March 29, 2012 Glendale Shoals Greenway

Take Pine Street South from downtown Spartanburg, turn left on Country Club Rd.  After a few miles, cross Glendale-Whitestone and drive directly to a few parking spaces at the old bridge, now impassable, over the spillway.  If you like, you can turn left on Glendale-Whitestone, go over the bridge over Lawson's Fork Creek and take the immediate right to the Glendale Post Office and the Wofford College Goodall Environmental Studies Center.  Take the trail to the right of the Center.  You will walk by the creek where it tumbles over the spillway onto boulders and pools below.
I cannot pass this area without the memory of the young girl in one of my therapy groups who told of swimming with friends in these pools on a hot summer's day when one of these friends went under and drowned.  In the hot weather, local people often come to splash in the pools and picnic on the rocks.
This is the site of the old Glendale Mill, which had been shut down for years when it burned down
about 15 years ago.  I remember getting out of bed at four in the morning and opening the front door to the sound of a helocopter above and down the road to the right, a red sky full of flames.  I grabbed my camera and ran down the road to join the crowd that had gathered to watch the old mill burn.
Now the post office is in one of the remaining buildings.  Wofford College bought another still standing building for its environmental studies and SPACE developed the trail.  In early spring I walk down by the creek whose banks are covered in great wild purple gardens of blooming plox.
The tall brick towers remain with five or six stories of roman arch windows now empty with the blue sky and clouds moving through them.  There are two towering smoke stacks and an ancient
base of a building made out of large grey boulders, looking like the remains of a primitive prison.
Today there is an artist seated out on the rocks painting.  He waves and I wave back.  There are split rail fences, here and there, places for small groups to sit on tree stumps. There are grape vines behind the Goodall Center and as I walk, the constant sound of roosters crowing and dogs barking far off.  The trail is short, not more than two miles, going along the creek and then circling back along a high ridge.
In the summer, there is an annual fund raiser on the bridge over the spillway with tables set formally and a jazz orchestra playing.  Often there are yard sales at the Post Office.  On top of the ridge on a nearby street is the Outdoor Leadership Center located in an old church.  This is where Sergay, Liza and Mathew are going to go to a day camp in June and stay at my house at night.