Trish & Anne RV Adventures

It was a short drive on Thursday, April 27 for us to get to our campsite outside of Greenville, SC – but it was another rainy day. So after setting up the RV and gathering up the laundry, we took a quick ride through Travelers Rest and had lunch at a creperie that Catherine had been to before. Another great meal. Then we went to Catherine’s house, where we did the laundry, Trish made chicken and yellow rice for dinner and we played Mexican Train again – this time I won. We took Catherine’s car back to the campsite to save a trip in the morning – and boy was the rain coming down during that ride.

We had thought about golfing on Friday, but with 4.5″ of rain the previous day, the courses were either closed or cart path only, so we decided to skip that. Instead we started the day at the Six & Twenty Distillery – which Catherine had introduced us to through their Carolina Cream – a blended 5-grain bourbon with a rum based cream – kind of like a Bailey’s Irish Cream – but with bourbon and real cream.

It was noon somewhere, so Trish had the whiskey flight and I had a drink they called Carrot Cake – made with Carolina Cream, Chai-infused vodka, carrot juice, cinnamon, and topped with whipped cream – yum! About as close as you can come to drinking carrot cake.

Then we went to downtown Greenville, where we walked along the Reedy River – it was high and flowing fast after the rain of the previous day.

Also along the walk was the Grand Bohemian Lodge – the shots above are taken on the outside of the building. That’s a buffalo statue that Catherine and Trish are standing beside, and I’m not sure what to call the thing Trish and I are sitting in (if you look behind me you can see that there appears to be amethyst in that opening.) The inside of the hotel was beautifully decorated too – with fireplaces and lots of art for sale.

Catherine and Trish with the bell carillon.

And it wouldn’t be a trip into a city without me finding some statues to pose with. Joel Roberts Poinsett was the first US minister to Mexico, and in 1825 introduced the plant that is named for him to the US. Vardry McBee is known as the father of Greenville – as in 1815 he bought 11,000 acres of what is now downtown Greenville and started the development of several industries – including a sawmill, iron works, brick yard, and stone quarry in the area.

After getting falafel wraps at the Pita House, we headed over to Conestee Park for a walk and some nature watching.

There were osprey in a nest and another Eastern kingbird.

There were turtles, lizards, and ducks.

Then it was back to Catherine’s for more visiting before Catherine took us back to the RV as we were leaving Greenville the next day.

We took off on Friday morning and headed to Athens, GA. We started out at the Church-Waddel-Brumby House, believed to be the oldest residence in the city, built in about 1820 for the president of what was then Franklin College (now the University of Georgia.)

The house has been restored to the 1820’s period, and here are the dining room and the parlor. I learned something new – that since parlor’s at the time were multi-functional the furniture was often on wheels. After that we walked up the street, but didn’t find anything interesting.

But we did find this place – It looked like an ice cream parlor, and they did have ice cream, but they also had 14 flavors of cookie dough that you could mix and match with the ice cream. An interesting combo.

We tried to go to the Georgia Botanical Gardens, but it was a Saturday after several days of rainy weather, and they didn’t have any bus parking, so we couldn’t find a place to park. That night we were staying at a Harvest Host location. That is where someone allows you to boondock at their business or sometimes just a house. This night was at Sonny South Farm, a 30-acre horse farm in Colbert, GA.

Here are two views of our camper – one with the farm house in the background, and one with the horse pen that we were camping next to.

Trish enjoyed petting and feeding the horses

We took a walk up the street, because Melissa had told us that the buffalo were out at the farm around the corner. After dinner, we played some Rummikub before we hit the bed. No report on who won, because we will carry this game on for the rest of the trip.

On Sunday, we visited the Hay House in Macon, GA. It is an 18,000 square foot Italian Renaissance Revival style mansion with 24 rooms built in 1859 for the Johnson family. Only their family and the Hay family occupied the house until 1962, when it was turned into a museum, so there are lots of original decorations and furniture. The views above are of the left side and front side of the mansion.

The slate floor in the original kitchen, the wine cellar built into the front steps, and the larder. You can’t tell from this picture, but in order to keep “critters” out of the food, the shelves hung from the ceiling instead of sitting on the floor.

Trish using the formal entrance – it’s these steps that the wine cellar is under. Our guide indicating how tall the 14′ front doors are. And they each weigh over 500 pounds, but easy to move because they are very well balanced. And then a closeup of the detail on the door.

Believe it or not, the wainscoting on the left is all trompe-l’œil. I had to walk right up to the wall to see that it was flat. (And I had to look up how to spell both of the big words in that last sentence.) The wainscoting on the right, although not flat, is actually not marble but painted.

Stained glass interior door and a painted glass window.

The main hallway, snapping a mirror selfie in the bedroom, and a view of Macon from the 2nd floor.

A picture of the mansion when it was first built – and the building next store – which, based on the elegance, I think was something else before it was an AT&T building.

We made one more stop in Macon – at the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park. This is a prehistoric American Indian site, with many different American Indian cultures occupying this land for thousands of years. American Indians first came here during the Paleo-Indian Period hunting Ice Age mammals. Around 900 CE, the Mississippian Period began, and people constructed mounds for their elite, which remain here today.

Walking out to the Earth Lodge mound and looking back at the park headquarters – we thought it blended in very well.

Inside the Earth Lodge. This is the original clay floor of the lodge, that was excavated in 1934 by CCC workers (under the direction of an archeologist.) It Earth Lodge was reconstructed with the same materials that were found in the collapsed mound – except that there is a concrete dome that you can’t see protecting it all. To give you an idea of the size, there was seating for 47 people along the outside wall, and the raised “bird of prey” platform had seating for 3 more.

They have pecan and peach orchards. So after having club sandwiches for dinner, we had their peach cobbler with peach ice cream – another yum!

After dinner we took a walk around the property. They had strawberry fields – with the Canada geese munching on the plants, and those are pecan trees on the right.

There were ducks on the pond and a killdeer running around the parking lot. It was making a lot of noise to keep a mockingbird at bay, so we suspect there was a nest nearby.

And this guy with a bug in it’s mouth – let us know if you can identify the bird or the bug.

There was a playground with four tractors. I got on one for a photo-op.

Here is a panorama of the parking lot – there were seven or eight campers there with us. This was our first stop without electricity in this RV. And with a little help from some camp lanterns and a power supply for charging our phones and iPad we made it through without needing the generator. No TV, but some more Rummikub. It was a great stop over as it isn’t too far from the highway, and besides the little cafe, they have all things peach and pecan and beyond in a little store.

Roger Webb was married to Trish’s Aunt Elizabeth and owned a car dealership in the town.

And her Aunt Sister and Uncle Doc owned the 5-Points gas station and cafe at one time. They also owned the Shamrock Cafe in the center of town (we couldn’t find a picture of that.) Trish remembers having to shuck peas as payment for a hamburger. And that was after swimming in the pool that you see on the right.

The children’s park, with this statue/fountain is on the site where the Shamrock Cafe used to be. And that’s our camper parked in front of the historical society.

We also went to two cemeteries in Nashville, where we found the grave sites for Trish’s maternal grandparents (she never knew them) and her Aunt Johnnie and several other of her aunts, uncles and cousins. We are calling this a friends and family trip – we didn’t say they would all be alive.