South Carolina - Day 16 - Rev. War cemetery, Greenville, to Anderson

Anderson KOA, Anderson

Friday, 26 May 2023

I had two aims today: to visit a cemetery that dates back to the Revolutionary War, and to visit Greenville, a town I've heard of for years.  We left the state park by 9:30.

today's route

The drive from the state park and past Spartanburg to the church outside the tiny town of Moore took about a half hour.  I expected some trouble finding the cemetery because, after all, something that old outside a small church outside a small town must be out of the way.  Not so.

Google gave me impeccable directions, for a change, and the church turned out to be no more isolated than anything else in a small town area.  Apparently, the church has a very active congregation and is quite used to having folks visit the cemetery.

This was posted on a wall of the church.

I was surprised and pleased that this sign showed it was okay to take Dext in the cemetery with me - so many of them say no pets (because idiot owners can't be bothered to clean up after their dogs).  So we got a nice walk while I looked around.

As you can see from the map, the cemetery was immediately behind the church and, to my surprise, is still an active cemetery.  But it also has graves from those who served in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War.  In these general photos, you can see that many graves are marked with flags for veterans of those three wars (possibly because it was almost Memorial Day).

I was intrigued with the tombstone on the right for 2 women 
with their last names hyphenated.  The name on the left 
was for a girl who lived only 14 years, so I would think she
was the daughter of the other woman, except for their names.

Here are a few of the grave markers - 2 from the Revolutionary War, 2 from the Civil War.

And here are some other grave markers I thought were interesting.

War of 1812

Revolutionary War

The iron crosses on some
graves are CSA markers.

He was a Shriner.

From there, I tried to drive the 20 miles to Greenville, but Google was a serious difficulty.  The first turn it told me to make was only 4.0 miles away, not 4.5 as Google said.  And the road wasn't labeled "Spartanburg Rd." as Google said but was instead something else.  As you can imagine, I had the usual problem of having to find a place to turn around on a narrow rural road and backtrack and figure out where I should actually be going.  Google's directions are great when they are, and really lousy when they aren't.

Of course, South Carolina got in on the problem by refusing to label this road as US-29.  Both Google and the AAA map said it was US-29, but SC apparently wanted to keep that a secret and I was halfway to Greenville before I saw the first hint it was US-29 - and then it was just on a regular street sign, not a highway sign.

Google had told me US-29 was also called Wade Hampton Road, but at one point, Wade Hampton Road crossed Hampton Road.  Then, signs told me US-29 had reached a junction with SC-14, and that it was also called Main Street, but I didn't have a clue what town I was in.  The names of towns was also something SC often wanted to keep to themselves.  I was feeling like I was back in Georgia - do these states compete on which one can show the most disdain for directions for travelers?  

Sorry.  It was frustrating.

In Greenville, I was greeted by a sign telling me: "Pregnant?  We're here to help."  It was paid for by Birthright of Greenville, and their website says they connect pregnant women to resources they might need.  

My impression of Greenville's Main St. is that it's a lot like The Drag in Austin (TX) back in the 1960s, but it's much narrower and has a lot more trees.  As an example, I saw a restaurant that advertised sushi burgers.  It looked very pleasant, with lots of trees and shops, and I'd've liked to stop and walk around except there was a dearth of parking places that could accommodate the RV.  

Just down Main Street a mile was a place called Falls Park on the Reedy, Reedy being the name of the river that runs through town.  I'd hoped to park there and take Dext out, but I guess our timing was wrong.  We'd gotten to town near the lunch hour and the whole park, and its parking lot, were packed.  Something to keep in mind for a future visit.

We still needed to stop for a break, and I found a parking spot on a hilly street by a church.  Dext and I walked around the block, and then I took a closer look at that church and found this historical marker.

side 1

side 2

And this is Springfield Baptist Church.
It was a design I'm not used to seeing.

While I was in the big city (comparatively - Greenville has 70,000 people) I stopped at a PetsMart for more kitten food (it's incredible how much they eat - yes, I know - growing boys) and at a grocery store, hoping for a wider selection than in the stores in smaller towns.  

And to some extent, there was a wider selection, except I've yet to find any kind of salmon in these east coast states other than Atlantic salmon.  Understandable, of course, but it's all farmed salmon.  That's practically fake food compared to wild salmon.  The farmed salmon in stores is so anemic it has to be artificially colored to look right to consumers; the fish have been fed a bunch of artificial nutrients and live their lives cooped up in a pen - they just haven't got the flavor or the natural nutrients you want when you eat salmon.  Certainly I don't expect fresh Pacific salmon here - it wouldn't be very fresh by the time it got here.  

But I don't see why these stores can't carry frozen wild-caught Pacific salmon.  Preferably caught by American fishermen.  If you see a product labeled wild-caught Pacific salmon that's from China or, in fact, any country other than the US, that fish was caught by pirates, fishing on the high seas for salmon that should be allowed to live long enough to get back to their home streams on the west coast.  This is actually something I know a lot about and, as you can tell, have very strong opinions about.  But I'm right.  And this is one thing that might make living in one of these east coast states much less attractive for me.  (We all have our standards to keep up.)

When we got to the Anderson campground, I found they'd given me my preference on campsites which was good news.  This is the one site that's both inexpensive, nearly level, and not directly in line with the too bright overhead light that kept me awake at night when we stayed here before.  Perfect.