Wednesday, April 27, 2016

April 26, 2016 The Drayton Mill Trail, Spartanburg

These are the days, the most beautiful of the year, temperatures from the 60's to 80's, without snow, tornados, blinding heat and rain.  All is green and growing.

This trail is new to me although completed in the past year in agreement between the Milikin owners of the old defunct weaving and spinning cotton mill who have made the mill into luxury apartments. Behind the apartment building and it's swimming pool and up the street, I can see yellow tape out in the woods. tonight there is to be a Shindig with music and art from Converse students on the trail.

This is a black top trail which winds through the green forest for a mile and then connects with the trail at the Mary Black Hospital on Skylyn. There are plans to connect with the Cottonwood Trail and indeed they have already plowed the ground for it.

Along the way a few trees are marked:  White Oak, Black Oak, Scarlet Oak, Sour Gum, Gum, Hickory, Mocknut Hickory.  The first student sculpture is wooden frames hanging in the trees. Some have plastic water bottles.  On the right there are two silver metal trees, then a rough hewn wooden bench surrounded by 20 small rock cairns.  Down the hill from the trail is a stream with a dirt path beside it.

I take the trail until I can see through the woods, a place of torture on the road:  my dentist's office, and then Mary Black Hospital.

Going back I meet a walker wearing a T shirt with the head of an eagle on the front.  She is a native of the Drayton Community and tells me how her grandfather took her to walk at the drained pond beside the trail where one Canadian Goose floats with great dignity. She tells me there is a leak now in the dam which is why it is drained.  She tells me that where the dirt path is, there are springs which at times, bubble up into mud holes.

The beautiful woods of the trail, may be developed into a neighborhood with homes.  She has mixed feelings about her love of the community and the wealthy developers who have come to change it.

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