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By the time February came and went, we knew it was time to consider where we would be heading over the spring, summer, and fall months this year. Sometimes we have the rough concept of where we would like to visit, but this year we were having trouble coming up with ideas. To help get the ideas flowing, I often will create a Google Map with some of the places I want to visit so Chris can see what areas I am considering. I came up with a lot of stops in the upper Midwest and continue them through the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho and Washington and Oregon. It would cover a long distance especially since we are planning on returning to Florida for next winter. Chris looks over my map and comes up with a counter proposal where we head up to Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota with the idea of spending more time visiting areas than simply driving through them at a fairly fast pace.
Next we start to investigate specifics of locations to try to better formulate a plan. It isn’t always easy to know whether a location needs a few days or a few weeks to take things in, but by looking at hiking and biking options as well as other touristy places, we start to slowly piece things together. Some of the things we come up with are both location and time specific - for instance the Oshkosh Wisconsin Air Show and a Habitat for Humanity build in Marquette Michigan in the Upper Peninsula.
Once we have a few specific spots and dates identified, we will start to use the Furkot map (a trip planning website) that helps us plan the route and distances so we can better see where we need to come up with simple overnight stops or longer visits. It is an iterative process that takes a couple weeks of investigation to watch YouTube videos for areas and even talk with our neighbors who have a home in Michigan to come up with ideas. This then morphs into identifying campgrounds or Elks Lodges where we may want to use as a home base during our journey. By mid March, we have slowly developed our route and stops and started to reserve campsites. We have most of the stops reserved for areas we will be visiting between leaving Florida in late April through mid September in northern Minnesota. Here is a map with the current plans and thinking.
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| 2025 Travel Plans |
Our journey out of Titusville was going to duplicate last years for the first few stops. A 150 mile drive to an Elks Lodge near Jacksonville, then two stretches of just over 200 miles to Walterboro SC Elks Lodge followed by the Freightliner Service center in Gaffney SC to have our annual service performed on the motorhome. But 10 days before we leave, we received word about a death in my family.
I’ve known my brother in law Dick since I was in grade school and knew we had to figure out a way to make it home. Once the services were planned back in Ohio, we came up with a game plan to still get our motorhome in for its maintenance and get back to Ohio. We got confirmation from the service center that we could drop off the motorhome as planned on Monday morning but leave it with them for a few days while we drive north with just the Jeep. They have a small “camping” area where rigs can be parked and plugged in to power. It’s a 500 mile trip from Gaffney but we had a beautiful day, and were on the road by 7:30 AM plus Chris and I could trade off the driving. We also have geocaches to find in six new counties that are along our route in North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia to help break up the drive. We spend a couple nights at a family member’s house and get a chance to catch up with so many other friends and family during the services. A family reunion or wedding would be a happier reason to get together but it was really good to see so many people we haven’t seen in years. Rest in peace Dick.
After the services are over on Wednesday afternoon, we start our drive south. We make it to Wytheville Virginia - roughly 2/3’s of the distance back to Gaffney. We find a motel and restaurant and settle in for the night before hitting the road the next morning. Our motorhome was sitting right where we left it for its service and was ready for us to continue with our travel plans. Our next stop was Table Rock State Park in South Carolina - just over 80 miles from Gaffney. Our original plans had us staying there 6 nights but with our impromptu trip to Ohio, we cut it down to just 4 nights. We had called the park in advance to see if we could get a refund, but we had missed the deadline to do that. We did at least confirm that we would be coming in - just 2 days late - and that they should hold our site.
Table Rock SP is in far northern South Carolina not too far from Brevard North Carolina where we enjoy staying so we are looking forward to this stop. The drive from Gaffney was on some smaller roads but manageable. The view of Table Rock as we approached the park was quite impressive. Getting into our campsite was a challenge. The park is rather hilly and the roads quite narrow with lots of trees and brush to deal with. The last curve on the park road before our site was similar to a hairpin turn going downhill with a steep drop off on the drivers side and brush on the other side. I’ll admit I wasn’t positive I could safely get around the curve and into our site but I somehow managed. Our site required a fair amount of positioning and leveling blocks to find a suitable spot. It was nice when we finally had everything setup and I could relax.
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| View of the Impressive Table Rock |
We knew there was some good hiking in this state park, but after looking at the weather forecast and seeing a chance of rain on our first full day, but excellent weather the following day, we decide to drive around the area and see some of the other things. Our first stop is the town of Pickens South Carolina. There were a few geocaches hidden in the cute little downtown area. One stop was at the county courthouse, while we were searching around some bushes, a guy in suit and tie walks by, says hi, and asks if we had found it yet. We talk with him for a few minutes and find out that while he is not a geocacher himself, he has seen enough of us looking around these bushes over the years that he is aware of what we are looking for and even points in the direction that he last saw it.
