Tag Archives: South Carolina

2022 Road Trip-Part 16 A

15 Feb

#Road

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Day 16 (5/31/2022)

This morning after breakfast, I headed southwest out of Columbia 15 miles on US-1 to visit the Craft Axe Throwing Company located in Lexington, SC.  I have heard about axe throwing, and I’ve read about it. My son tells me he has done it, but I have never been in one of these places to see what it’s all about.  When I got there, this place didn’t open until later in the day, so I just continued another 60 miles southwest on I-20 to visit my first museum of the day.

Photo Credit: Bill Lites

This took me across the border, not to a museum, but to Broad Street in downtown Augusta, GA where I stopped to take a photo of the Confederate Monument.  This impressive 76-foot-tall monument, also known as the Richmond County Confederate Monument, was erected in 1878, and is dedicated to all those Georgia Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War.

Photo Credit: Bill Lites

Just a few blocks from the Confederate Monument, there in Augusta, I saw a mural on the side of a building that honors the musician, James Brown, and his contribution to the music world as the ‘Godfather of Soul’ music.  It appears that the mural by artist, Cole Phail, was the winner of a Greater Augusta Arts Council contest in 2020, and named his mural ‘The Spirit of Funk.‘

Photo Credit: Bill Lites

Now I headed 35 southwest on US-1 looking for the ‘Old Quaker Road’ historical marker located in Wrens, GA.  I couldn’t find the marker, but the internet tells me this marker designates where that important road ran thru this area in around 1769.  As it turns out, this area is also where the ‘Famous Indian Trail’ connected Augusta with many of the Cherokee, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws Indian tribes in the mid to late 1700s.

Photo Credit: www.bing.com/old+quarker+road+historical+marker+wrens+ga

It was another 30 miles southwest on SR-88 to where I visited the Old Jail Museum located in Sandersville, GA.  This museum is housed in the old 1891 Victorian era sheriffs’ home and jail, and really doesn’t look like the ‘Old Jail’ I was expecting on the outside.  I was sure it had been given a major facelift at some point, but no, that is the way it was built.  Looks like the sheriff lived in style.  The museum is filled with historic jail artifacts as well as historic local county, and state memorabilia dating from the mid-1800s.  The old jail has a gallows yard at the back of the house. That’s not a pretty sight.

Photo Credit: Bill Lites

It was just a few blocks from the Old Jail where I planned to visit the Sandersville Railroad Museum.  However, what I found was the privately owned Sandersville Railroad, which is a relatively short section of track used for freight between Deepstep and Tennile.  The Sandersville Railroad was formed in 1893 with only 3-miles of track.  The railroad continued to grow, over the years, until now it provides rail transport services to a variety of companies on its 37-mile rail system, which also has links with the Norfolk-Southern Railroad.

Photo Credit: Bill Lites

Now I headed west 30 miles on SR-24 to visit the Museum on Main located in Scottsboro, GA but it was closed.  So, I continued west another 35 miles on SR-57 to visit the Griswoldville Historic Battlefield located just outside Macon, GA.  This historic site is dedicated to the memory of the northern and southern soldiers who fought at the Battle of Griswoldville, when General Sherman made his famous ‘March to the Sea’ from Atlanta to Savanah in November of 1864.

Photo Credit: Bill Lites

—–To Be Continued—–

Bill is a retired Mechanical engineer living with his wonderful artist/writer wife, DiVoran, of 65 years in Titusville, Florida. He was born and raised in the Southwest, did a tour of duty with the U.S. Navy, attended Northrop University in Southern California and ended up working on America’s Manned Space Program for 35 years. He currently is retired and spends most of his time building and flying R/C model airplanes, traveling, writing blogs about his travels for Word Press and supporting his wife’s hobbies with framing, editing and marketing.  He also volunteers with a local church Car Care Ministry and as a tour guide at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum there in Titusville.  Bill has two wonderful children, two outstanding grandchildren, and a loving sister and her husband, all of whom also live in Central Florida, so he and DiVoran are rewarded by having family close to spend lots of quality time with.

One of Bill’s favorite Scriptures is:  John 10:10

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Edisto Island Get Away- The End

29 Nov

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

 

As Hurricane Michael made its way ashore in the Florida panhandle, we followed its projected path on the television. According to the forecast we would begin experiencing tropical force winds during the night. By the time we were ready to retire for the evening, the winds had begun to pick up. At some point during the night, I think around 3 am the electricity went off. I lay there waiting for the emergency power to come on. Nothing happened. Surely a resort would have back up generators! Apparently not.  As I went back to sleep, I wondered how long the condo would remain cool without air-conditioning. To my surprise, my room remained cool to the point it felt as though the air-conditioning was on.

We arose around 7:30 am and I looked around hopefully to see if the electricity was back on. It wasn’t. Which meant no coffee. As we shared our experiences during the night, it became clear that husband and I fared the best. Our room remained cool and we didn’t hear the wind howling. Not so for our daughter whose room faced the exterior walkway. The winds roared down the walkway and shook the windows. She ended up sleeping on the floor, just in case the windows blew out.

I was a trifle miffed that the resort did not reach out to any of the guests before or after the storm. There were no updates on the power outage or suggestions of what to do about check out. We were due to check out this morning. Were we supposed to venture out into the storm to avoid being charged for another day?

Around 9 am as we sat around, trying to figure out what to do, the electricity came on. Our first thought was COFFEE! Once we all had cups we gathered around the television to learn the status of the storm. Even with the restored power, still no phone call from the resort and they were not answering their phones.

We decided that if the bridge to the mainland was closed, the news would be reporting it. Gradually we began to see a few cars on the road outside our window. Rebekah and Pam were heading south to Florida and should be fine once they were off the island. Husband and I were kind of stuck. If we decided to abandon our plans and head back to our home in Western North Carolina, we would be crossing the path of the hurricane. If we continued with our plans, we would be driving north with tropical storm force winds. Having spent over 50 years in Florida, we had plenty of experience with tropical storms, so we felt confident that we should continue with our plans to spend two nights at a hotel on the North Carolina coast.

The previous evening, in between rain, we had loaded the majority of our luggage in our cars. This morning, we waited for a lull in the rain, then made a dash for our cars. We followed Rebekah and Pam’s car and were pleased to see that the bridge was open and the winds were not bad at all. Soon after, they turned south and we headed north.

 

Photo credit edistoscenicbyway.org

I’m glad we didn’t allow the less than ideal weather spoil our visit to Edisto Island. My favorite comment to my husband when we are meeting friends for a meal out and he isn’t fond of the restaurant is “it’s the fellowship, not the food.” In this case, it was the fellowship, not the weather and the fellowship was worth every rain drop.

 

For photos of Edisto Island visit edistoscenicbyway.org

Previous installments

Edisto Get Away Part One

Edisto Get Away Part Two

Edisto Get Away Part Three

 

I'm a winnerAfter my retirement, I decided to re-learn the canning and preserving skills I learned from my mother but hadn’t practiced for twenty years. I titled the blog Old Things R New to chronicle my experience.  Since then I have been blessed to have six other bloggers join me, DiVoran Lites, Bill Lites,  Judy Wills, Louise Gibson, Janet Perez Eckles and Melody Hendrix

In addition to blogging, I work as the publicist/marketer/ amateur editor and general  “mom Friday” for my author daughter, Rebekah Lyn. I also manage her website, Rebekah Lyn Books  where we frequently host the best in up and coming authors.

Tags: , ,

%d bloggers like this: