Wednesday, November 20, 2013

November 19, 2013 Ninety-Six National Historic Site

Amazingly, I have come here by chance on the 238th anniversary to the day of the Nov. 19, 1775 of the first major land battle of the American Revolution in the South in which  1,900 loyalists attacked 600 patriots  on this very spot ending in a truce after 2 days.  The ranger tells me that Ninety-Six was the spot in the Upstate that the British wanted to control as it was the intersection of trading routes.  It had been so since the Cherokee Nation forged the first trails from Keowee (near Clemson) to Charleston, Augusta, Camden and elsewhere
(as those places are known now).

I get here from Columbia, up I-26, exit 74 for highway 34.  I cross the uprivers of the Bush and the Saluda before they reach Columbia, wide and roaring.  I cross Wilson Creek. In the small neat town of Ninety-six I take 248 for 2 miles to the Site.

Here the Island Ford Trail and the Cherokee Trail are deeply sunken into the ground from the hundred's of years' use.

I take the paved walk through the woods to the Star Fort (a star shaped earth bunker) with a snaking walk around it.  It is almost totally silent with only the wind in the trees and the rattling of leaves above the place where many died and in the woods where many are sleeping under the ground.  At the end of the Star Fort trail, the Gouedy Trail enters the woods.  There is the stone grave marker of James Gouedy who ran a trading post here.  The trail is marked with yellow blazes, but I lost it along a still silent creek with dark cloudy water.  I find it again and meet a couple from Seattle entering the woods.

Two local women out for exercise, tell me to take the gravel road at the entrance to the Star Fort trail and follow it through the woods until I come to a small field on the right.  Turn there to the left and a short walk takes you to a steel blue pond with ducks floating on its surface.  There is a fishing access trail off to the left.
There are other trails which the women tell me not to take as they are not marked well.

The war was already turning in favor of the patriots in May of 1781 when General Greene and his troops attacked the loyalist stronghold at Star Fort in Ninety-Six.  There were many casualties on both sides. Green withdrew his troops and British General Cruger abandoned the fort and burned the village to the ground.

I return home by taking highway 246 to highway 72 at Coronava and then left on 221 which finally becomes Church street in Spartanburg.  Between Waterloo and Maddens I pass the big Crenshaw's store which has hundreds of cow skulls and bones on the roof.  I think it must be a butcher shop.

Soon I am crossing Lake Greenwood, dark blue and gleaming. On the far is side a Sunoco station with a Subway.  It is most probably the Subway with the greatest view in the world, as it's tables overlook the wide lake.  You can also sit outside on the deck and the gas station has all of the fishing supplies you would ever need.

My trip on the back roads through the small towns takes me past nearly abandoned old main streets now filled with antique shops and rows of pansies for sale.  As I pass the lovely old two and three story houses with big generous porches, I think of going to live in a small town in one of those old houses and drinking a mint julep (I have never had a mint julep) on the porch on a hot summer evening with the fans ticking overhead.

The name, "Ninety-Six" is somewhat of a mystery, but one theory is that the old Indian trail from Keowee, near the present town of Clemson, was an exact distance of 96 miles.

Captain John Blakeney of Chesterfield County on Lynches River fought in the Revolution. I do not know whether he fought at Ninety-Six.  A young man in his regiment named John Welsh married his daughter, Jane and he was able to buy 3,500 acres from Frances Marion, the Swamp Fox, in Lancaster County to homestead.
However at the age of 65, Captain Blakeney, John Welsh and his wife Jane and their son William loaded up and began the long walk to Alabama. William became ill on the way and returned home to Lancaster County.  He was our family's forebear.  The rest of the family continued on and became among the original founders of Marion, Alabama.


November 18, 2013 Where is Betty?

The system that yesterday drove over 60 tornados across the upper midwest demolishing small towns and killing six, has granted us a warm day with a washed blue sky, breathable air on the trail.

A small group of walkers has gathered to ask where is Betty, the small white haired lady who walks the trail twice every morning, the champion walker of us all.  She has been missing for three weeks.  None of us knows how to find her.

We hope she has gone to Epcot for a vacation.  She has a gray hoodie with the name, Epcot on it.

Monday, November 11, 2013

November 11, 2013 Lee State Park "What Rough Beast?"

You can easily get there from I-20 (exit 123, go one mile north and turn left) but I came up from Turbeville ( where last night I attended Shane's coming of age event), first a short stretch on I-95 North and then to Hwy 341 West where the land is flat as a friddle, cotton ready to harvest, corn fields replanted with frilly green mystery plants, clumps of tall hardwood around low comfortable homes with porches on three sides.  A man walking across a field lifts a single finger wave.
I pass the South Lynchberg Presbyterian church and cemetery, founded in 1854, then Lynchberg with old Southern homes and an abandoned main street.  Then more fields and churches and in one wide flat field, a miniature Victorian palace with peeling white paint, lonely and empty now, dogs sitting sentry at the end of long dirt driveways.  It is early morning.

I cross I-20 after following a series of signs for the park and turns, then turn right, then left and I am there.

There is a forest of tall oaks dripping Spanish moss, not like the oaks of the low country, but thrusting higher into the morning sky.

I take the board walk trail first, through the flood plain of Lynch's River, the river of my mother's childhood, the name that has lingered in my mind, but I had never seen it.

