2 Weeks in Northwestern South Carolina

Steve and I just spent 2 glorious weeks in northwestern South Carolina mooch docking in our son and daughter in law’s backyard.

Our original plan was to meet up with Brian and Eve at Jordan Lake State Park and Campgrounds in Apex NC and camp together over Thanksgiving weekend and then follow them to their home in northwestern South Carolina. But our brilliant daughter in love suggested a much better plan! Eve realized that we’d all be spending a good bit of the time driving from one place to another. So her “much better idea” was that we should come directly to their home with our RV, which would give us 2 full weeks for the family to spend together.

It made things so much easier, especially preparing Thanksgiving dinner. Eve and I had originally planned our menu based on cooking in our respective RVs. That meant roasting a turkey breast instead of a whole turkey, because RV ovens are notoriously small. Cooking in their home kitchen allowed us to enjoy a proper turkey with lots of leftovers.

So for the four of us Eve and I prepared the meal which consisted of a magnificent 17 pound turkey, mushroom and herb stuffing, green bean casserole, creamy mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, freshly baked rolls AND a pineapple adorned spiral ham. Needless to say we had lots of yummy leftovers that we enjoyed in many iterations during the days after Turkey Day. In fact somehow Eve managed to morph all of our leftovers into totally different dishes including a delicious Turkey Tetrazzini. She did such a great job that I dubbed her the “Queen of Leftovers”.

Where Brian and Eve live is very rural and quite picturesque. Since they both work full time, Steve and I had lots of free time to explore. We visited Table Rock State Park in Pickens, Easley and Greenville. We even got to see the last remnants of Autumn colors on those few trees that still had leaves.

We had spent a couple of days in Greenville before and loved it. So we were thrilled that the King Arthur Baking Company had a holiday pop-up store downtown on Main Street. I don’t know about you, but I prefer King Arthur flour over all of the others. Everything I bake with it comes out better. Of course, I had to see what they were offering at their pop-up.

The store was lovely and all decked out for the holidays. On display was every holiday baking mix and pan that you could imagine, including dog biscuit mix and baking molds. And naturally they also had aprons, mugs and oven mitts for gifting as well. You would never have guessed that this was a temporary set up.

From the King Arthur pop-up we continued to stroll Main Street and browsed some adorable galleries along the way, before heading to Costco to pick up some last minute ingredients for our dinners together. Plus we just had to buy some Chocolate Peppermint Bark for Eve. Have you ever had Costco’s Peppermint Bark? It was the first time that Steve and I tasted it. One bite and we were addicted! We couldn’t wait to get to New Orleans so we could go to Costco and pick up a box or two for ourselves. We just had to be patient because we were stopping in Helen GA and Athens GA on our way to the Big Easy.

Our 2 weeks in northwestern South Carolina flew by. We hated that we wouldn’t get to be with Brian and Eve until the end of next summer. But we were on to new adventures, exploring new places and old favorites, visiting with our friends and family scattered all across the lower 48!