty typically American, if that can be said of anyone. Even my grandmother on my mother’s side, who was actually born in Poland and immigrated to the U.S. as a child, spoke unaccented English and served me macaroni and cheese and sandwiches on Wonder Bread. It is from her mother though, my great-grandmother on my mother’s side, that I have some understanding of my Ukrainian background.
My great-grandmother escaped to Poland from the Ukraine, while pregnant with my grandmother, during the Bolshevik Revolution. She left behind a husband and a son, both of whom were killed under Stalin’s regime. When my grandmother was 5, they got on a boat to the new world. They sailed under the Statue of Liberty on their way to Ellis Island...
Another wonderful week on the road has come and gone. The weather has been great and the time really does seem to fly out here. I've been enjoying central South Carolina, an area I've spent very little time in in the past. There's lots of history here, and a beautiful National Park. I've enjoyed some great food and caught up with some old friends. It's been a great week.
Since I had problems keeping my days straight last week, I will start this week with Friday. Friday I got an early start and headed out from Camden towards Congaree National Park. On the way, I made a few really cool stops. I stopped to take some photos at Boykin, a tiny town with a few old stores and an even older mill. There was even a cool little covered bridge. It was a neat little place...
America's National Parks are our nation's most valuable resources. From the U.S. Virgin Islands to the coast of Maine and from Alaska to the South Pacific and so many amazing places in between, the National Park System protects our most treasured natural and cultural areas. There are many different designations within the system, from National Battlefields and Historic Sites to National Monuments and Heritage Areas, but none is more revered than the National Parks. Of the 420 or so sites withing the system, only about 60 have the designation of National Park. Over the course of many years, I've had the distinct pleasure of seeing almost all of them. They are all incredible places and I can't imagine my life without being able to visit these areas again and again. While sometimes the topic will come up in the news about "government owned land", we must remember that this is actually public land - our land. And it's there for us to enjoy and will be forever as long as we don't let our guard down.
Congaree National Park in central South Carolina is one of our newest National Parks, having received that designation in 2003. It protects the largest tract of old growth, bottomland hardwood forest left in the United States...
Well, darn. Here I thought today was Wednesday and I still had today to get this done before my newsletter went out on Thursday. But today is actually Thursday and my newsletter came out this morning. It's easy to lose track out here sometimes, but I'm going to write it anyway. I have enjoyed this the last few weeks - it reminds even me of what I've done and where I've been and lets me just write without having to stop and look up facts and figures.
The wisteria is in bloom here in South Carolina. This beautiful, purple, sweet smelling, flowering plant hangs from vines around the region and I have found myself stopping often, literally to smell the flowers...
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina is an interesting place. It is one of the more developed beach communities on the east coast and is getting more so by the day. It's full of hotels, mini-golf courses, restaurants, shops and bars. Especially in recent years, it has grown to look like a giant submarine sandwich with housing developments sandwiched between the beach and the strip mall that highway 17 has become. You can imagine my surprise, therefor, at finding a beautiful, quiet, minimally developed spiritual center right in the middle of it all. But that is exactly what I found when I entered the Meher Spiritual Center in Briarcliffe, just south of Barefoot Landing...
It's been another good week on the road out here in South Carolina. This week I've meandered through cypress swamps, wandered wild beaches and dug deep into the history of the lowcountry of South Carolina. The weather has been up and down, and I guess April showers are showing up a little early, but that has left me with some time to work on my next podcast and do some reading and writing as well.
I started the week by leaving Beaufort behind and making my way out to Walterboro. I wanted to check out...
Somewhere inside of me, there will always be an island kid. I've spent about three years of my life living on islands, and there is just something special about them. When I'm talking about an island, I mean a real island, one you can only get to by boat. As soon as a bridge connects it, it becomes a peninsula in my head. It loses its charm. It becomes just another part of whatever it is connected to. A real island is isolated and quirky and the residents are eccentric and innovative, as anything they need - from groceries to lumber - probably has to come from somewhere else. Daufuskie Island is a real island and a beautiful and charming one at that. It's hard to believe it's only 20 minutes by water taxi from mainland South Carolina because it feels a world apart.
