GoofyIsAsGoofyDoes
If it’s still here tomorrow… I may ignore it again
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2007
Bonus Feature 2:
I’m Baaaaaack…
Thought you’d survived my latest foray into nonsequitur dissertations didn’t ya’?
Well, I’m sorry to inform you that we’re only halfway through this side trip, and like any bad trip it will last longer than your wish and flash backs have been known to occur.
All that said, please do note that I’m nothing if not fair. While I inflict this type of lunacy on all who pass by, I also offer warnings that danger is afoot. I also ensure that there are significant and readily accessible escape routes. For this particular assault, that escape is as simple as either clicking the back button or killing off your browser. The choice is yours, but from this point onward, I’m no longer under any obligation in the matter of defending or protecting your sanity.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Siege Mentality
In late 1778, the efforts to put down the rancorous treasons being conducted by His Majesty’s more petulant colonial subjects led the British military to implement their "southern strategy". Unlike the modern and to date fairly successful set of undertakings bearing the same name, this would ultimately end up costing King and Parliament their hold over these lands. Well… the rapid empting of their coffers related to prosecuting unending wars in multiple far off locations would be the true reason, but tactically, the early successes derived here would cost them greatly in the long run.
This new approach sought to take advantage of the large number of disaffected subjects scattered throughout the South and to create a wedge that would divide Colonial America along geographic, economic and social boundaries.
Basically: divide and conquer; a tried and true method for implementing one’s will.
They got the ball rolling with the capture of Savannah, Georgia. From there operations moved into South Carolina with decisive and fairly easy victories over two Continental Armies at Charleston and Camden. With the capital secured, forces were sent out into the backcountry to drum up support amongst the more loyal populous and to secure the strategic sites of control and commerce.
This is the set of circumstances that brought John Harris Cruger to the hamlet of Ninety Six.
A colonist himself, born in New York City no less, Cruger was serving King and Country as a Lt Colonel when he arrived here in August of 1780 with a small force of seasoned regulars. By early December a stockade fence and ditch surrounded the bulk of the settlement and blockhouses had been built, probably on the Island Ford and Charleston road entrances. At about this same time, one Lieutenant Henry Haidans, a military engineer, reached the outpost. He recommended adding an abatis on a line 30 yards from the ditch and construction of a Star Fort to protect the eastern flank of the town.
It’s Cruger and Haidans’ fort, or at least its remnants that are the main draw and focus here at the Ninety Six National Historic Site…
Not much to look at is it?
Not at first anyway. Erosion and time have done their work but even so this is one of the “best” preserved Revolutionary War earthworks in the nation.. Honestly though, pictures don’t quite do it the justice that your normal site and peripheral vison will. What you’re seeing in that last image is the entrance to the fort. You’re going to have to use a good bit of imagination to get the effect here, but originally these walls were closer to 14 feet in height and towered over a surrounding trench from which the dirt was drawn to build them. At somewhere between ten and fifteen feet thick, these ramparts would easily have stopped musket balls and light cannon shot. The walls were also topped with rows of sandbags and had protruding fraises, or sharpened stakes, driven into them.
Here’s how it might have looked from the Brit’s point of view…
This is the interior as it appears today…
Again, not much to look at, but you get a sense of the scale of the thing, and that scale is not terribly large. It hardly seems adequate at all for the 200 or so Loyalists, troops and their artillery pieces that would be trapped here during the weeks of the siege that was to come.
Here’s an older overhead of the site that gives a better idea of the layout…
You can much more easily make out the distinctive eight-point design of this fort that was very quickly erected by the soldiers, town’s folk and slave labor. This design allowed for better observation and more importantly it allowed the defenders to apply withering cross fire against anyone attempting to approach the fort. The ridge seen in the center is known as a traverse and was there to provide a fallback provision, in case the walls were actually breached.
You’ll also notice trenches running up to the fort.
That was the Continental’s handy work and we’ll get to that in a moment, but first here’s one more artist rendering to help you see the whole complex as it appeared in the summer of 1881…
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
"Our success is very doubtful."
At about the same time as Cruger was beginning work on his defense systems, the Continental Army was also making changes that would greatly impact events to come. The one that is most important at the moment was that Washington appointed a new man to be “Commander of the Southern Department, Continental Army”; a fellow from Rhode Island who he trusted implicitly by the name of Nathanael Greene.
