Pendleton & 29th Anniversary April 2015

Thursday we took a ride to Pendleton, a town about 15 miles northeast of us.  The city was founded in 1790 by General Andrew Pickens, and is celebrating its 225th anniversary with a host of events throughout this year.  The town has many historic buildings, two of which are old plantations that we want to visit, but they are open only on weekends.  I stopped at a little gift shop where to my surprise they were having a variety of crafting lessons.

We were planning to go to dinner at The Galley (the lakeside restaurant we had gone to when my brother and sister-in-law visited) on Sunday  to celebrate our 29th anniversary, but when I called to make reservations, I was told they are closed Sundays and Mondays, so we decided to go Saturday evening.

Sunday we returned to Pendleton to take a guided tour of The Woodburn Plantation.  It was built in 1830 by the Pickney family who used it as a summer residence.  At that time, Pendleton was the Charleston of upstate South Carolina, in other words, a coveted resort area due to the cool winds that would blow down from the Blue Ridge Mountains.  The plantation was about 1000 acres and the home had about 18 rooms. The Adgers family bought the plantation, and lived in it year round, turning it into a self sufficient farm.  Later, Augustine Smythe took possession of the property and made a lucrative living out of raising livestock.  A lot of the land is now owned by Clemson University, although the house and some grounds are in the hands of the Pendleton Historic Foundation. 

 

 The 1826 a restaurant in Farmer's Hall in Pendleton's village green.

Hunters Store now houses tourism and historical services

 

 

 The Mercantile Emporium

Crafters...some were working on beaded jewelry, one was making a book jacket, another was doing metal work.

Pendleton Branch Library

 

Portman Marina on Lake Hartwell outside The Galley Restaurant

We had a table with a view of the lake

 

Outside  Woodburn.  The portion on the left is actually the back of the house.  No photos were allowed of the inside.  The tour started in the basement where the families had most of their informal meals since it was the coolest part of the house, although the entire structure was designed to be "air conditioned".  The top floor was the children's dormitory, but it could get very hot up there during the day, and children were consigned there if they misbehaved.  The ceilings on the porches were painted blue, some say for a cooling effect, others say to keep away the haunts. One of the more interesting items on the tour was the "jogging" or "jostling" board which is a long flexible pine board supported on a frame.  According to the tour guide, the purpose of the board was to aid digestion by sitting on it and bouncing.  It was also used in courting.  A young man and a young lady would sit at opposite ends and bounce their way towards each other.  When they met in the middle, the date was over, and if the chaperone wasn't looking, a kiss could be stolen. 

The building behind me was only one section of a  sharecroppers home that was moved from a different site.  

Outside the wagon barn

 A Conestoga wagon, the SUV of the era

This town carriage was supposedly owned by Thomas Greene Clemson, founder of Clemson University.  Plans are to restore the carriage to its original condition.

A duplex for either slaves or sharecroppers

The interior of one side of  the duplex.

A portion of the back view of the house, including one of the cellar windows.

T

The original stone steps.

 

 

A stroll through the woods Wed April 22, 2015

Happy 71, Bobby!  I celebrated it and Earth Day  by taking a walk through the woods on one of the rare April days that have been sunny.

One of the roads downhill from our lot.

Sites on the lake are only for short term visits since there are electric and water, but no sewer connections.  To the right is an end finger of Lake Hartwell.

A not very well executed "selfie".  I should stick to taking pictures of my feet.

Getting closer to the main body of the lake

Returning to the road that leads to the boat ramp

A view of the lake from a bench along side the road not far from the bathhouse/laundry building.

Looking towards our lot from the bench

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

Elvis Has Left The Building Sunday April 19, 2015

Shortly after moving here, I saw an advertisement for a local amateur playhouse, The Electric City Theater. A play written by Duke Ernsberger entitled Elvis Has Left The Building was going to be performed the two middle weekends in April.  It sounded like something Bob would enjoy, so I reserved two tickets for Sunday the 19th.  When the ticket manager asked what seats I wanted, I explained it was our first time there, so she should pick.  She ended up giving us front row seats.

The theater is small...seating for maybe 150 people.  There is a nice lobby where wine, beer, water, soft drinks, and snacks are available before the show and at the intermission.  They also sold fifty-fifty tickets, half of the proceeds going to the theater for various expenses.

The plot of the story is that  Elvis' manager, the Colonel, has lost a lot of money at a casino, and his IOU is to have Elvis perform at a private party for the casino owner's wife as her birthday present.  However, Elvis is no where to be found.  The Colonel, who has considerable skill at hypnosis, comes up with a plan to hypnotize his dweebie office go-fer into believing he is Elvis.  Inadvertently, the Colonel also hypnotizes his long time buddy into believing he is Elvis.

It was the debut for the actor who played the younger Elvis.  The transformation from his being a Caspar Milquetoast to The King was amazing.