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| Pickens Water Tower |
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| This Guy Watches Us Look for Cache |
After locating the few caches in town we wanted to find, we head about 15 miles southwest of town to a place called the World of Energy. Part of Duke Energy at their Oconee Nuclear Station.
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| World Of Energy Entrance |
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| Huge Lightbulb |
It’s a very nice facility that is free to the public. There are several floors of exhibits and videos explaining all things related to power - not just nuclear. It was fun to spend some time walking through the place and getting some background. It is purely self guided - in fact I don’t recall seeing anyone that appeared to be a worker during our stop. As an electrical engineer, I think it would have been better if there was more technical information but it would seem like their intended audience are grade school children based on the lobby filled with classroom artwork.
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| Diorama |
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| Lobby With Artwork |
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| Large Scale Fission |
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| Zap! |
Outside are some walkways around a garden with a view of the three cooling towers from the nuclear station right next door.
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| Oconee Nuclear Station |
The rain that was predicted was starting to move in so we needed to keep an eye on the sky to not get too wet. We head north to Keowee State Park to get a hike in. The Raven Rock Loop Trail sounded nice but at 4.3 miles, we knew that might be risky from a weather standpoint. Also this was going to be my first real hike since being diagnosed with anemia and I wasn’t positive what to expect. We decide to do a 1.3 mile portion of that hike named the Natural Bridge Trail. This would be enough to gauge my legs and stamina and possibly find a geocache. After eating lunch in the parking lot, the sprinkles had stopped enough for us to give it a try. The trail was in great shape and the mountain laurel were in full bloom.
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| Mountain Laurel Blooms |
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| Trail with Signs of Recent Fire |
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| Waterfalls |
We could tell that the forest here had fairly recently experienced a fire. There were lots of charred trees either still standing or down on the forest floor. There were a few smaller cascades along one of the creeks running through the park which were nice. We ended up staying dry, found the cache and determined that my legs were working just fine.
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| Log Bridge |
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| Another Falls |
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| Fire Damage |
Next we head to Hagood Mill Historic Site. We are suckers for this type of venue. Established in 1845, it is one of the oldest operating grist mills in South Carolina. Besides the mill itself, there are numerous buildings on the grounds to explore.
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| Hagood Mill |
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| Actual Mill Building |
The mill has a huge 20 foot wooden waterwheel that drives all the various machinery inside. As I watched the water from the raceway flowing into the wheel, it almost seemed like there wasn’t nearly enough water to turn such a large wheel. Admittedly, the drive gear was not engaged, so there was no real load but it seemed questionable to me. They do actually run the mill and grind things once a month but we weren’t here at the correct date. It was interesting to see how many pieces of equipment were tied into the elaborate pulley and belt system that ran all through the building. Even the overhead ceiling fans were powered from the waterwheel.
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| 20 Foot Waterwheel |
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| One of the Mills |
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| Ceiling Fan |
We head over to the blacksmith building and the guy is actually working. Turns out he is a professional blacksmith but he spends the majority of his time working at Hagood producing parts needed to keep things running as well as offering numerous training classes. It sounds like there is a bit of a resurgence in some of these trades. They also teach some woodworking classes and next to the blacksmith area were five shaving horses.
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| Large Bellows in Blacksmith Shop |
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| Shaving Horses |
There are several other cabins and buildings showing off other aspects of life back in the day. None of these other buildings had people working so we just read over the descriptions associated with various displays like the weaving loom and moonshine still. It was good we hadn’t gone for another hike since the rain, while intermittent, was heavy at times. Fortunately we could wait it out inside the buildings.
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| Cabins |
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| Loom |
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| Old Rusty Ford |
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| Fireplace |
One last building on the grounds was a bit unexpected - a petroglyph site. These artifacts were not discovered until 2003 but have since been studied and a building has been built over them to protect from the environment as well as vandals. There is a room with all sorts of displays and information about petroglyphs and pictographs. The other half of the building forms a viewing platform over the huge chunk of exposed rock. As we enter the darkened room, an audio program begins and for the next 10 minutes or so, we learn all about the various carvings in the rocks. Like many of these artifacts found around the world, the exact meaning of the “artist” from hundreds of years ago is left to our imagination.
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| Portable Petroglyphs |
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| Stick Figures |
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| Thomas Was Here |
The next day we have better weather in the forecast - not a nice sunny day but at least no rain predicted so we’ll take it. We decide to try the main hike here in the state park - Table Rock Trail. AllTrails list this as a “hard” hike of 6.8 miles out and back and with 2309 feet of elevation gain! It’s been eight months since we have attempted a hike over six miles back when we were in northern Maine but that hike had only had 1200 feet of elevation so this one will be a real test. The good thing about an out and back hike, we could turn around at just about any point if we aren’t up for the challenge.