Now if you have read any of my previous TRs either mistakenly of purposefully (and bless your heart if that’s the case), then it is possible that you may have seen mention of this here Nathanael Greene bloke…
It’s interesting that this particular Yankee keeps popping up in South’rn history, but he’s just kind’a important to many events down this way.
When Nathanael’s force of 1600 or so men arrived at Ninety Six during a miserable spring rain storm one night in May of 1781, they fanned out around the town and then converged on it from two directions to seal off access to food, water, and reinforcements. A good start, but Cruger had expected the rebel force’s arrival and prepared well. The next night Greene’s troops began constructing an assault position only 70 yards from Star Fort, with hopes of overrunning it quickly. However, heavy cannon fire combined with a raid by a detachment from the fort ended the attempt and cost them a fair percentage of their tools in the process. The general now had to reconsider his options. He had a larger force, but inadequate artillery and no promise of reinforcements.
What he did have - at least for now - was time.
Well, that and his own engineer.
Tadeusz Andrzej Bonawentura “Thaddeus” Kosciuszko (Pronounced: Kos-Choos-ko) was born in Poland and trained as a military engineer and architect. He immigrated to the colonies at the beginning of the rebellion with specific intention of joining the fight on the side of the Americans (and partly to avoid farther entanglements with a young woman’s angry father… interesting story that and probably worth its own dissertation)
By this point in the conflict, he had already designed and overseen construction of a number of state-of-the-art fortifications, including those at West Point. At Ninety Six, he would convince General Greene that if the fort could not be taken quickly, then it should be done slowly.
Via siege, that is…
Construction on a series of trenches and battlement began that evening and marked began the longest siege of any hostile fortification during the entire war.
And this in turn leads us to the next section of the park that I encountered that day…
The work progressed on for near a month as a series of approach tranches, parallels, and artillery batteries were constructed with the intention of both wearing down the resolve of the troops in the fort and getting close enough to it with adequate cover to take the position.
The individual trenches were a few feet deep and had a series of gabions (large baskets filled with dirt and rocks) built up along the sides facing the fort.
In another part of the park there are a few gabions built to the style used by Greene’s forces. Once filled with clay and placed, these would have offered decent protection for the troops engaging the fort…
Once they had part of the works usable the Continentals started rolling artillery pieces out into the siege works. Guns known as six-pounders were placed on platforms as much as 20 feet high and allowed for fire directly into the opposing encampment. On one particular evening a 30-foot tower made of interlocking logs was erected allowing marksmen to aim down into the fort.
The Park Service has built a smaller replica of that structure on its original location to show it position and give an idea of scale. The Loyalists responded to these new threats by raising the fort’s walls by another three feet with sandbags. They also tried to burn down the tower with heated cannon balls, but to no avail.
By June 17th the siege works was nearing completion and work started on a mine/tunnel headed in the direction of the fort. The intention was to pack it with explosives and detonate those beneath one of the walls of the fort…
But this is about when that useful commodity of time ran out for Green’s forces. Word arrived that a relief column of over 2000 British soldiers was making their way up from Charleston and would arrive on the scene within two or three days.
This was as close as the rebel forces were going to get but Greene and Kosciuszko also knew it probably wasn’t close enough and the mine was not ready either. Moreover their troops were thoroughly worn out and reinforcements were not going to be coming any time soon so waiting to take on a larger and considerably less fatigued advisory was not a decision worth contemplating.
Greene was faced with two equally bad choices:
attack now or leave.
Unusual for commanders, He actually put it to his troops. They wanted to at least attempt the assault. Their commander was reticent, but agreed. At noon on the 18th of June, the final battle for Ninety Six began with opening Patriot cannon fire. An all-volunteer brigade of fifty men surged from the trenches. The group which came to be known as “the Forlorn Hope” carried their rifles along with axes and hooked polls to cut through the outer defenses along the fort perimeter and try to pull down the sandbags and breach the walls. They were quickly pinned in the ditch around the Loyalist earthwork, caught in the crossfire of marksmen inside the star-shaped fort and surprised by 60 Loyalists, who ran out the fort entrance and came at them from each side.
Of the 50 Patriots assaulting the fort, 30 were killed or wounded.
That was more than enough loss for General Greene. He ordered a halt to the attack, and that evening started moving his troops toward North Carolina.
So was the Siege of Ninety Six a British victory and a waste of American time and resources.
Well… yes and no on both points.
It is true that the British had held Ninety Six against the American siege, but they could not keep it.
