After Chattooga Fest we had several fun outings and adventures prior to Brooke and Cody arriving for the summer in early June:
In late May as a date night, we took an introductory pottery class one Friday evening in downtown Greenville. It turns out that making clay behave in a manner in which is necessary to become recognizable as some sort of vessel (vase, glass, mug, bowl, etc.) is much trickier than it appears. We had a fun time learning how to make little vases and after we formed them we picked which color finish/glaze we wanted and the pottery fired them in their kiln and we picked them up a few days later. They are currently sitting empty but are patiently waiting to be filled with soil and to become little planters. The Wandering Bard is in the same complex as the pottery and we went over there to try mead afterwards. Mead is alcohol that comes from brewing and fermenting honey so it seemed apropos to try it. It is quite sweet and while interesting and worth a try, didn’t really appeal to either of us.
Friends that are part of the paddling club invited us to the Marietta Rodeo on the last weekend of May. Some rodeo events are entertaining to both man and beast and I could get on board supporting those and cheering along with and enjoying them. Some rodeo events are entertaining for man but the beasts that are forced to participate aren’t having as much fun and I made sure to let my opinion be known to all that were fortunate enough to be seated around me (sorry y’all). A PETA member I am not, and I can appreciate the functionality of some of the skills that the rodeo tests but some of the events seem downright cruel and quite unpleasant for the stock participating: chute doggin’, mutton busting, and an event in which a rabid horde of enthusiastic children descend upon an unsuspecting goat in an attempt to remove a ribbon tied to its tail, all come to mind. I forgot how much I don’t like rodeos until that night and am still apologizing to Scott and the friends we went with but I can’t help feeling dogmatic and highly principled about some things. The people watching and the local color of rodeo night in Marietta made up for it though. And Scott got to eat some pork rinds, so there was that…
The Saluda river is right in between my apartment and Scott’s house so we took advantage of its proximity and enjoyed a few canoe trips to “Ant Island” with the dogs and a few trips down it on tubes. The dogs have turned into excellent canoe passengers and get excited about paddling with us. Ollie likes to bite at the water coming off the oars and Andi likes to stalk things from the comfort and safety of her vessel. It can be squirrely when they both decide to move around the canoe at the same time but the more often we take them out, the better they are getting at being still and sometimes will even lie down. Andi’s confidence level swimming has increased since we got her a doggy life vest. Although she still needs some coaxing, she is now more comfortable swimming back and forth between Scott and I. She enjoys investigating the little island and Ollie loves standing in the water, smacking, splashing, and barking at it.
Towards the end of one of our tubing trips we had a blowout on one of the Aldi rafts that we were riding down the river which meant we had to bushwhack through the woods in an attempt to find civilization. Luckily we were near the house of a very nice couple that offered to drive us to Dolly Cooper park where one of our cars was parked.
I am amazed by this waterway and can’t believe that I hadn’t ever played on it or taken advantage of it until just recently. A friend of mine has an 8 acre farm with river access near the Saluda river dam and has been generous in letting us park there to put in because Greenville County makes it very difficult to access it and has no public access points. Anderson County gets several gold stars for its access to the Saluda- with its inclusive put in/take outs and tubing loop at Dolly Cooper Park as well as its inclusive access at the Lyman Street Landing in Piedmont.