The first 2 miles of the hike goes over 1400 feet with an average grade of nearly 14%. There are a few waterfalls early on and the mountain laurel are in full bloom so these help to distract us from the effort.
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| Falls |
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| Surrounded by Mountain Laurel |
Similar to our nearby hike earlier in our stay in the area, this trail had a significant amount of burn damage. Nothing was smoldering but there was a strong smell of burned wood in the air. We would later discover that there had been a fire here in early April and the trails had only recently been cleared and reopened. The Table Rock fire destroyed nearly 14,000 acres. It’s amazing that they were able to do what must have been a tremendous amount of work in such a short time.
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| Charred Timbers |
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| Trail Through Burn |
It is a tough climb with some of the steeper sections having either large stone stairs or buried timbers to create staircases. I will say that the fire did have the benefit of opening up the forest a bit so we were able to get in some decent views earlier in the hike. We had one geocache to find on the way up and wondered how it may have faired the fire but we found it to be in good shape.
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| View Along Table Rock Trail |
At the 2 mile point we hit the Ridge Trail which generally runs in a southwest to northeast direction. Taking a hard right will lead us to the summit of the mountain as well as the overlooks at the end of Table Rock. The good thing is that there is only a little over 500 feet more to climb before we reach the summit in just over another mile. It’s a much more rolling trail along the ridge and is easier on the legs.
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| Last Climb to Ridge Trail |
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| Along the Ridge Trail |
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| View Through the Burned Forest |
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| At Table Rock Summit |
There are lots of large rock outcroppings all along the ridge past the peak with some pretty incredible views. At one point along the trail, we can see the precipitous drop from the trail further up. We find an area where several other hiking groups are sitting and taking it all in. We continue past them on the less pronounced but still blazed trail to what we assume must be the true end of the trail. We likely wouldn’t have bother going any further since the views were great here, but there was one more geocache to find near the end.
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| Edge of Table Rock |
After finding the geocache, we pick a spot on the rock to enjoy our PB&J sandwiches. It’s amazing how good a simple sandwich can taste at the midpoint of a strenuous hike. Table Rock Reservoir is situated just below us. Turns out that no other people went beyond the earlier viewpoint so we had the area to ourselves.
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| Overlooking Table Rock Reservoir |
What started out as just small, low hanging wispy clouds in the valley below turned into a full fledged fog bank that completely obscured our view 20 minutes after arriving. I guess our timing was nearly perfect.
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| Fog Comes in from the Right |
The fog wasn’t so thick that we had trouble seeing up close, but all distance views were gone for the return trip along the ridge. By the time we started the steep descent, the fog had mostly disappeared and we had a pleasant hike back down.
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| Fog Starts to Dissipate |
Some of the steeper rock faces that were fairly easy to scale on our way up became much more troublesome on the way down. There are some sections where the rock had been chipped out to form steps but the spacing didn’t work out as well going downhill so there were some slow spots
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| Chris Moves Slow and Steady |
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| More Rocky Descent |
This was an incredible hike and likely will be one of our favorites for the past 12 months. There were some trillium in bloom and the temperature was just about perfect for this intensity of hike. Our Apple Watches clocked us in at 7.9 miles and 2444 feet of elevation gain. It took us over 5 hours but we made it!
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| Trillium |
For our last full day, we head out to explore this part of South Carolina some more. Our first stop is at Bald Rock Heritage Preserve. It’s just a little northeast of Table Rock. A short trail from the parking area leads to the large rock face with a nice view even though there are some low hanging clouds. The most obvious “feature” of this place is the significant amount of graffiti all over it.
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| Bald Rock |
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| More Graffiti |
Next stop is to see Raven Cliff Falls. There are lots of trails in the wilderness area here, but a neat sounding suspension bridge is out so the longer hike is unavailable. I guess that is just as well given how long yesterday’s hike was. The trail to an overlook is a 4 mile out and back and only 700 feet of elevation so it was within our abilities today. The sign for the closed section of trail is named the Dismal Naturaland hiking loop which seems to be a poor marketing strategy.
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| Azalea |
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| Trail to Overlook |
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| Overlook Platform |
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| Raven Cliff Falls |
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| Dismal Hike |
Not too far south from Raven Cliff trailhead is Caesar’s Head State Park. We wanted to check out the viewpoint and possibly find the answers to a virtual cache and couple of EarthCaches. There are some excellent views of what turned out to be Table Rock where we hiked yesterday.
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| Viewpoint at Caesar Head State Park |
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| Table Rock in Distance |
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