When Lord Rawdon arrived with reinforcements on June 21 he realized that they did not have enough troops and were too far from regular supplies to continue maintaining such a distant strong hold indefinably. But in its fortified condition, a greater problem would be if the town was later taken by the Continentals. If the British couldn’t keep it, no one was going to have it. By early July, the trenches were filled, and stockade walls demolished. Ninety Six was then burned to the ground and abandoned.
The town ceased to be…
This was pretty much how things went in the South during the last years of the Revolution. What battles the Americans did not win, were far too costly for the British to be considered as victories. It was this constant attrition that would ultimately force the hands of the rulers back in England.
In later years attempts would be made by the state to reestablish a town here but nothing came of it for a good while. When a rail line finally came through the area a depot was established about two miles north of the original site and the current town of Ninety Six grew up around that.
So what do y’all think, is that just about enough history for today?
(probably too much wouldn’t ya’ say?)
I think probably so as well. From that point the park’s trail leads through a forested area and back to the visitor’s center (and remember I’m actually walking this backwards)...
After exploring the museum for a bit and watching the movie about the park and its history (all things I probably should have done before I started out on the trek in the first place)…
I figured it was time to get back on the road.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Good News, Bad News…
Well I might as well get right to it.
The good news is that even though I still have a bit of a drive to get my sorry rump back home…
I’m not going to be spending much of it doing more than just driving. That means you won’t have to be reading very much more of my idiotic drivel. I certainly won’t be going into anything that rivals the oppressive amount of detail that I just through at you on a battle that no one has even heard of.
Now for the bad news…
There may not be much more to this road trip, but that don’t mean it’s over just yet, so now you’ have to decide whether or not to keep suffering along through the rest of it.
Well let me offer up one small bit of hope here.
FOOD!
Now that’s a subject which most folks generally enjoy sinking their teeth into. And I was certainly to the point where I wanted to sink my teeth into something, that’s for sure. I decided that since I was making a point to see new things today, then lunch for the day should probably follow suite. That led me north from Ninety Six toward the city of Spartanburg. One of only two locations in all of South Carolina where I could find a meal that somebody had once urged me to try out.
In a very nondescript strip mall off of I-26…
You will find this unassuming little establishment…
And that discovery will lead you to one (or possibly more) very fine burgers.
Wayback Burgers (also sometimes still called: Jake’s Wayback burgers) started off in Delaware as “Jakes Burgers” and has steadily grown and expanded. As such, a fair percentage of y’all probably know all about them, but the establishment is new to me, and not yet easily reachable from my house, so while I was all the way out here, I decided it needed trying.
And try it I did…
As you can see I decided to go with something straight forward to test out their all-around burger preparation skills. That’s the “Double Bacon Burger” with a side of onion rings. It’s basically the same as their “Wayback Classic”, but with several very well cooked strips of bacon added (need I saw more). The execution was near perfect for a griddle seared burger; not overdone, just the right amount of grease and juices to make you have to lick your lips…
Just heavenly.
And the rings were excellent as well; not too much breading but with plenty of crunch. And the onion was actually cooked through (something I hate when a dinner gets it wrong). I was tempted by many of the offerings and not least by the general notion of the nine patty “Triple Triple”, but that will just have to wait for another day. Considering just how well the sandwich was done up, I may also need to try out the Chili Cheese fries at some point. I did give their shakes a whirl though by ordering up the coffee flavored variety… malted no less… to take on the road with me. That was a winner as well.
Needless to say, I’ll be adding this little hidden gem to the regular rotation when possible and recommending it to those that are deserving of such a find.
Milkshake in hand, I jumped back on the highway, then took the exit onto I-85 and headed for home.
That route would also take me by the city of Gaffney and past something that I know full well is there, but never stopped to photograph or look over properly. And since the thing in question has somewhat recently moved from the realm of being merely a foot note in the Roadside America listing for SC, on toward appearing as a fairly major foot note of American pop-culture…
it seemed like I needed to correct that.
What I’m on about here is the infamous “Peachoid”
Basically, it’s a water tower that looks pretty much like a peach. That is if you’re headed northeast along I-85. Now, if you happen to be driving southwest though it looks a bit (as all ripe peaches do)
like something else…
Actually a couple of different “something elses” come to mind.
