I really love good small town festivals, and my visit to the National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburgh, Tennessee was one of the best I can remember. Apparently, when the Tennessee Department of Transportation built a bypass around South Pittsburgh, downtown really took a hit. Town leaders gathered to try and think of a way to bring business back to town. Since they are home to Lodge Cast Iron, they decided to try and stage a cornbread festival. After all, who doesn't like cornbread? The first year they brought out their card tables and folding chairs and hoped for 500 people to show up. An hour after the gates opened there were 5,000 people there... and they were out of cornbread. In the 21 years since, they've learned a lot about throwing a festival, and it really showed…
Our National Parks are our greatest treasure here in the United States. They are magical places which thankfully our forefathers had the foresight to set aside in perpetuity for their children and our children and their children. They preserve some of our most amazing landscapes and ecosystems and protect all manner of flora and fauna. From the Everglades in Florida to Denali in Alaska, even the names call forth wildness in our imaginations. Have no doubt, these are our lands, and if we want to keep them that way, we need to protect them. But most of all, we need to enjoy them. This is the second post in a series I have titled In Focus, which will take a look deeper into our National Parks. These are primarily photography posts, trying to show you the beauty of our parks and take you inside of them with me. My hope is that you will get out and see them for yourself. After all, they belong to you too.
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…
This is my last week in South Carolina! I've been here longer than expected and I've really had a great time here. It's a small state, but some places have just pulled me in and kept me around for a while. I'm not complaining - it's been a wonderful stay - but it's definitely time for me to be moving on.
As stated when last we met, my week did indeed begin with a visit to Clemson. Clemson is a cool little college town, very purple and orange, but also a nice place for a quick visit. I caught up with some of my fraternity brothers there for dinner and then left them to their evenings while I went and checked out some of the bars around town. I particularly liked the massive Tiger Town Tavern and the Esso Club. Clemson was somewhat reminiscent of my own experience at Penn State, but on a much smaller scale. I enjoyed my short visit there, though I only stayed one night and headed out in the morning...
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...
One of my guidebooks for South Carolina described Greenville as "the coolest city you've never heard of". After spending a few days there over the last week or so, I would have to agree. I knew nothing about Greenville when I arrived, and absolutely fell in love with the city while I was there. It seemed like there was so much thought and care put into it and every time I looked around I found something else to smile about. It's an intensely livable city, with so many of the things I would look for if I was thinking about where to settle down, and it seems to be attracting quite a few young people who are doing just that. With a great arts scene, a few sports teams and some wonderful bars and restaurants it really has everything you could ask for in a city this size. And with all of these things in a city this size, why would you want to live somewhere bigger? Greenville definitely kept me around longer than I had intended to stay, and even when I did leave I felt a little bit sad to go. But I promise, I will be back. If Greenville isn't on your travel radar, it should be...
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...
During my summer breaks in college, I lived in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It was a nice break from my studies and all of the other things I was involved with at school in Pennsylvania. I could sleep in, work for a few hours at a restaurant and then hang out with my friends. I have lots of good memories from my three summers in Myrtle Beach. After graduation I came down and took some time off from the real world to hang out at the beach. It was fun and I made some great friends. Through the years, I've watched Myrtle Beach turn from a medium sized beach community into The Grand Strand and seen as big chains have some in and the small, family run places have closed down. It's not what it once was, but it's still a pretty beach and a fun place to be. One of my favorite things about Myrtle Beach is some of the delightfully tacky roadside attractions to be found there. While some of these are new, many have been around as long as I can remember. I thought it would be fun to photograph some of these mini-golf courses and restaurants and bring you some of my favorites here. This was a fun project and I hope you enjoy these photos.
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...
One of the best things about this journey is being able to celebrate the holidays in different places and with different traditions. I think this aspect will only get better as summer approaches and with it will be music festivals and state, county and local fairs. I had a wonderful time at the Christmas Parade in Charleston, West Virginia, and also at the Mardi Gras Parade in tiny Marshall, North Carolina. For St. Patrick's Day this year, I found myself in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina. I really enjoyed taking photos at their St. Patrick's Day Parade. I wanted to capture the fun of the day with the beautiful scenery of Charleston in the background. It was a great day in The Holy City.
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.
West Virginia is now behind me, fading away in my rearview mirror, but not in my memory or my heart. I chose West Virginia to start this 4 year journey for a reason. West Virginia is one of the most misunderstood states in the country. People have an image in their head of a bunch of backwoods hillbillies picking their banjos and sipping moonshine from a mason jar. And there is certainly some element of truth to that, but that isn't the whole story. West Virginia is a beautiful place with a wonderful State Park system, some top-notch universities, a deeply proud musical tradition, some fun and vibrant cities and a host of off-the-beaten-track sites, shops and restaurants to enjoy. The people, though maybe a little shy, are kind and friendly and generally very welcoming.
