Guide to Getting Away from the Sunnyside Traveler

Well this post doesn't really fall under my usual categories. We're into our second full week of working from home and the first week of the Columbia shut-down orders. It's amazing how quickly life can change so drastically. I just found out this weekend that they are cancelling our Master Naturalist class this year. We will have the option to take it next spring but I am pretty sad about this. I was really looking forward to learning and sharing my knowledge with you. Watching people posting online about exploring their neighborhoods and backyards and seeing signs of spring all around, I thought I would share with you some of the sights we saw recently walking on the Timmerman Trail . I took a bunch of pictures and am using them to help myself identify and learn plants and animals. Thankfully, we received our books for the Master Naturalist class so we have been using them to learn the names of the plants we find. Crab-apple tree Wisteria (non-native, invasive spec...

2020 Hiking Post 5 As a Gamecock fan, it can be hard to admit it but there are some nice spots for outdoor activities in Clemson. Since the school and town are located in the foothills of the mountains and there are many lakes in the area, trails and water activities are everywhere. Trail Map Just outside of the town of Clemson, is the Clemson Experimental Forest.   It is over 17,000 acres with miles of trails for hiking and mountain biking. It also borders part of Lake Hartwell. Many of the trails are mixed use but I had heard about a trail to a waterfall that was for hiking only. The Waldrop Stone Waterfall Trail is a short trail of about a mile that takes you along a creek to a couple of waterfalls. It has some challenging parts, where you have a steep descent to the waterfall (which means you have to hike back up that hill on the return), but they have built some steps and railings to help in sections. It’s also nice there are quite a few benches that you can ...

2019 Hiking Week 41 Charles Towne Landing Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! It’s been quite the year traveling all over the state and seeing all that South Carolina has to offer. We didn’t anticipate at the beginning of this year that we would visit all of the South Carolina State parks but we finished and received our certificate! We ended our state park visits with Charleston area parks. We stayed in the area and visited Edisto , Colleton, Givhan’s Ferry, and Charles Towne Landing . We had previously visited Colonial Dorchester State Park on a day trip.  Edisto Beach State Park covers a large part of Edisto Island. There is an inland section with trails, camping, a boat dock, and nature center, as well as a beach section of the park. It was pretty cold when we visited but still beautiful. Edisto is one of the barrier islands that is remote and takes awhile to get there. It’s about an hour’s drive from Charleston. We’ve stayed there a couple times and it’s one of...

2019 Hiking Week 32 There are only three state parks that are former plantation homes. One that I posted about before is Redcliffe Plantation , outside of North Augusta. Another is Rose Hill Plantation, in the upstate region. The closest town to Rose Hill is either Whitmire or Cross Anchor. Neither is very large. So if you plan to visit, be sure to have good directions! There are good signs to the site but it is back in the Sumter National Forest area, off of I-26. Rose Hill Plantation is named for the rose garden that it has, but it was the Gist family that built the home. William Henry Gist was governor of South Carolina just before the state seceded in the 1800's. The house was unoccupied after a couple of generations until the early 1900's when a man bought the property and worked on restoring it as a museum. The state bought it in 1960 for a state park. It has a nice, long driveway, quite a few buildings on the grounds, and some trails and picnic areas for visitor...

2019 Hiking Week 29 Most of the time, people in Columbia take I-77 North to visit Charlotte. Whether it's for a flight, a concert, or just to shop at IKEA, many drive right past the Rock Hill area. Rock Hill is home to Winthrop Univeristy and has become a suburb of Charlotte. I enjoy stopping there on my way in or out of Charlotte, or sometimes we go there just because of the good restaurants and breweries there.  Recently, we were going to be in the area so I wanted to stop by the Glencairn Gardens . They were featured in the book "Classic Carolina Roadtrips"  and I thought of how many times I had been to Rock Hill but hadn't seen these gardens. They are just outside of downtown Rock Hill. Since we visited in the middle of summer, it was pretty green but not a lot of flowers. The park is 11 acres in the middle of an older neighborhood. It has many different sections: lawn, amphitheater, ponds, waterfalls, a "victory garden" and children's...

2019 Hiking week 27 I'm excited to share with you a new place this week. Swan Lake Iris Gardens is a free park in the City of Sumter. Sumter is only about an hour's drive east of Columbia and has a cute, recently renovated downtown area. Just west of downtown is the Swan Lake Iris Gardens. It's a large park that was made out of a cypress swamp. There is a walking path around a small lake where eight different species of swans live. Some of these swans were brought here as early as the 1930's. The park is known for its iris that bloom in the spring. I had hoped to visit this past spring to see them but didn't make it out. There are various educational opportunities while walking around the lake, like a "Talking Tree Trail", which teaches you about the various trees, and a butterfly garden. There's even a braille garden and a chocolate garden (plants that are chocolate varieties, not made of chocolate!). This past weekend, we brought our l...