A Daily Walk in the Woods

snow 049Tom and I try to take a walk in the woods every day.  Some people would call it hiking but we haven’t done anything very rigorous lately, so it is more a walk.  Most days we walk the 1.5 mile trail around King’s Mountain Battlefield which has some ups and downs but is paved.  We can walk there from the RV by taking a shortcut trail from Headquarters which makes it about 2 miles total.  All the workers at the Visitor’s Center are encouraged to walk the trail every day to spend time with visitors and answer questions and this is a favorite part of our job.

We have also been taking a walk in the woods by exploring some other trails close by.  There are a couple of service roads in the military park and we have been climbing up one of the hills when we want a shorter but rigorous walk.  There is a great view of all the mountains around here and on a clear day you can see the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Monday we took another walk in the woods.  We revisited Cowpens National Battlefield (we didn’t get to see the movie or museum when we were there for the anniversary) and intended to take the walk around the battlefield.  But they had the trail closed because there was still ice on it.  We thought this was funny because we let people walk on the up and down trail at King’s Mountain on Sunday – we just trusted them to use their own judgment about whether or not to do it – and no one reported any falls.

soldiers 024So we headed to Spartanburg to SPACE:  The Spartanburg Area Conservancy.  This is an urban space set aside along Lawson’s Fork Creek that has about five miles of trails.  The trails were icy, muddy and not well marked, but it wasn’t a very big space and it was easy to find our way around.  We crossed over the creek a few times, walked on the boardwalk through a swamp, and headed uphill to a scenic overlook.  It was a nice walk in the woods and we enjoyed the sun and the 55 degree temperature.

soldiers 037The highlight of the day was having supper with Cheryl and Megan Spade, friends from Ohio who are now living just north of Spartanburg.  We ate at Jason’s Deli (salad bar was good but the rest of the food was just okay) and had plenty of time to catch up on what we have been doing and fill each other in on mutual friends.

I love getting out for our daily walk in the woods.  We never know what we will see!