On the boardwalk, signs tell the history of the broken and fallen hardwoods, clipped off by Hurricane Hugo in 1989.  It is a paradise for animals and birds, green frogs, anoles and five kinds of woodpecker, the redheaded woodpecker predominating.

Then I take a trail around the artisan ponds and find the small shell of a yellow slider back turtle which I put in my pocket to take to James.

The ranger, Frederick S., tells me to take the 5 mile Loop trail where the sign says: Road Closed.  I am overwhelmed by its' beauty.  Along the twisting Lynches River, the bending trees, still leafed with green and yellow, are lacy with early morning sun filtering through them.  It is magical. I feel as if I have gone to another time, another place, another universe.  But there are prints of horses hoaves on the dirt road and after a couple of miles I leave the river banks and come to a large trap on the edge of the woods, big enough for a black bear or even big foot.  It's door is open, but I see no bait.  I consider myself alone in the woods with a creature big enough for this six foot square, four foot in height trap.  It is a sobering thought.  I pass on through the back side of another gate that warns "Road Closed" in the direction I have come.

Soon I come to the youth camp where a group of Royal Rangers and their leaders have spent two nights.
A leader tells me he grew up in the Woods Bay swamp not far from here.

On down the road pairs of horses and riders begin meeting me, four pairs in all.  Next I come upon the
Equestrian camps, then the riding ring, and then the regular camp sites.
I find a dead green green snake on the road, still in perfect shape.  I will also take this to James.

Back at the office, Frederick S. tells me that the trap is for a wild pig or boar. "I will not bait it this holiday weekend (Veteran's Day is Monday) when the park is so full.  We do put the pigs down, but we do it without unnecessary pain to them and we give them away for food to people who ask for them."

I stop at Wendy's off I-20 towards Columbia and order fries and a small frosty.  I am back in what is my real world now.  A young man in line tells me about the 12 mile Mud Run obstacle course he has run. He has a ribbon with a medal around his neck.

On the car radio, there is a discussion of the films of Andy Warhol, five hours of a sleeping person, eight hours of the empire state building.

Worlds collide.

Note: Lee State Park was built by the CCC , called the Tree Army,  under Roosevelt as part of the New Deal in the Great Depression.  It's name comes from Robert E. Lee, in Lee County, SC.


Wednesday, November 6, 2013

November 5, 2013 Seiquicenteniel State Park Loop Trail

8:30 am and it is clear and cold, not freezing yet, however.  As I walk over the foot bridge, 18 mallards paddle swiftly under it.  There are eight glossy green headed males and ten camouflagued  females, now dipping their heads down into the lake for morsels for breakfast.

The Canadian Geese rouse up from their night time beds on the shore, unfurling their rounded necks and glide soundlessly out onto the silver surface.

Monday, November 4, 2013

November 3, 2013 Jones Gap Standing Room Only

I went up 290 through Greer, past blazing maples and at times getting a glimpse of the ancient rounded by wind, rain and snow, peaks of the Appalachian mountains.  I got on 25 which goes from Greenville to Ashville, then 11, the Cherokee Scenic Highway and turned right at the F-Mart, advertising Food, Knives and Hamburgers from a sign on the roof.  This is Gap River Road and it snakes alongside of the rocky Middle Saluda River until you reach the park on the escarpment of the mountains. (You can also reach hwy 11 from I-26 between Asheville and Spartanburg, go West).

A glorius day, golden beams of sunlight reaching behind and through the dappled canopy of burning yellow leaves above.  It is the height of the fall leaf viewing season.

There is a line of cars at the entrance with two rangers directing traffic.  They say that there is parking in the park for only about 40 cars (there is handicapped and camping parking as well at the top of the drive), so that when full, we have to wait until cars come out before we go in.  I am the thirteenth car.  Now and then a car drives slowly out.  I walk the dog and meet a couple from Texas with a little boy learning to walk.  We wait and wait. Soon I notice people are opening up their picnic lunches and enjoying fried chicken and brownies from the back of their cars.  People are patient, however. Now and then a car turns around and leaves. (You cannot park down the road and walk in, not unless you live there.).  Finally, a gold SUV drives out of the park and I am in!  It has been an hour and 15 minutes, but it is worth it.

Jones Gap was originally Cleveland Fish Hatchery and there is still a stone basin of trout, rainbow, brown and brook swimming peacefully around and around.

You can take the long trail from here to Caesar's Head, but I chose the Hospital Rock Trail which is 4.4 miles long. I pass primitive campsites, one with a lone camper sitting by his fire.  The trail is blocked due to mud slides from the wet summer so I turn back.

The ranger tells me that Hospital Rock, by legend, is so called because wounded Confederate soldiers camped there in secret. The rock juts out for shelter and there is a stream nearby. They tended each other''s wounds.

He told me another story told to him by a landowner nearby of a solitary grave on the mountain.  He tells that there were two Confederate deserters caught here. They were given the choice of being executed either on the mountain or down at the Baptist church.  One grave remains here on the mountain.

The ranger says that at this time of year, Caesar's Head and Table Rock also have lines of cars waiting to get in.  In a few weeks, I will visit Caesar's Head, early in the morning.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

November 2, 2013 Sumter National Forest A Single Shot

Today near Abbeville,  a hunter on the ground was shot and killed by a hunter in a tree stand.