Travelers Rest, Greenville, & Spartanburg, South Carolina

Visited November 13-16, 2020

By Marty

Note:  This is an "after the fact" post as we work our way backwards to catch you up on our previous destinations.

Our drive from Asheville, North Carolina was a mere 60 miles to Travelers Rest, South Carolina, which may have been our shortest travel day of the trip so far. Leaving Mama Gertie's Hideaway Campground in Swannanoa, just outside of Asheville, we were in no rush because of our short travel day. As we drove out of the RV park a nice man, a fellow camper, waved at me and I waved back.  He waved again and I waved back again (nice man, like I said.) It turns out that he was trying to draw my attention to the fact that I had failed to retract my door awning before driving down the narrow driveway that was thick with trees along the shoulders. Janell was following in the CRV, realized what was happening and got my attention. I stopped in time to avert a mini disaster.  There is a learning curve in operating a motor home and I've made a few mistakes since we started. Fortunately none of those mistakes have cost me any money (yet?) and I haven't made the same mistake twice!  Knocking on wood!

Our KOA RV park was a few miles from Travelers Rest, South Carolina at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We scheduled a shortish four night stay there so that we could explore Greenville and Spartanburg, SC and the nearby portion of the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

Wikipedia tells me that "The name "Travelers Rest" came from the fact that it is situated close to the border with the North Carolina mountains. Travelers would stop for a moment in the town before they began the difficult journey into the mountains." Travelers Rest is a cute little town, but Greenville, ten miles away, is where the action is.   

We drove into Greenville with the bikes and pedaled a portion of the Swamp Rabbit trail. The Swamp Rabbit trail is a 20 mile multi-use (bike/run/walk) trail that starts just southeast of downtown Greenville and ends in Travelers Rest.  It is a "rails to trails" converted multi-use path. We look for these wherever we go so that we can enjoy a long ride free of autos. After finishing up the ride in the early afternoon we explored downtown Greenville followed by sampling a couple of.... wait for it... breweries!

 

Mr. Swamp Rabbit I presume?

Shortly after starting our bike ride the trail passed through and over a park where we stopped to watch these dancers.  There wasn't an audience, other than a few folks like us, so we believe they were practicing for festivities later in the day. It was a Saturday and very busy downtown.

A short video of the dance group

The Reedy River runs through downtown Greenville. In an earlier era this part of the river was lined by textile mills that used the flowing river water to power their machinery.

Revitalization of this area began in the late 1960's with the creation of Falls Park on the Reedy. An award winning pedestrian suspension bridge was completed in 2004. The 355' long curved bridge is supported by cables on only one side to give an unobstructed view of the falls.

More Reedy River

I learned that the Shoeless Joe Jackson museum is located in Greenville. Shoeless Joe lived with his wife in this home from 1941 until his death in 1951. Unfortunately the museum was temporarily closed so that it could be relocated and expanded.

The museum sits across from Fluor Field, a charming minor league ball park, where the Boston Red Sox affiliated "Greenville Drive" play their games.

I knew of Shoeless Joe because of the Chicago White Sox (aka Black Sox) scandal involving the "fixing" of the 1919 World Series. Shoeless Joe was a key player in the scandal. I did not realize how accomplished a baseball player he was.  Hopefully you can read the stats in this photo. The one that stood out to me most is that Shoeless Joe has the third highest career batting average, at .356, in baseball history!

Greenville has a handful of breweries and we made it to two of them!

It's fun to enjoy the design and decor of the various craft breweries that we visit. And yes, we enjoy the beer too....

Liability Brewing Company

The men's room door at Liability Brewing. I almost forgot what I went in there for!

We had some really tasty BBQ for dinner at Moe's Original BBQ right next door to Liability Brewing. And we enjoyed the art at Moe's.

Embers in the fire ring at our campsite

Spartanburg is about 50 minutes from our KOA. My sole reason to visit Spartanburg was because it is the home of The Marshall Tucker Band.

MTB was one of my favorite bands during high school and the following years. They were one of the most successful Southern Rock bands, recording five Gold and one Platinum albums. Unfortunately the only MTB site to visit was this Spartanburg Music Trail plaque.

MTB - Take the Highway

From their first album.  Feel free to sing along!

Spartanburg's Black Lives Matter street graphic. Really beautiful!

This is a video of the BLM graphic. I had to shorten the video to just "Black Lives" because the full BLM recording length exceeded Blogger's size limit.

Did you know that Denny's was headquartered in Spartanburg?  Now you do!

Did you know that Big Boy is trapped behind a jewelry store security gate in downtown Spartanburg?
Could Denny's be behind this?  Free Big Boy!