The ride to Greenville, South Carolina went very smoothly. It was a quick 8 hours and 499.8 miles compared to last month’s excursion to Charleston which took 12 hours because of some narsty traffic north of Richmond.
Greenville is located in the northwestern corner of South Carolina along I-85 (85 splits off of 95 just south of Virginia state line). The area, commonly referred to as the Upstate, is centrally situated between two of the largest cities in the Southeast, Charlotte and Atlanta, and is one of the most rapidly growing areas of the country and the fastest in the state. Located in the beautiful setting of the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Greenville has a thriving arts and cultural community as well as some significant corporate investment in recent years.
During the drive, my favorite idea that resurfaced was geocaching the highway. Essentially, using a GPS device and saving the coordinates of various items one would see along the highway. My favorite items that I wanted to geocache were solar panels on signs, CCTV cameras, locations of overgrown kudzu, construction sites, traffic delays, fireworks stores, porn stores, old abandoned gas stations, and police. The eye-spy bingo game with GPS… sounds like a spatial game.
Today we are going to check out the location of the new Grape at a brand new building right along the Reedy River. Afterwards we are going out on the town to some bars and tomorrow we are going to Asheville, NC to check out the city, promote for Operation Ceasefire, and to perform some poetry at the first Asheville Guerrilla Poetry Insurgency. Should be fun!