From I-85, it is only 9 miles to the garden. Take exit 19-B to Highway 76 (Clemson Blvd). Pass Palmetto Moonshine (the first legal Moonshine in SC) with goats on the roof, next to the red painted Charlie T's Wings and Fingers. You will be in Sandy Springs. Soon there are orange Tiger Paws painted on the very floor of the highway, BBQ The Smoking Pig is on the right. Pass over Three and Twenty Creek, then by Tiger Financial and Tiger Paw Storage. You are in Pickins County. The Armory is on the right and the entrance to the garden is off Perimeter Rd on the left.
Do not try to go there on a game day unless you are already safely there with one hundred thousand other people who are dressed in orange Clemson T-shirts. On this day, the game had been the day before and Clemson's opponent was overcome by 52 to 7.
At the head of the park are stone walls, benches, restrooms and a red caboose (erected by the class of '39).
From there you have access to the trails that go past the Hanover House (a building from the 1700's moved from the Midlands when the Santee/Cooper Dam displaced it) , and the Hayden House (a small conference center). I did all this backwards by starting on a trail with a closed gate back near the parking lot behind the geology museum. This lovely wooded trail had other trails sprouting from it. Foofa and I wandered around and passed nut trees with their fruits covering the ground, dark mahogany colored hickory nuts bursting from their spiky shells. We came out at the Koi pond where fat orange (of course orange) koi floated beneath the surface like gentle submarines.
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