At intermission, the 50-50 drawing was held.  They chose a young girl of about 10 who was there with her grandmother to pick the winning ticket.  Much to everyone's amusement, the winning ticket drawn was the grandmother's!

At the end of the play,  an Elvis impersonator entertained the crowd.  He was singing to the actress who played the Colonel's secretary, then came to me, took my hand, and started singing "Can't Help Falling in Love with You", but when shooting daggers came out of the secretary's eyes, he said to me, "Sorry, darlin' " and went back to wooing her.

It was a great way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon, and I'm sure we will attend shows in the future.

 

 

The play takes place in the Colonel's office over a 24 hour period.

The secretary's desk

 Behold the King!

Off stage, the young actor is a father of 3 and does IT work at Clemson.





 

 



Combatting Cabin Fever - Friday April 17 2015

It has rained every day this week.  Today's forecast is for about a 70% chance, but we decided to take a ride just to get out for awhile.  Skies were overcast, and we hit an occasional sprinkle, but the rain didn't come again until later in the day. I had gotten a brochure for the SC Heritage Corridor Farmers Association, which featured several small farming operations, and we decided to go to two: Lucky Acres, an alpaca farm in Townville, and Split Creek Farm, a grade A goat dairy in Anderson.  However,  our first stop was the Highway 11 Flea Market outside of Wallhalla.  We had passed it twice before, and it looked like it was quite lively. We wanted to get an idea of what is sold there because I might try renting a table to peddle some wares. But most of the shops were not open.  So, we headed back to Townville to find Lucky Acres.  When we got there, we realized we  would have to go on a dirt road to get to the gift store and farm itself, so we decided to do that another day since the road was so muddy. We then went through Centerville to find the goat farm.  The dirt road there was more compact, so we decided to go in.  Before heading home, we stopped at the Whitehall Produce store, which had been closed when we went there a few weeks ago.

 

The sign for Lucky Acres

Beaver Dam Creek which is part of a wildlife management area in Townville

Entrance to the goat farm.  It started in 1985 with 3 goats.  Now there are about 350.  The dairy boasts of being natural - no hormones are used on the goats and no pesticides or herbicides are used in the pastures.  The dairy won the gold medal in the 2010 World Champion Cheese Contest in Madison, Wisconsin.  I don't care for goat milk products, but I bought a piece of fudge for Bob, who assured me it was delicious.

There is a goat sitting on top of a bale of hay, posing as King of the Mountain among his loyal servants, including some roosters.

 

The rooster in this shot is real.  I didn't realize how brilliant their feathers could be.  In the background are two border collies who barked, but never moved, despite not being chained.  Interesting primitive artwork pieces were throughout the farm.

 

These kids are only two weeks old.  I was surprised how big they were already.

The Whitehall market which is next to the Barnwood Grill

 





 

 

 



 

 



Joe & Bev Visit April 11, 2015

My brother Joe and SIL Bev had spent Easter week with their kids and their families at a beach house in Kiawah.   From there, they planned to go to Biloxi, MI, where Joe had done basic training in the Air Force.  They chose a route so they could stop by to see us.  Traffic was heavy, and they didn't arrive until about 4 pm.  We had reservations for 6 pm at a lakeside restaurant.  I tried to switch that to  a later time,  but was told they were already booked.  So, we spent about and hour and a half on our deck catching up on the latest, then went to the Galley.  It was the first time Bob and I had been there, but we all were pleased with the variety of items on the menu and the setting.  The food was good, although service was not top notch.  We think the server might have been new and inexperienced.  All the floor staff seemed very young.  We spent about 2 more hours gabbing.  After that, Joe and Bev went to their hotel in Anderson, and would leave Sunday morning. It was wonderful to see both of them, but all too short. 

No, this isn't a mounting of a trophy fish...it's Big Mouth Billy Bass, the motion activated singing bass that friends had given us as a gag gift years ago.  We were going to turn it on so that it would begin singing "Take me to the river" when Bev walked up our deck stairs, but we thought she might get too much of a scare.

 

 



14th Annual Townville Car & Tractor Show April 11, 2015

First of all, Happy Birthday, Rachel!  We celebrated it by going to Townville's fair this morning.  I had seen an announcement for it the first week we arrived, so I put it on our calendar.  We didn't want to stay long because as it turns out, my brother and sister in law will be stopping by to see us later today on their way back to Michigan.  There really weren't a lot of vendors at the fair, so I doubt we needed to stay much longer than we did although activities would be on going until about 4 pm.  The event is a fund raiser for the Townville Volunteer  Fire  Department and its EMS team, a very worthwhile cause.

In the distance, an old steam tractor demonstration caused perfect smoke rings to rise into the air.

 

 

The antique "Put-R-Out" fire truck was having engine difficulties, and "sput-r'd out".

 Bob came to the rescue to help push the truck out of the roadway.