Now this particular “attraction” has been making its presence known since 1981, but unless you live ‘round here or travel I-85 through the Carolinas fairly regular, it’s not something that would come up in conversation much, at least not until recently. I said that the thing has made it into the pop-culture and what I’m talking about specifically is the Netflix series “House of Cards”. Now, for those of you who enjoy binging that series, how many of y’all knew that the thing was real and not just a semi-comic plot device created by the show’s writers just to give Frank Underwood’s advisories something to beat on him with?
Actually worse than that though, the blasted thing got associated with one of the single worst blights on the American “cultural” (or lack thereof) scene when for similar reasons it got applied to one of the Kardashians. And while I myself try rather desperately to ignore their existence, the local media could not resist picking up on a mash-up between the landmark and a particular magazine cover of note that was making the rounds of the web. So, if you really don’t know what I’m talking about and you really just have to see it for yourself, and there aren’t any very young kids hanging around your monitor at the moment…
Well then (and I’m still strongly advising against this) you can see it
==> HERE.
(well… if nothing else, it is at least somewhat funny)
Ok, I’m almost done here so you can start rejoicing now.
After that last peachy encounter, I had two options. Either I could drop by another Revolutionary War battle field or I could just head back toward the house. Lucky for you, I was starting to run out of daylight, so I chose the second option this time around. Just imagine the pain I’d be putting you through if I’d had a whole other National Park and adjoining State Park (with their historical backgrounds) to inflict upon you.
That would have been inhumane.
But as it happens, I did stop once more at a different kind of park. Not a historical one, but rather just one designed for contemplation and reflection (and prom-night pictures as it turned out). The city of Rock Hill, SC is just south of where I currently live, and is also where I resided during much of my youth.
Of the various things the city leaders are proud of the one that actually results in a weeklong festival every spring is a little spot called Glencairn Garden…
Part of the reason I was out and about today to begin with was to play around a bit with a new camera that we’d recently acquired. I figured that a bit of nature and some well-manicured horticulture might offer a few decent opportunities for playing with the various setting of said device.
So I dropped by, and got to work…
And with that I am mercifully and finally calling it quits on this here Bonus Feature.
All that’s left to do now is put up the final entry of the actual TR and you’ll finally be free of my sporadic assaults on your senses.
Unless I decide to write another TR for some reason or other.
Probably best you don’t think about that too much…
Here look at one more landscape picture instead
(that will be far more calming)…
Better Fortresses and Gardens
I’m Baaaaaack…
Thought you’d survived my latest foray into nonsequitur dissertations didn’t ya’?
Well, I’m sorry to inform you that we’re only halfway through this side trip, and like any bad trip it will last longer than your wish and flash backs have been known to occur.
All that said, please do note that I’m nothing if not fair. While I inflict this type of lunacy on all who pass by, I also offer warnings that danger is afoot. I also ensure that there are significant and readily accessible escape routes. For this particular assault, that escape is as simple as either clicking the back button or killing off your browser. The choice is yours, but from this point onward, I’m no longer under any obligation in the matter of defending or protecting your sanity.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Siege Mentality
In late 1778, the efforts to put down the rancorous treasons being conducted by His Majesty’s more petulant colonial subjects led the British military to implement their "southern strategy". Unlike the modern and to date fairly successful set of undertakings bearing the same name, this would ultimately end up costing King and Parliament their hold over these lands. Well… the rapid empting of their coffers related to prosecuting unending wars in multiple far off locations would be the true reason, but tactically, the early successes derived here would cost them greatly in the long run.
This new approach sought to take advantage of the large number of disaffected subjects scattered throughout the South and to create a wedge that would divide Colonial America along geographic, economic and social boundaries.
Basically: divide and conquer; a tried and true method for implementing one’s will.
They got the ball rolling with the capture of Savannah, Georgia. From there operations moved into South Carolina with decisive and fairly easy victories over two Continental Armies at Charleston and Camden. With the capital secured, forces were sent out into the backcountry to drum up support amongst the more loyal populous and to secure the strategic sites of control and commerce.
This is the set of circumstances that brought John Harris Cruger to the hamlet of Ninety Six.
A colonist himself, born in New York City no less, Cruger was serving King and Country as a Lt Colonel when he arrived here in August of 1780 with a small force of seasoned regulars. By early December a stockade fence and ditch surrounded the bulk of the settlement and blockhouses had been built, probably on the Island Ford and Charleston road entrances. At about this same time, one Lieutenant Henry Haidans, a military engineer, reached the outpost. He recommended adding an abatis on a line 30 yards from the ditch and construction of a Star Fort to protect the eastern flank of the town.
