May 6–The Greatening Wonders of SC

This morning was a late one. I awoke at around 9, deciding that I better get on with the day. After a short conversation with Marty, we decided to have pancakes for breakfast and she went to the kitchen to make them while I got ready. As I was, Gracie would frequently decide that she had something to say and would come up to me, barking with full force. She was afraid of me to begin with, Marty thinks it’s probably because of my height, so I would try to get on my k

nees whenever she was nearby and let her come to me. She’s gotten used to me now.

After a while I finished getting ready and after letting Marty finish cooking (thanks for all the food), I woke up Isaac so that we could have breakfast. Over the food we discussed what Isaac and I could do today. Marty’s Husband, Ed, was Flying in from Florida and his plane was scheduled to arrive at seven so the plan was to have dinner at 7:30. I looked around on some of the pamphlets Marty had got out for us, and found one about a state park that looked beautiful so after looking to see how far away it was I decided to make the drive up there.

After Isaac got ready we left and made the roughly hour and a half drive to Caesar's Head State Park. The drive up was as beautiful as the pictures in the brochure and the road curved in and out through the mountain, I had fun driving on it. Eventually we got to the park, packed our bags in preparation for a nice hike, and went into visitors center to find out the best trail and where we would have to start to get to it. After a somewhat absentee ranger (I guess she was a ranger?) finally came to the counter, I found out that the trailhead to the place I wanted to see was actually a lot closer to another State park that wasn’t quite as far down the road.

We looked around a little more, found a gorgeous panoramic view of the area and then left to Jones Gap State Park. Admission was $2 each so we paid that quickly and then after getting conformation that we were going the right way we started our hike up to Rainbow falls. I’m not exactly sure how long the trail was, around 3 miles one way I think. We made it up in a little over an hour and saw the gorgeous water descending from above and landing right at our feet, spraying droplets all over.

I would try to describe how pretty the place was but I don’t think I could do it justice and pictures will serve as a much better description. Just know that trees were everywhere, and everything was green as green can be (and coming from me that’s quite a statement, since I can’t see green very well).

A short while later, we decided that we’d seen enough of the waterfall (plus the park closed at 6:30 and it was about 5:30 so we figured we’d better get a move) so we started the descent. It took about half as long going down so we got to the car a little after 6 and started our drive back to Ed and Marty’s house in anticipation for the steaks we knew we were having for dinner.

We got to the house before Marty had made it back from picking up Ed so we waited in the car a couple of minutes but after just a little the both arrived. Introductions passed between the two of us and Ed, and then we went inside to prepare dinner (well the two of them did, Isaac and I weren’t much help). We sat at the dinner table while everything was cooking and the two of them showed me pictures of my parents when they were younger. My parents and Ed and Marty had been good friends when my parents were just dating (in fact Ed was my dad’s best man) so they had plenty of pictures of camping trips and other things.

(For those of you interested my dad looked pretty similar to Alexander Supertramp/Christopher McCandless when he, my dad, was younger [if you don’t know who that is read or watch Into the Wild]. In fact, with the similarities in looks and interests I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t in fact the same person.)

Eventually the cooking was done and we enjoyed steak, corn, rolls, salad, and baked potatoes, a good home-style American dinner. We continued sharing stories through dinner, and once we finished we moved to cracker barrel where we each enjoyed a sumptuous dessert.

Once we got back to the house Ed and Marty went to bed and Isaac and I followed in step shortly after.

Interesting Observations:

Boiled peanuts are really popular down here, I’m not sure if it’s the whole south but it is definitely popular in the places we’ve been around.

I’m still in love with South Carolina. I don’t even think I’ve made it out of the puppy love stage, everything is still so perfect about it. And now I learn that there are beautiful waterfalls to be seen! What more can you ask for? (I just realized that popular phrase was a question, that’s kind of ironic).

My inward obligation to get in any body of water I see can be muffled under the right conditions. My dad always comments that I have to get in any water larger than a puddle that I see (and he’s not wrong), but today I managed to withhold myself and stay out of underneath the waterfall. Mainly because I was wearing jeans and I didn’t feel like stripping down to my underwear to have a short burst of freezing cold water and be uncomfortable the entire hike down. Oh well.