Muddin, a Yorkie Mafia and the Best Donuts in South Carolina (March 4-10, 2021)
“There’s only one thing more precious than our time and that’s who we spend it on” - Leo Christopher
When we left off, Charley and I had spent five rainy days getting to and exploring Carolina Beach State Park in North Carolina. Of course, the weather turned the day we left so we were able to get a nice long walk in before leaving. As an added bonus, we’ve enjoyed nothing but sunny skies ever since.
Speaking of sunny - have you ever had the pleasure of eating a Sunny’s donut in Gaffney South Carolina? We have (insert cop/donut joke here). They’ve been voted the best donut shop in South Carolina and although we had nothing to compare them to, we think the distinction is well deserved. They were amazing! You might wonder why we decided to visit an off-the-beaten-path town like Gaffney. Actually, Gaffney was a stop we were really looking forward to because it’s the home of Charley’s Aunt Sue and her new to us (but not to her) husband Jeff. Aunt Sue and Jeff have been married for a few years and had dated for several years before that. Our schedules just hadn’t allowed us to meet Jeff yet so we made the stop in Gaffney a priority for this trip. Not only did they let us set up camp in the driveway of their beautiful historic home (if we’re being honest, there was no camping – we slept in the house) they treated us to amazing meals like chicken and waffles, homemade butter pecan ice cream (the butter was homemade and the pecans were grown in their backyard!), and one of the best ribeye steaks I’ve ever eaten. They gave us a tour of the area, Jeff fixed a boo-boo I made in the camper, and (maybe my favorite part of all) let us love on their three Yorkies, affectionately known as the Yorkie Mafia.
Our first day in Gaffney was spent exploring the town and learning about its history. We started by visiting Limestone University which is just down the road from Aunt Sue and Jeff’s house. It’s a small but gorgeous campus and both Charley and I were impressed with how polite the students there were. Next, we visited the local history museum run by the Cherokee Historical and Preservation Society (otherwise known as CHAPS) which is housed in an old elementary school. I’m a little “local history” biased but I think it was an incredible way to rehab an old elementary school. Whoever was tasked with setting up the displays really knows their stuff and definitely presented an impressive overview of the area and its history. Also that day, we visited Gaffney’s giant peach water tower and we attempted to visit the Possum Trot School, one of the last remaining one-room schoolhouses in South Carolina. Unfortunately, we almost got Jeff’s truck stuck driving through the field to get there. It’s one of those you-had-to-be-there-to-appreciate-it stories but I’ll summarize it by saying we didn’t actually get to see the school, it cost Jeff about $15 to get his truck cleaned and we laughed a lot. Side note – a few days later we almost got their golf cart stuck in the mud too.
We spent the rest of our time in Gaffney exploring the town on foot (we had to work off those donuts you know), catching up on laundry, and visiting the Revolutionary War Battlefield at Cowpens. The Visitor’s Center at Cowpens was closed due to the pandemic but we were able to walk the grounds and the information stations did a good job of telling us everything we needed to know about what happened there. As with any National Park Service unit, it was well worth a stop. This post’s fun fact – Cherokee County is the only county in the country that’s home to three National Park Service units.
Before heading out of town Monday morning, Aunt Sue and Jeff filled our freezer with homemade soup, cornbread, cookies, and Jeff’s three meat burgers. I’m not kidding. They’re incredible people! We said our goodbyes to Jeff as he left for work (I had to promise him that all three Yorkies would be there when he got home) then we made our way to Cracker Barrel to have breakfast with Charley’s cousin Adam. It had been far too long since we had seen him too and it was wonderful catching up. We hope that a trip north is in Adam and his wife Sarah’s future. We truly can’t thank Aunt Sue and Uncle Jeff enough for their hospitality! We simply had the best time with them!
Shortly after leaving Gaffney, we saw a sign that said “BMW Visitor’s Center Next Exit”. Charley looked at me and said, “Do you want to”? Of course, I did. Timing is everything though because a tour of the manufacturing facility was just about to start. The tour was about an hour long and it was incredible! This Spartanburg plant is where the SUV models are made (X3, X4, X5, X6, and X7) and around 60% are exported overseas. We had to shut our phones off so we couldn’t take any pictures but the tour guide showed us portions of the actual assembly line. It was amazing to see all kinds of robots at work and we were surprised to learn that BMWs are made to order. In other words, they are produced by order number no matter what their specs are. A diesel engine could be behind a gas engine on the line and a blue car can be directly in front of a red car. There are so many options, especially since a lot of BMWs are exported to Asia, Europe, and the UK (therefore right-side driving), it could be six months before an identical car to one being produced today goes down the line. It was a really cool experience and I’m glad we are leaving enough wiggle room in our schedule to make spontaneous stops.
We continued to head south and decided to take two nights, therefore three driving days, to get to our next multiday stop. We knew we wanted to stop somewhere north of Atlanta the first night and unfortunately, there aren’t any Harvest Host locations between Gaffney and Atlanta open on Mondays so we had to do some old-school boondocking at a Bass Pro Shops. Some businesses like Bass Pro Shops, Cracker Barrel, and Cabela’s allow overnight parking for travelers. This of course isn’t an ideal situation because you really don’t know what kind of neighborhood you might be landing in but it was sufficient for one night. As a matter of fact, we didn’t even stay the whole night. We woke up at 3:00 am to drive through Atlanta so that we didn’t need to drive during the morning rush hour. I definitely don’t want to make a habit of this but it worked out well this time. We pulled into the Walmart of Valley, Alabama around 5:00 Am, but due to the time zone change it was only 4:00, so we went back to bed and stayed there for a few hours. As of this writing (Tuesday evening March 9), we’re parked at another Harvest Host location for the night - Hodges Vineyard and Winery in Camp Hill Alabama. This stop might just take the top spot on our favorite Harvest Hosts list! It’s so beautiful and peaceful here. There is one other couple camping tonight, Jim and Lynn and they are headed to an Airstream caravan tour of the south with a group of about 15 other Airstream owners. We love meeting people like this on the road and hearing their stories. One might think that a trip like this would be a little “togetherness overload’ for Charley and me. Obviously, we are spending a lot of time together but the truth is, in addition to the family and friends we’ll be visiting along the way, we’re pretty sure we’re going to continue to meet and spend time with a lot of fun and interesting people.
Tomorrow we have about a four-hour’s drive to our next DESTINation. I’ll let you guess what that might be :)
