South Carolina in the winter

Hello from South Carolina!  For the month of January we were looking for somewhere reasonably warm and somewhat close to hills or mountains for training.  Well, the Greenville area is indeed not too far from some great parks and nice scenery.  However, it hasn't really been warm much.  Occasionally we've had beautiful days.  But it mostly freezes overnight.  A good test of our trailer (and heater) systems.

So, we're here, let's see what there is to see.  We walked a bit in downtown Greenville and admired the pedestrian walkways and pretty little river running through town:

Dr. Charles Hard Townes, a Physics Nobel Prize winner from Greenville:

The gorgeous waterfall that is the town centerpiece:

Easily viewable from this amazing walking bridge:

Fun "running" sculpture:

And a view of the bridge showing zero supports underneath:

I spy... a blue heron!

Chatting with the town lion over coffee:

Yep, that's kind of our motto:

Selfie!

We couldn't NOT go to a place called Biscuit Heads.  I should have tried harder to get a better picture of the mural on the wall there:

Biscuits as large as your head (or at least, your cat's head), with a butter + jam bar, and yummy too:

On a different day, I drove up to Table Rock state park for a nice long hike up one end of the Foothills Trail:

I took this picture to bring back to John to make him wish he had come along (he loves doing trail work, and all these little branches would have entertained him for a while):

Lots of little waterfalls and neat rock shapes.  In this case, combined to make the trail slightly damp:

Enjoying the sunny day on the trail:

Excellent view from Bald Knob:

Just a few steps through the larger rocks:

A tunnel of mountain laurel, super fun to run through:

And I made it to North Carolina!

The summit of Sassafras Mountain, cool!  But it was a bit odd, because I KNEW we had been here before, but nothing looked familiar...

And it's true!  The summit area has been completely redone since we were here in 2014.  Too funny.  Maybe it's still the same bench at least:

Lots of giant boulders and interesting scenery:

Hey!  Someone came and did that trail work that I was going to tempt John with!  Thank you, whoever you were:

A sideways cascade that funnels into a couple crevices, an interesting bit of water movement I haven't seen before:

And lastly, a day in Spartanburg.  We walked around the Milliken arboretum, which is a neat place on company grounds with a bunch of trees (many are labeled) and places to walk.  This is a bald cypress with fun little shoots all around:

John in the magnolia:

Lots of bike-related art in downtown Spartanburg:

And a really nice sign language sculpture!

I love when the art is trying to define - or even liberate - itself:

Hmm, any idea?

We're having fun with little day trips while getting some work done - and trying to stay warm  :)