It’s Cruger and Haidans’ fort, or at least its remnants that are the main draw and focus here at the Ninety Six National Historic Site…
Not much to look at is it?
Not at first anyway. Erosion and time have done their work but even so this is one of the “best” preserved Revolutionary War earthworks in the nation.. Honestly though, pictures don’t quite do it the justice that your normal site and peripheral vison will. What you’re seeing in that last image is the entrance to the fort. You’re going to have to use a good bit of imagination to get the effect here, but originally these walls were closer to 14 feet in height and towered over a surrounding trench from which the dirt was drawn to build them. At somewhere between ten and fifteen feet thick, these ramparts would easily have stopped musket balls and light cannon shot. The walls were also topped with rows of sandbags and had protruding fraises, or sharpened stakes, driven into them.
Here’s how it might have looked from the Brit’s point of view…
This is the interior as it appears today…
Again, not much to look at, but you get a sense of the scale of the thing, and that scale is not terribly large. It hardly seems adequate at all for the 200 or so Loyalists, troops and their artillery pieces that would be trapped here during the weeks of the siege that was to come.
Here’s an older overhead of the site that gives a better idea of the layout…
You can much more easily make out the distinctive eight-point design of this fort that was very quickly erected by the soldiers, town’s folk and slave labor. This design allowed for better observation and more importantly it allowed the defenders to apply withering cross fire against anyone attempting to approach the fort. The ridge seen in the center is known as a traverse and was there to provide a fallback provision, in case the walls were actually breached.
You’ll also notice trenches running up to the fort.
That was the Continental’s handy work and we’ll get to that in a moment, but first here’s one more artist rendering to help you see the whole complex as it appeared in the summer of 1881…
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
"Our success is very doubtful."
At about the same time as Cruger was beginning work on his defense systems, the Continental Army was also making changes that would greatly impact events to come. The one that is most important at the moment was that Washington appointed a new man to be “Commander of the Southern Department, Continental Army”; a fellow from Rhode Island who he trusted implicitly by the name of Nathanael Greene.
Now if you have read any of my previous TRs either mistakenly of purposefully (and bless your heart if that’s the case), then it is possible that you may have seen mention of this here Nathanael Greene bloke…
It’s interesting that this particular Yankee keeps popping up in South’rn history, but he’s just kind’a important to many events down this way.
When Nathanael’s force of 1600 or so men arrived at Ninety Six during a miserable spring rain storm one night in May of 1781, they fanned out around the town and then converged on it from two directions to seal off access to food, water, and reinforcements. A good start, but Cruger had expected the rebel force’s arrival and prepared well. The next night Greene’s troops began constructing an assault position only 70 yards from Star Fort, with hopes of overrunning it quickly. However, heavy cannon fire combined with a raid by a detachment from the fort ended the attempt and cost them a fair percentage of their tools in the process. The general now had to reconsider his options. He had a larger force, but inadequate artillery and no promise of reinforcements.
What he did have - at least for now - was time.
Well, that and his own engineer.
Tadeusz Andrzej Bonawentura “Thaddeus” Kosciuszko (Pronounced: Kos-Choos-ko) was born in Poland and trained as a military engineer and architect. He immigrated to the colonies at the beginning of the rebellion with specific intention of joining the fight on the side of the Americans (and partly to avoid farther entanglements with a young woman’s angry father… interesting story that and probably worth its own dissertation)
By this point in the conflict, he had already designed and overseen construction of a number of state-of-the-art fortifications, including those at West Point. At Ninety Six, he would convince General Greene that if the fort could not be taken quickly, then it should be done slowly.
Via siege, that is…
Construction on a series of trenches and battlement began that evening and marked began the longest siege of any hostile fortification during the entire war.
And this in turn leads us to the next section of the park that I encountered that day…
The work progressed on for near a month as a series of approach tranches, parallels, and artillery batteries were constructed with the intention of both wearing down the resolve of the troops in the fort and getting close enough to it with adequate cover to take the position.
The individual trenches were a few feet deep and had a series of gabions (large baskets filled with dirt and rocks) built up along the sides facing the fort.
In another part of the park there are a few gabions built to the style used by Greene’s forces. Once filled with clay and placed, these would have offered decent protection for the troops engaging the fort…
Once they had part of the works usable the Continentals started rolling artillery pieces out into the siege works. Guns known as six-pounders were placed on platforms as much as 20 feet high and allowed for fire directly into the opposing encampment. On one particular evening a 30-foot tower made of interlocking logs was erected allowing marksmen to aim down into the fort.
