On day 30, we bid farewell to Charlotte, NC and struck out south toward, appropriately, South Carolina. Our first stop was Spartanburg, SC but before we made it, we passed a giant water tower that resembled a peach in Gaffney, SC. I had to look it up and found that "was selected to emphasize the fact that South Carolina generally produces more peaches than Georgia, whose motto is the “Peach State.”". Interesting!
In Spartanburg, SC, we visited The Children's Museum of the Upstate, another fun little basically indoor playground. This was the second or third place of this kind that we've visited, and all 5 of the kids had a blast. They also had a fun little lightbulb sculpture out front. It turns out we were a block away from the office of QS/1, the software we used back when I worked at Bates Pharmacy, so we drove around the block to snap a quick picture - although there's nothing outside indicating QS/1 is housed there. After that, we continued on to Greenville.
Our first stop was Best Buy, because I was in desperate need of a phone case. The brand new phone that I've had for like 4 days has already taken 3 tumbles and is starting to get some scratches in the screen. No screen protectors in stock, but at least there's a case to try to mitigate some fall damage (and it's way less slippery now!). Next, we went to a fun little park called Falls Park on the Reedy. The park itself is pleasant although with minimal greenery, and there were quite a few geese preening themselves on rocks throughout the Reedy River. There were 2 separate groups playing live music as well, but the main draw is Liberty Bridge, a super cool curved suspension bridge. We walked around for a few minutes before buckling down for the long haul down to Georgia (state 33!).
Our last fun stop for the day was the fire department where my nephew works. It was on the way to our cabin, and he was on shift today, so it made sense. The kids had a BLAST. "T" was unstoppable and had to know about every single thing in every compartment on both trucks that were in the station, and he had to try on a bunch of the gear, and had to see where they sleep and meet all the other guys. He was a walking tornado, climbing and touching and getting into absolutely everything. And my nephew was awesome, he indulged in his every wish, his every question. He even drove the truck out of the station and fired up the hose so all the kids got a turn shooting water from the fire truck! It was epic.
Dinner was at a fast food chain called Culvers. We've never been there before, but the burgers were delicious and the ice cream (custard, technically) was also quite tasty. We wound up staying there for like an hour and a half, which we definitely shouldn't have done, but oh well. We still had to gas up, get groceries, and drive another 45 minutes to our cabin. The kids finally got in bed at about 11:30 tonight, with "K" staying up to work on laundry because she's crazy or hates sleep or something. She's really busted her butt to keep this whole trip running smoothly. She's a wonderful woman and I'm lucky she settled for me ❤️