February 29, 2012 Musgrove Mill State Historic Site

The jasmine are blooming along the highway.  Musgrove Mill is 7 miles from Clinton and 6 miles from I-26, exit 52.  From Spartanburg, take highway 56 past the Deaf and Blind School through Pauline, past fields of black and white cows, black cows, brown cows, past Tyger River Corrections, a turkey farm and then go through Cross Anchor, cross the Enoree River and go around a curve and the entrance will be on your right. You will have just left Spartanburg County and now will be in Laurens County.  This is a revolutionary war site.  The old home of Edward Musgrove and of Mary Musgrove was probably used as a hospital for wounded British soldiers.  The remaining steps are shaded by two giant 200 year old Osage Orange trees (I thought I spotted two more of these trees in the woods as well).  This was an important location when Native Americans forded the Enoree River here.  You  may be able to find points on the banks of the river.
There is a welcome center and picnic shelter. Boofa and I took the trail which follows the river in a big loop around the center and finally comes out at the pond you pass on your way in.  Once there were a series of mills and a bridge across the river.  Now there are none.  There is a place to put in your canoe and there is another trail on the other side, but you have to leave the site, go back towards Cross Anchor about a mile and take a sharp turn back to the left on Horse Shoe Falls Road to get there.

Once, a man who suffered from schizophrenia and had seizures as well was fishing at this little pond, had a seizure and fell into the water.  Three young women who could not swim, risked their lives to rescue him.  I went to Laurens County Hospital in the ambulance with him.  He stayed there in intensive care for two days before he was released.  He survives to this day as good as new.

The pond is stocked with fish and you can fish there without a license.  No charge.

February 26, 2012 Cottonwood Trail Again

Today my son, Michael, came to visit with his two little sons, Zach and Shane.  After a lunch of gumbo and rice, we walked the Cottonwood Trail.  The boys enjoyed watching the hawk who sits high above a field on the posts of power lines to hunt,  hiking on boardwalks above the wetlands where beavers have built encircling dams and seeing the minows and tadpoles swimming below.

February 26, 2012 "The Way", the movie

There have been several documentations of the experience of walking El Camino de Santiago, including a book in 2000 by Shirley MacLaine.  "The Way" is written and directed by Emilio Estevez and stars his father, Martin Sheen.  It is the poignant story of a grieving father who completes the journey begun by his son who dies suddenly after he has just begun the trail.  You watch the travelors hike through the beautiful Spanish countryside, share meals at outdoor tables at auberges (refugios) and enter the hauntingly majestic Cathedral at Compostela.  After the end of the camino at Compostela, they journey on to Moxa on the coast where the father scatters his son's ashes into the sea.

February 25, 2012 Peter's Creek Heritage Trail

A part of the SC DNR Heritage Trust. This trail is in Spartanburg County.  Turn off Cannon's Campground onto Kelly Rd and then just past Ray Circle turn right onto a dirt road that leads to a gravel parking lot.  I went here today with my friend, Maureen, who is going to Haiti next week to work as a nurse volunteer.
There are about four miles of wooded trails and two creeks.  In some places you ford the creek over huge slabs of rock.  There is also a 100 year old dam that has the creek above it and tumbling through it, but there is no longer a pond.

While we were walking, we often heard gun shots.

February 23, 2012 The Play of the Five Beasts

Today I learned from a practicioner of Chinese Medicine, simple movements of the five animals; the deer, the bear, the crane, the monkey and the tiger.  These Qi Gung exercises promote grace and flexibility, strength and balance.  They also embody the essential character and bearing of each animal, so that, for instance, if you are shy or reticent,  you may need to practice the strength and bearing of a fierce bear.  The five yin organs and the five yang organs are reflected in corresponding animals.  This is true also for the five seasons (Indian summer is the fifth) and the five elements of wood, fire, earth, metal and water.

I plan to practice some of these movements before walking.

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February 22, 2012 Congaree National Park

From Downtown Columbia, take Assembly past the Williams Bryce Stadium and continue down Bluff Rd for approximately eleven miles past Coble Dairy, a detention center, several bail bonding businesses, small homes, a pizza restaurant and a bar and lounge.  Soon , you will see an unassuming brown sign stating "Congaree National Park" pointing to the right down Old Bluff Rd.
Slowly it becomes evident that you are entering another world by the completely flat land, the dense forrest of great trees and a side road named "Lost John".  You will come to parking lots and picnic shelters and through the tall trees a barely discernable visitor's center made of dark wood and housing a movie theater, books, hats and Tshirts, National Park Passports, restrooms, soft drink machines and a desk staffed by rangers.  They give me a map and tell me that I can take the dog on any trails except for the board walks.  I ask if it is safe for me and my dog to hike alone and a volunteer says "Yes, as long as the dog is too big for a hawk to dive down and nab him".  "He is." I say.

We take the Sims Trail until we come to Weston Lake Loop.  There we take the left branch and circle the lake, following a still stream, seeing noone except a great blue heron and hearing the sounds of birds and water.   There are said to be wild boars in the woods, brought from Germany years ago for hunting.  We do not see them, but we see what looks like rooted up spots in the path.  There are huge bald cypress trees with their minions of knees that look for all the world like little hooded figures. We startle some ducks who have hidden behind a great fallen tree in a pond and who fly up shrieking through the air. We meet the upper Sims Trail again and return to the Visitor's Center and meet a woman from Edmondton, Ontario who is starting out on the trails.  It has taken us about two hours and I am "in the zone".  The sun is shining.  It is 64 degrees.

The Park used to be called "The Congaree Swamp National Monument" but the rangers say, it is not really a swamp; rather, it is a flood plain.  It is one of the tallest temperate hardwood forests in the world.

Circa Spring 1972 The Peace Pilgrim

I met the Peace Pilgrim around this time in a park in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  She was an uncanny spirit, electric white hair pulled back and tied, dark clothing, the kind of face you see on musicians in their older years.  By this time, she had been walking across the US and Canada for 19 years having started out in 1953.  At one point she would have covered over 25,000 miles, through 3 wars. At this time, the Vietnam War had not ended.  This is her quote:
"I am a pilgrim, a wanderer.  I shall remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until I am given shelter and fasting until I am given food."  She continued to walk until 1981
when she was killed in a car accident while she was being driven to a speaking engagement.

There has to be a kind of spirit present in long distance walking.

La Peregrina de Paz