The Park Service has built a smaller replica of that structure on its original location to show it position and give an idea of scale. The Loyalists responded to these new threats by raising the fort’s walls by another three feet with sandbags. They also tried to burn down the tower with heated cannon balls, but to no avail.
By June 17th the siege works was nearing completion and work started on a mine/tunnel headed in the direction of the fort. The intention was to pack it with explosives and detonate those beneath one of the walls of the fort…
But this is about when that useful commodity of time ran out for Green’s forces. Word arrived that a relief column of over 2000 British soldiers was making their way up from Charleston and would arrive on the scene within two or three days.
This was as close as the rebel forces were going to get but Greene and Kosciuszko also knew it probably wasn’t close enough and the mine was not ready either. Moreover their troops were thoroughly worn out and reinforcements were not going to be coming any time soon so waiting to take on a larger and considerably less fatigued advisory was not a decision worth contemplating.
Greene was faced with two equally bad choices:
attack now or leave.
Unusual for commanders, He actually put it to his troops. They wanted to at least attempt the assault. Their commander was reticent, but agreed. At noon on the 18th of June, the final battle for Ninety Six began with opening Patriot cannon fire. An all-volunteer brigade of fifty men surged from the trenches. The group which came to be known as “the Forlorn Hope” carried their rifles along with axes and hooked polls to cut through the outer defenses along the fort perimeter and try to pull down the sandbags and breach the walls. They were quickly pinned in the ditch around the Loyalist earthwork, caught in the crossfire of marksmen inside the star-shaped fort and surprised by 60 Loyalists, who ran out the fort entrance and came at them from each side.
Of the 50 Patriots assaulting the fort, 30 were killed or wounded.
That was more than enough loss for General Greene. He ordered a halt to the attack, and that evening started moving his troops toward North Carolina.
So was the Siege of Ninety Six a British victory and a waste of American time and resources.
Well… yes and no on both points.
It is true that the British had held Ninety Six against the American siege, but they could not keep it.
When Lord Rawdon arrived with reinforcements on June 21 he realized that they did not have enough troops and were too far from regular supplies to continue maintaining such a distant strong hold indefinably. But in its fortified condition, a greater problem would be if the town was later taken by the Continentals. If the British couldn’t keep it, no one was going to have it. By early July, the trenches were filled, and stockade walls demolished. Ninety Six was then burned to the ground and abandoned.
The town ceased to be…
This was pretty much how things went in the South during the last years of the Revolution. What battles the Americans did not win, were far too costly for the British to be considered as victories. It was this constant attrition that would ultimately force the hands of the rulers back in England.
In later years attempts would be made by the state to reestablish a town here but nothing came of it for a good while. When a rail line finally came through the area a depot was established about two miles north of the original site and the current town of Ninety Six grew up around that.
So what do y’all think, is that just about enough history for today?
(probably too much wouldn’t ya’ say?)
I think probably so as well. From that point the park’s trail leads through a forested area and back to the visitor’s center (and remember I’m actually walking this backwards)...
After exploring the museum for a bit and watching the movie about the park and its history (all things I probably should have done before I started out on the trek in the first place)…
I figured it was time to get back on the road.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Good News, Bad News…
Well I might as well get right to it.
The good news is that even though I still have a bit of a drive to get my sorry rump back home…
I’m not going to be spending much of it doing more than just driving. That means you won’t have to be reading very much more of my idiotic drivel. I certainly won’t be going into anything that rivals the oppressive amount of detail that I just through at you on a battle that no one has even heard of.
Now for the bad news…
There may not be much more to this road trip, but that don’t mean it’s over just yet, so now you’ have to decide whether or not to keep suffering along through the rest of it.
Well let me offer up one small bit of hope here.
FOOD!
Now that’s a subject which most folks generally enjoy sinking their teeth into. And I was certainly to the point where I wanted to sink my teeth into something, that’s for sure. I decided that since I was making a point to see new things today, then lunch for the day should probably follow suite. That led me north from Ninety Six toward the city of Spartanburg. One of only two locations in all of South Carolina where I could find a meal that somebody had once urged me to try out.
In a very nondescript strip mall off of I-26…
You will find this unassuming little establishment…
And that discovery will lead you to one (or possibly more) very fine burgers.
