Here's how I've spent April thus far:
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Saturday, April 6th, 2024
Greenville, SC: The Stroll Down Stone
Stone Avenue is a street that more or less forms the northern boundary of Greenville's central city. Between downtown proper and Stone Avenue is a short stretch of historic district that, like Stone Avenue itself, is divided between new housing, old housing, and businesses that occupy structures that were formerly housing.
This salon offers yoni steaming. Do you know what yoni steaming is? Google it and get back to me, then consider that there are
three(!) places where you can get your yoni steamed on Stone Avenue.
Greenville is famed for its calm and measured motorists, one of whom recently visited this utility pole.
A fringe flower bush.
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This building formerly housed the biggest gay club in Greenville. It was called The Castle.
Wisteria, a beautiful but invasive weed in Upstate South Carolina.
A few of the houses on Stone are still residences.
Join me in a moment of silence for World Piece, a truly magnificent pizza place that used to occupy a space in this complex.
A redbud tree. I got a couple of these from the Arbor Day Foundation and I'm growing them in pots on my porch until they're big enough to plant and not be immediately stripped bare by carpenter bees.
Saturday, April 13th, 2024
Greenville, SC: Art for Art's Sake
A friend from Asheville came down for the day, so we went to the Greenville County Art Museum and then went out for dinner and dessert.
When our friend learned about the Sigal Music Museum, we just absolutely had to go see it too.
Two instruments, a flute and a drum, made from human bones.
Sheet music from circa 1300CE on the left, 900CE on the right.
Opera cake on the left, sachertorte on the right.
Saturday, April 20th, 2024
Greenville, SC: Greenville Rides Teeny, Tiny Bicicleta to Skewl
One of the nice things about Greenville is how well it makes use of its natural assets. Greenville is in the foothills, not the mountains, so the scenery isn't as flashy as it is up in Asheville. However, I would argue that Greenville, knowing that, works harder and more than makes up for it. Greenville boasts two major natural attractions that bookend the city: Paris Mountain State Park to the north and Lake Conestee Nature Preserve to the south. In between you have a splendid network of parks strung along the Reedy River on a greenway network called the Swamp Rabbit Trail that runs more than thirty miles as it traverses Greenville County.
On the north side of town, the Swamp Rabbit Trail passes by the campus of Furman University which, with its botanical gardens and arboretum, is yet another major natural asset for a growing city. My husband and I, after telling ourselves every year that we wanted to go visit, finally made it up there today.
But first, we made a pitstop at the Walmart Neighborhood Market not far from the campus. Why? Because of something else that I find interesting about Greenville. Greenville is a rapidly growing area and as it has grown an awful lot of small cemeteries and family burial grounds have gotten stranded as land was sold for developments. Such was the case of the Duncan Chapel Methodist Church cemetery.
There is a small parking lot near Furman where you can leave your car and get on the trail. It boasts a random train car.
The campus has quite a bit of public art, some of seemingly random.
For no discernible reason the campus also boasts a replica of the cabin where Henry David Thoreau wrote
Walden.
Still life with Japanese painted fern, garter snake:
The Japanese garden at Furman is very nice, but it also has a surprise that we'll get to later.
Surprise! The Tsuzuki family temple, which was deconstructed in 2004 and shipped from Nagoya, Japan to Greenville to be reassembled on the Furman University campus. It is the only known authentic Japanese temple to have been moved in its entirety to the United States.
Another view of the Old College from 1851, where the first two professors taught a handful of students in two rooms. Originally there were two colleges located in downtown Greenville that eventually merged and relocated to the university's current location in 1961. A few buildings were relocated from the downtown location to Furman's current location, including this one and a cabin first constructed in 1937 as a snack bar that now serves as student housing.
Random art is
best art.
As on any day when the weather is anything even approaching nice, the Swamp Rabbit Trail was aswarm with people on bikes.
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