Wayback Burgers (also sometimes still called: Jake’s Wayback burgers) started off in Delaware as “Jakes Burgers” and has steadily grown and expanded. As such, a fair percentage of y’all probably know all about them, but the establishment is new to me, and not yet easily reachable from my house, so while I was all the way out here, I decided it needed trying.
And try it I did…
As you can see I decided to go with something straight forward to test out their all-around burger preparation skills. That’s the “Double Bacon Burger” with a side of onion rings. It’s basically the same as their “Wayback Classic”, but with several very well cooked strips of bacon added (need I saw more). The execution was near perfect for a griddle seared burger; not overdone, just the right amount of grease and juices to make you have to lick your lips…
Just heavenly.
And the rings were excellent as well; not too much breading but with plenty of crunch. And the onion was actually cooked through (something I hate when a dinner gets it wrong). I was tempted by many of the offerings and not least by the general notion of the nine patty “Triple Triple”, but that will just have to wait for another day. Considering just how well the sandwich was done up, I may also need to try out the Chili Cheese fries at some point. I did give their shakes a whirl though by ordering up the coffee flavored variety… malted no less… to take on the road with me. That was a winner as well.
Needless to say, I’ll be adding this little hidden gem to the regular rotation when possible and recommending it to those that are deserving of such a find.
Milkshake in hand, I jumped back on the highway, then took the exit onto I-85 and headed for home.
That route would also take me by the city of Gaffney and past something that I know full well is there, but never stopped to photograph or look over properly. And since the thing in question has somewhat recently moved from the realm of being merely a foot note in the Roadside America listing for SC, on toward appearing as a fairly major foot note of American pop-culture…
it seemed like I needed to correct that.
What I’m on about here is the infamous “Peachoid”
Basically, it’s a water tower that looks pretty much like a peach. That is if you’re headed northeast along I-85. Now, if you happen to be driving southwest though it looks a bit (as all ripe peaches do)
like something else…
Actually a couple of different “something elses” come to mind.
Now this particular “attraction” has been making its presence known since 1981, but unless you live ‘round here or travel I-85 through the Carolinas fairly regular, it’s not something that would come up in conversation much, at least not until recently. I said that the thing has made it into the pop-culture and what I’m talking about specifically is the Netflix series “House of Cards”. Now, for those of you who enjoy binging that series, how many of y’all knew that the thing was real and not just a semi-comic plot device created by the show’s writers just to give Frank Underwood’s advisories something to beat on him with?
Actually worse than that though, the blasted thing got associated with one of the single worst blights on the American “cultural” (or lack thereof) scene when for similar reasons it got applied to one of the Kardashians. And while I myself try rather desperately to ignore their existence, the local media could not resist picking up on a mash-up between the landmark and a particular magazine cover of note that was making the rounds of the web. So, if you really don’t know what I’m talking about and you really just have to see it for yourself, and there aren’t any very young kids hanging around your monitor at the moment…
Well then (and I’m still strongly advising against this) you can see it
==> HERE.
(well… if nothing else, it is at least somewhat funny)
Ok, I’m almost done here so you can start rejoicing now.
After that last peachy encounter, I had two options. Either I could drop by another Revolutionary War battle field or I could just head back toward the house. Lucky for you, I was starting to run out of daylight, so I chose the second option this time around. Just imagine the pain I’d be putting you through if I’d had a whole other National Park and adjoining State Park (with their historical backgrounds) to inflict upon you.
That would have been inhumane.
But as it happens, I did stop once more at a different kind of park. Not a historical one, but rather just one designed for contemplation and reflection (and prom-night pictures as it turned out). The city of Rock Hill, SC is just south of where I currently live, and is also where I resided during much of my youth.
Of the various things the city leaders are proud of the one that actually results in a weeklong festival every spring is a little spot called Glencairn Garden…
Part of the reason I was out and about today to begin with was to play around a bit with a new camera that we’d recently acquired. I figured that a bit of nature and some well-manicured horticulture might offer a few decent opportunities for playing with the various setting of said device.
So I dropped by, and got to work…
And with that I am mercifully and finally calling it quits on this here Bonus Feature.
All that’s left to do now is put up the final entry of the actual TR and you’ll finally be free of my sporadic assaults on your senses.
Unless I decide to write another TR for some reason or other.
Probably best you don’t think about that too much…
Here look at one more landscape picture instead
(that will be far more calming)…